How much will your DC have to live on per week in first year at university?

[Bouledeneige]

My DD is off in September to a vibrant northern city. We have applied for student finance for a tuition loan and the minimum maintenance grant because of our earnings. Her Dad and I (divorced) plan to split paying the self catering accommodation rent which also includes utilities and insurance but not food, and she will live on the maintenance grant - £4,168 (which over 52 weeks would be £80 per week though I would expect her to get work in holidays and possibly part time during the course). We also pay her mobile phone bill.

I have checked the Save the Student website which says all in the average student spends £770 per month but that includes rent and bills. When you subtract those that comes to about £82 a week for food, travel, social life, books etc.

What are you expecting your DC to live on per week after bill and rent?

Remind your DC to apply for a Waterstones student card and order books they need to buy through them to give them 10% off. That will save them a little at the start of each year.

Working in term time and/or the holidays is also influenced by the type of degree and number of contact hours you have.
For both my DS they had 25+ hours contact time each week plus homework so term time working would’ve been very difficult. Christmas holiday were spent revising for January exams, Easter was usually course work deadlines and then revision. However they both did casual work over the summer so started each year with some savings.

ds does not have a maintenance loan. We pay his accommodation costs directly to the university (year one) and initially gave him 500 per month to live on. He is in self catering accommodation. He had some large upfront payments - eg sport and gym membership about 300 - and it's now settled down to about 350 per month. He does not drink, but does spend a lot on food. He does not work during term time, but earned about 800 tutoring over Easter and has a summer job. His grandparents give him 1000 per year and another relative 1500 per year, but he saves all that.

DD1 is in her 2nd year. Because of our rubbish incomes (me p/t teacher and DH running his own start-up business on minimum wage), she gets full maintenance grant. Cambridge gives her a bursary in week 4 of every term and she also has a grant from a trust that promotes women into STEM subjects. The grant pays her accommodation and a bit of food. The bursary seems to cover quite a lot of the rest. She has actually managed to save money over the last 5 terms. She has too much uni work to take on employment over Christmas or Easter holidays but does work in the summer. She is a brilliant shopper and eats quite well for £25 per week by shopping in the market, hardly ever eating meat and buying value ranges. She likes a drink, but doesn't really seem to go clubbing or spending a lot on alcohol.

DD2 will be starting uni in September. She will get the full maintenance loan too. Her uni has offered her £4k for getting 4 decent grades so she is currently working really hard, as this will cover almost all the first 2 terms' accommodation. I pay their mobile phone contracts - SIM only for both. When DD1 goes back, I normally take her to do a decent food shop. Next year her student house has a freezer so she's really excited about batch cooking and freezing individual portions (bless her!)

When I went to uni (2013-2017) I got £3k maintenance, so £62 a week. I worked 20 hours a week alongside this at £10 an hour so was fine but the maintenance loans are pathetic.

My parents also sent me money and paid for phone/car insurance/bills

DD is coming to the end of her 3 years away. She's used her minimum loan to pay accommodation with us topping up (by around £1400 a year) then we've paid £50 a week by DD every Monday into a Santander acct for food and toiletries.
She doesn't use transport there, we pay for her phone and any train fares home. Any books or materials are subsided at uni, and not often needed.
She works at home through Xmas, Easter and summer hols to pay for her social life.
She's managed well over those 3 years and says £50 a week is plenty to live on.

It's not a maintenance grant it's a loan! Older people who got grants often say that and I pick them up on it .

I've had two DC at uni.
The first term is always more expensive so I paid for one off things like sports membership / bus pass / freshers tickets.
After that I think if you look at what they need after rent is paid a lot depends on the student and their spending habits.
Mine got £200 a month while at uni to cover everything from phone to food. Both were already quite good with money and budgeting and they managed well. If they needed a big item such as a winter coat / laptop I paid for that on top.

That's what we've done with our eldest two and will be doing with the next two. (I think I saw on another thread that your SD is going to the same city as my ds is starting at this autumn!) It's worked fine.

And if it doesn't, you can try something else

Thanks for all your helpful replies.

Yes I know it's a maintenance loan not a grant. I'm glad I gave you the pleasure of calling me an older person Hizz!

A summer job will make a big difference. I know medics who fund their pre-clinical years through summer jobs, except accommodation, most of which is covered by the taxpayer advance. So if needed, start the summer before first year. It helps young adults get a sense of money, and work life.

So a couple of you talking about giving £50 per week and that being plenty (topped up by working in the holidays where necessary) has me thinking.
£50 per week over 36 weeks term time is £1800 - a lot less than the min grant
£4168 across 36 weeks is £115 per week - more then double

Now I’m worried it’ll be too much :D

1. I thinknmost people are talking about after rent and bills
2. You pay accommodation for a min of 40 weeks IME, not 36. They don't have to empty rooms over Christmas and Easter

We pay our DCs accommodation & they live on the minimum loan. It's plenty. One has a job in term time & has more extravagant tastes (the other has too much contact time to do so). Both work in the holidays.

"Working in term time and/or the holidays is also influenced by the type of degree and number of contact hours you have.
For both my DS they had 25+ hours contact time each week plus homework so term time working would’ve been very difficult."

That sounds like the kind of workload DD expects. She also has CFS so I don't even think she would be physically capable of staying awake long enough to work during term time.

How can 35 per week for everything possibly be more than adequate?

It seems a bit stingy. All the students I know enjoy drinking. That would be a night out.

Can I just say that if anyone’s child does struggle for money to approach their uni. There are lots of hardship grants available and they are often not accessed as much as they could be because everyone thinks there’s always someone with less money than me! I couldn’t have made it through my final year without mine and I now contribute to the hardship fund as an alumni

If someone wants to spend £35 on a night out, then they can earn that money themselves.
Students drink at each others houses with alcohol bought from supermarkets before going out these days - they aren't daft enough to get tanked up on club prices.
In terms of 'stingy', you do realise most people are on budgets themselves, don't you?
Hollow - I would ask how can it not be? Remember this is after rent and bills.

35 for food, travel, stationary, textbooks or other uni resources , haircuts, toiletries, household goods, laundry, entertainment, (a set of ink cartridges is £30!), sports,
I just don't see how any student could manage

Clothes, shoes!

I'm in Scotland so it's a different loan system.
In England, do the kids get a loan to live on and a loan for fees?
Do they get an accommodation loan too?
It seems really expensive for the parents!!

Because they're not buying all of that every week Hollow

We get the minimum maintenance loan paid into our account. The rent gets paid out of that (we have to top up about £2k over the year) We then pay £50 a week to him for food and he gets another £100 a month from his grandparents. I also help out with travel costs to get home, pay for his annual bus pass, and help out with any extras. He manages fine on that but he doesn't go out that much as he has a lot of work on. He doesn't work part time at uni but he has worked full time each summer which means he has savings for things like clothes/holidays.

The course dd is on is not eligible for a maintenance loan although most of her fees are paid we just have to top up.

We pay her accommodation which includes breakfast and evening meal and give her £45 per week for lunches and everything else. The course she is on has very high contact hours but she works on Saturdays earning about £15.

Its's budgeted like this

£18 - Food
£10 - Clothes/Books
£5 - Toiletries
£12 - Socialising/Travel
She then spends her wages on gym membership

"I'm in Scotland so it's a different loan system.
In England, do the kids get a loan to live on and a loan for fees?
Do they get an accommodation loan too?
It seems really expensive for the parents!!"

They get a loan for tuition fees, and a maintenance loan which is supposed to cover rent and living expenses, which it never does. DD's maintenance loan doesn't even cover her accommodation, so we will have to top that up, and give her money for living on.