How much do you give your child on top of their loan?

[tinkywinkyshandbag]

Hi, DD hopefully starting uni in Sept. We are on a very tight budget as DH is currently not working and I'm self employed. Just budgeting for next year, very very grateful that she got nearly full loan which will cover most of Hall fees (catered if she gets her first choice). How much do people generally budget to cover additional expenses, clothes, lunches, pocket money etc? Thanks.

We topped up to full loan amount for ds when he was at Warwick, which worked out at £350/month for 10 months and one set of grandparents gave him £40/month on top. Dd now at York where accommodation seems generally higher so she's getting £450/month x10, plus grandparent money, which seems to be working out about right. They both work in our village shop in the holidays which pays for treats/holidays/saving.

OP, most replies you receive on here will be from well off people (no offence intended to anyone). I don’t have any spare money at the end of each month due to high private rent. My income isn’t low enough for my DD to receive the full maintenance loan though so doesn’t cover her full rent. She has worked on campus all the way through her degree so far, though I appreciate this may be different this year. I occasionally get her an online shop. I wish I could help her out more but I simply can’t afford to. She’s doing fine.

@Xenia

Today's minimum loan to up to the maxi mum loan is really the 1980s parental (voluntary) contribution and it is voluntary now and was then which is very unfair on students whose parents choose not to make up the difference. I thkn from age 11 schools should make it clear at parents' evenings to parents that at 18 there is eg £4300 minimum loan and £8000 maximum and those who only minimum the parents will need to consider how they can raise the £4k+ difference - eg some parents may want to save up form birth for the child so the money is ready there if they have any spare money that is.

This.

Having been a student in the early 90's with the parental contribution (yes it was voluntary but it was much clearer back then that it was expected) I have, since my children were little known that the amount they got from student finance was dependent on my income and that as a reponsible parent who values education I should pay the top up.

We are not big earners. Our joint income over the years ranged from £30-£70k (currently on about £65k but due to serious illness dh had to have 6 months off work on half pay 18 2 years ago) but we have always accounted for this and saved for it.

@passthemustard

My DD is starting in sept in London. She has a full loan of £12k but her accommodation will cost £11k.

She will hopefully qualify for a bursary from the uni (£2k) And my ex and I will give her £300 a month extra between us (not each) and I will still pay her phone bill. This should give her around £120 a week for food/toiletries/going out/travel etc. She can get a job if she needs more 😬

We have sadly, due to the much higher accommodation costs in certain parts of country, already discounted several institutions on this basis.

I gave mine £200 a month, plus I bought him some clothing and shoes.

I've just been thinking about this today. DS will be going into second year. Last year his loan covers his rent plus £300 a term over. I topped up with £50 a week, which gave him about £75 a week averaged out.

This year his loan will only cover his rent, so I'm thinking I'll need to give him a bit more. Interested to read how much others have each week to live one.

Our plan is we’ll make the difference up between minimum loan and cost of fully catered halls.

We’ll pay travel home, phone and clothes. Then send her £100/month.

She has £3k saved from weekend work, was hoping this would continue to build but job ended in March and struggling to find anything else...

DC will get the minimum maintenance loan and this is quite a bit less than the cost of halls .

We will pay the rest of the accommodation and was then hoping to give him £250 a month for food etc.

Less than last year because DS still seems to have about £2K left over (combo of student loan and our top-ups)

DD has saved around £4,000 and I will try and top up £100 a month. Sadly due to MH issues I’ve had to reduce my working hours recently though.

Our’s will get minimum loan. There is a trust fund, that will need to be used to top up for accommodation and then we will give another £50 per week in term time. Father might still pay phone.

I completely agree with Xenia that this is something that should be handed out at parents' evening in year 7, a list of at home, away from home and London loan amounts and the parental contribution based on salary. Mainly so that parents are aware and can save up.

Ds should be going to uni next year so we have already broken down finances of his uni choices and the cost of accommodation, catered and non-catered halls so we know what we are dealing with. Dh was fully catered at uni for year 1 and 4 whereas I never was, I was always self catered. I cooked from that student cookbook "Grub on a Grant"

Dh wants to pay for Ds to be catered or at least be able to buy a dinner every night rather than faff around cooking. Plus Ds is used to cooking from a fully stocked fridge, freezer and larder which he won't have at uni.

Our thoughts are that we top up to the full loan amount and see how he goes on that. Luckily no London unis on his list due to the cost.

Ours got maximum loan. We bought them a load of food at beginning of terms(approx £70). Ds never asked for anything (lived on rice I think), though we did get him a laptop. Dd occasionally asked for money for clothes.

It's tricky. As PP said, we discounted London because of the costs. Not just for the first year Uni accommodation but ongoing.

We pay for accommodation and food DS gets minimum loan which he uses for everything else.

Unfortunately DD will overlap with DS for one year which will be interesting.

@MrKlaw, yes, sorry, I think it was you (Bath?).. No offence meant, honest I completely agree that people should come to an agreement with their DC as to what can work for them.

I think that DD (our second DC to go to university) would be happier if our income didn't restrict the amount she is allowed to borrow to the minimum. (But not to the extent that she has been sending herself up chimneys, so to speak, to avoid being dependent on us at all). We acknowledge that it is because of our income that she is only entitled to the minimum and so will endeavour to top her up at least to the level of the maximum loan. We had our DC late and so had e.g. paid off our mortgage by the time DS1 went to university.

sensible ideas above. Where possible parents should make the minimum maintenance loan to the maximum for that place as that is what the Government thinks students need to live on.

Outside London away from home is £9203 (eg that would have applied to my 5 children including the 3 who went to Bristol had they had loans and had my income been under £25k) and minimum £4289. So making up the difference for a parent on a high income would be £4914. (Not London and not for students living at home)

My son's rent Bristol year 3 has been about £6k. So that would leave £3203 of the full maintenance loan over. which is about £61 a week for 52 weeks a year to include food, bills, travel so a typical full maintenance loan student from England with parents on a low income would have that over once paying the Bristol rent from their maintenance loan. I paid the rents and also £150 a week so mine would have been better off than someone on the full maintenance loan although I am sure there were other students given even more money. Other parts of the country will have lower rents that Bristol and I expect if you hunt around you can find cheaper year 2 and 3 houses in Bristol too.

In practice most students are fairly sensitive to the fact some students have much less money than others and part of being at university is mixing with lots of different types of students.

@VioletCharlotte if in year one your DC had around £75 per week left over for living, can't you talk to them about whether that was enough/too much, and use that as a start point for figuring out this years?

We did the same - £300pm rather than £75pw but roughly the same amount overall. I think DS had some left over but I think he was being cautious. And he'll have bus fare to consider being in the city. We'll probably keep it the same for year 2

It's kind of an irrelevant question because the answer is surely 'whatever you can afford and whatever you think is right.'

FWIW, we gave our DD £400 a month to cover everything because we can afford to. She had her loan on top of that. She's just graduated and is now on a grad scheme with her new employer so I've stopped her money and look forward to being paid rent

My parents covered books and 30 quid for my food shop but that was it. I got a job to cover the rest.

@AramintaPepperminta

It's kind of an irrelevant question because the answer is surely 'whatever you can afford and whatever you think is right.'

FWIW, we gave our DD £400 a month to cover everything because we can afford to. She had her loan on top of that. She's just graduated and is now on a grad scheme with her new employer so I've stopped her money and look forward to being paid rent

I don’t think it’s irrelevant; I’ve found these answers incredibly useful! It’s nice to know the range of amounts people are giving and the detail behind it to give some context.

Yes, I think people need to have a rough idea what others have and indeed that thes tate really hopes and expects parents will make the minimum loan up to the maximum and what those two figures are.

DD gets almost a full loan (about 7k last Yr) and her first year Hall fees were about 5,2k. So she had some left. We calculated it would be OK but I have her 20 pw to cover her food - she says this more than covered it but she is veggie.

Tbf I would buy her big stuff she needed like new coat. I am always amazed tho by ppl who say they paid their child's hall fees - they must live the life of Reilly on a minimum 4k loan over 34 weeks! Wish I had 100+ a, week to spend on food and fun!!

My DD has just finished uni and we were not able to pay any of her living expenses. She lived at home for the first year as she went somewhere that was just commutable and during that time we did pay for her train travel. She has worked since 2nd year and has been lucky enough to find a job that has seen her through 2 years of uni and she is now working there full time until the industry she wants to work in opens up again (likely next year).

Can't they work?