Going to university (2019/20 academic year) - finance, flat shares, friends old and new and freshers' week to come...

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Following on from thread 8 which filled up in just 72 hours.

Boast - I have 3 hedgehogs in my garden, and I don't even put out food (dog would be delighted). The baby one doesn't even hide its face.
Back to more serious matters, I don't think I am going to suggest ds changes his bank account. He has a Nationwide FlexOne account that he got a while ago, and though it is designed for the under 18s I think they can keep it till they are 23. It does pay interest on balances but has no overdraft. Surely we should be encouraging them to live within their means and not run up debt? I will check that this is still ok. Does anyone else have any thoughts?

They all seem to work on a 3 year basis.
Ds will be doung a 4 year course.
They just extend it - DD did a master's so she just went in & showed them proof.

@simbobs forget the "serious ' bit for a moment!
Do your hedgehog 's come up to you and ask for food like my ite one did !!🤣🤣

And yes on the trivial matter ..i am not sure encouragement pf debt is good either.

Thank you must

Jenny, I've PMed you.

@simbobs I think most are arranged overdrafts so they can’t automatically just spend more and use it without contacting the bank. So more a safety net if needed.

I want my DS to have one - although we can bail him out, I like the idea of a big scary bank lending him money, may make it more real to him and more likely it’ll get paid back than from bank of mum and dad :)

Will bank accounts reject a debit card if they overspend? Wondering whether he’d be better to have £0 and then we pay in eg £300 per month, or he should have a ‘float’ which would help in a pinch but he’d need to be paying more attention to his balances

Any good apps to help with budgeting? I quite like Spendee to get expenses but might be good to connect one to his bank to tally up everything he spends on his debit card and categorise for him

My DS has applied for a student account with HSBC he already has an account with them so he seemed to be able to do it on-line.
He seems to think they are going to give him a credit card as well, not sure if he’s right about that or not ?

@Itscoldouthere, DS has applied to HSBC but not yet heard anything (negative or positive). He applied for £100 overdraft facility and didn't apply for a credit card (although it was certainly an option on the online form he completed).

I have advised DS to keep his Nationwide Flex account open (he could use it for birthday/Christmas money and ringfence it for special spends).

I’m hoping it’s easier to change to a student account as he’s an existing customer, hoping that he won’t have to visit a branch (as we are running out of time 😳).
We talked about the credit card, I wasn’t sure (I don’t have one) but DS2 is very sensible and I really don’t think he’d abuse it, however he opted to have it paid off in full monthly, so if anything does go wrong it would come to light quite quickly.
So many things to do, especially as I have 2 off them going !

I was in a very large Primark yesterday. There were loads of mums and mainly teenage sons buying a variety of 'kit' items. Sure they were all pre-university shops!

Morning :) so on the subject of bank accounts.. I took my boys to Lloyd’s to set up their account this week.. I’m not joking, it took hours! And we watched endless videos on explaining overdrafts, budgeting etc. So they both had U19 acc but now have a second student account with £300 overdraft. It seemed like a good idea to have one acc for loan/rent etc and one for their spending money. You need an appt, passport and UCAS letter to set it up.

few hundred overdraft sounds good - they can try and keep in the black but with a buffer just in case.

These days budgeting is much easier and much harder

• much easier because you can set up phone apps to your bank account that can see what you're buying and in many cases categorise based on eg supermarket, fast food place, department store etc. So you can easily see per week/month where your money is going and build up a picure of your spending behaviour. Wish I had that when I was at uni.

• much harder because contactless including phones (eg apple pay) make it so simple to buy things without realising you're even spending money. Carrying cash is often a pain, so I don't think Its necessarily reasonable to use cash to control spending

Any budgeting tips from those that had DCs at uni in the last few years? Eg if you're giving them £75pw/£300 per month, should they lock away 25-30 per week for food etc and never touch it - maybe take that out as cash for supermarket shopping etc? Or other tips to help prevent accidental 'oops its sunday supermarket day and i've got no money for food for next week because I spent it all on frapuccinos'

DDs top tip is have a sabings account (with a card incase you lose tge currebt account one...) She obviously budgets well as she affords to party and hasn't even gone overdrawn this summer - we have fed her but not given extra cash! She works termtime (and is working these hols) but saves it all - it paid for her travelling this summer.
I think her top tip might be cook on a Rota with your housemates as you only have to budget for one meal a week, cook once a week and wash up once a week. Plus they eat together like a family and fairly balanced meals I think!

yes, my twins have a savings account with the same bank as their student current account and move money between the two as needed and very easily. They chose not to get any form of overdraft although their older siblings had one as far as I remember.

@bigTillyMint cooking on rota is a good idea. We are a bit disappointed there is no oven in ds's place. Just microwave, double hob and a small grill. That is why he put it as third choice. He is good at making cakes. He won't be making any at university. The cooking facilities aren't good for a flat of 12.

Icanbe that’s not great :/ is it part catered or are they expected to do all their meals with such limited facilities?

DrMadelineMaxwell - Thanks - reply on it's way to you!

Bank accounts, credit cards, budgeting and savings all seem quite complicated and I haven't really got my head around the best solution yet.

DD now has the Santander student account. She's got a fair amount of savings from work this year that she'll probably need to use throughout the year (and for next year's accommodation deposit). The student current account (like her previous Santander account) has a better rate of interest (3% up to £2k) than any savings account we could find so she's been keeping a large chunk of her savings in her current account - which means she (almost certainly/hopefully) won't need the overdraft but it does mean that she'll need to be super careful and keep a close eye on the money in that account - will make budgeting harder.

Re: credit cards, the bank suggested ages ago that she should consider having one to build up her credit score for the future and I think Martin Lewis also mentions this somewhere on his site. We've discussed how expensive it would be to not pay it off each month and she's very sensible with money so I'm sure she'll not end up paying any interest on it. Perhaps I should take another look at Moneysavingexpert website again to understand how the credit scoring works.

icanbe if it’s not a combi microwave then I have made a cake in the microwave before. It’s quite a dense recipe but ok.
You’ll have to get him a microwave cookbook!

@Laniakea there are no meals offered. So it's self catered only.
Also we think only 2 fridges between 12. Apparently this block have the smallest kitchens on campus. We didn't have time to look round more accommodation. I wish we had now. The campus village looks better. It's cheaper as it's a a little walk away (still in university grounds) but we didn't get to look round it. I think ds saw it was cheaper and assumed that meant the kitchen would be smaller. So he put them further down on his choices. I know if any of my younger boys want to go to university to look round the accommodation more thoroughly next time. Never mind. I'm sure all will be fine.

Yes I have a microwave cookbook somewhere.

@JennyWreny I never even thought of a credit card building up credit score. I've never really thought about it. I had a credit card for a year or so 30 years ago. Then decided I'd rather only spend money I have. I've not had one since. So that must mean I have a zero credit score. I have honestly never thought about credit scores. 🤣

Morning all .
Wow no oven would be no good for my ds .
all of his signture dishes go in the oven ! He does a lovely pasta bake !

@Laniakea sorry i forgot to reply to you .
Ds has got Hartley Grove ( i keep eanting to put jam !)

It is part of GE but i think a block across the road.
I am presuming he put down that he is not a party animal as i get the impression that it is one of the quieter blocks .
We shall wait and see !

Really need him to sort out the bank account today .
But i am mow getting confused with pp talking about the interest rates .
I am drawn to HSBC due to the overdraft .

Am I going about this the wrong way .

We have all the banks on our High street amd they are all there in Southampton.

I forgot all my ? .

Stress must be good for me as my nails have grown really long !!
Makes typing on phone harder though 😀😀😀