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?

I think it's easier to live on a smaller amount when the students are not in university accommodation. Ds shares a flat with 8 others and it's just not practical to cook together( which would save both time and money) - too many of them in and out at different times.

Ds just finishing first year. He has lived on around £80 a week after rent has been paid. It did vary though depending on how much he went out. If he had a quiet week he was fine on less than £50 for food, laundry etc. At uni he finds most people are living on a similar budget and on the whole seem pretty sensible with spending. However when he comes back and catches up with mates who are working full time and still living at home he finds it difficult to say no to expensive nights out with them. This then messes with his savings for the following term.
He worked a lot the summer before he went and when he was home over Christmas. Unfortunately they didn't need him at Easter break but he still managed. Fingers crossed he will do similar for next year.

DS1's maintenance loan doesn't cover his rent in halls but he pays then rent from it using his overdraft for the excess. I pay him money to live on as and when he asks for it but it averages around 50 a week. He always works full time in the holidays to top up and from Sept hopefully he will have a part time job during term time too. When he moves into a shared house in sept I am paying the rent upfront and he will use his maintenance loan to live on.

When DS2 starts in September his loan also won't cover the rent so we will be doing the same for him.

One thing we did do, and will be doing again this summer, is to buy things they need on special offers. So dried goods like pasta and rice, cleaning stuff, shampoo etc are all heavily discounted in the lead up to term starting - we buy them over a few months so they won't have to spend out on them as well as food.

There are ways to make it cheaper but it's bloody expensive all round really. We do expect our sons to work at least part time though in order to fund the "fun" parts.

Interesting how halls vary. My two have lived in halls in two different cities and although bills & wifi are included, washing machines & tumble driers never ave been, and have been very expensive as well (not that they seem to do much washing

DS is going to a Welsh uni to study nursing. He will get tuition fees funded by Welsh govt and a £1000 bursary.
He is also eligible for a £2.5k repayable loan from SFE.
We are expecting him to live on those earnings and we will have to pay for his hall fees, currently £5200. Yikes.

Mustbetimeforachange
agree with you - the washing machine costs at ds's university are extortionate. He spends at least GBP 10 to 15 per week on washing and drying clothes, bedding, towels etc. It's difficult to air dry anything in his room as the window does not fully open and the room gets really humid.

Might be worth buying him a dehumidifier to help dry and so reduce his laundry bill, that’s extortionate.

Shanghai I suspect he may be on the very few students that wash their bedding and towels during termtime!

We have three at uni atm, will be 4 from September
We fund accommodation ( basic, no ensuites) monthly phone contracts and home to uni transfers. They have to live off the £4k loan. None of them can manage that due to their social and sporting commitments 🤣 they all have pt jobs, and all have heavy courses ( social work masters, medicine and engineering) and it works just fine, exceptions would of course be made if they had CFS like Pp, much kudos to their kid.
I guess it depends on the uni, ours are all at RG, but even sports subs are expensive, match fees, training fees, kit etc.

My DS at Cambridge spends about £120 a week on food, clothes, etc not including rent.

Every student I know washes their bedding during term, not to do so would be foul. DS has a cleaner to do that, but he washes his towels every other week or so.

Silentpoolg - every student doesn't have a cleaner to do that (ie wash their bedding) for them though do they? Your DS is very lucky (a) to have a cleaner and (b) to have £120 a week to spend after rent. You do realise that this is not the norm I assume.

Mine have to be reminded to wash their sheets when I see them on Facetime, but I can tell you it doesn't happen very often. £120/week .
Whatever is he eating & drinking? Don't they get their food included at Cambridge?

When I was a student many years ago, I had £12 a week to live on after rent. That's roughly equivalent to £38-40 now.

Not too far away from what some are budgeting for today.

Out of halls, I washed my clothes by hand. Bedding was changed during term time but not washed. I took it home to do that.

Yes, I recall the days when I would get £10 out and it would last me the week mind you I didn't drink and had quite a quiet student life.

£120 a week is a lot but I guess Oxbridge terms are fast and furious (only eight weeks?).

£120 a week is a lot but I guess Oxbridge terms are fast and furious (only eight weeks?)

I'm not sure I under stand this, why would a shorter term mean you'd need more money?

A shorter term means that the loan is spread less thinly. More money per week.

From my observations, generally speaking, students do spend a lot more money day to day than they did in my day.

I think this makes it particularly hard for the few that struggle.

When I was a student my weekend treat was some shortbread biscuits and a box of six fruit (raspberry and redcurrant) tarts from M&S living on the edge, not. I recall probably eating out about once or twice a year and only going to the cinema a couple of times a term. No day-to-day travel expenses. Didn't ever have an overdraft but I did live very frugally.

RottnestFerry - I think you 'find your own' though. Most universities have thousands of people there, so it is easier to find 'folk like you'.

These threads are very similar to the 'How Much pocket money?' threads. Some families are busy with dc doing Scouts or guides or football or dancing or whatever who just don't frequent coffee shops, or consider 'shopping' to be an entertainment. For whom going to the pictures is a birthday treat and who have been brought up walking to places and talking picnics and a bottle of tap water from home when they go out. Other families have dc who only know how to entertain themselves with things that cost money - that go to the pictures every week, who, when they go to the pictures then buy drinks / food / sweets there at cinema prices rather than taking in their own supermarket bought bag of sweets. Who have been used to 'going for a coffee' or buying lunch out whenever they go places. All of this means their expectations are different.
This is the same with these threads every year, on 'how much should I give my student', those on a budget find it hard to understand what someone would do with £120pw after rent, and those with £££ to burn can NOT understand how anyone can manage on £30 a week.
In reality, both are possible, and both happen.
Mostly, it depends on your budget as a family.

Ah yes,of course,that makes sense with the shorter term/ loan.

I am intrigued as to which univetsities include the use of communal laundry facilities in their hall fees? None of the many that DS1 and DD looked at between them does.

Ds swore bling laundry was included on a recent open day and I've just checked and it isn't. £2.75 a wash and £1.30 a dry.

Lots of cheap pants ,socks and t shirts and bringing washing home then!

**swore blind

Our ds was in catered halls. He had the minimum loan which he lived on and we paid his accommodation which was £5500. He worked in the holidays.

If you're on Facebook there is a really useful group for parents of uni students called WIWIKAU (what I wish I knew about uni) where parents share tips and knowledge. Before my ds went off to Nottingham Uni I posted on that group about the Hall he was going to and got really useful info from.parents who had had a child there the previous year.