Students and finances / parents helping out??

[Monica53]

Hi there
Just wondering how everyone’s student kids manage with finances and surviving. Our Dd is stressing as has by sounds overspent and gets max maintenance loan(this year her second yr anyway). Looking for rental for next year again and stressing as in her OD ! I’ve explained she isn’t alone. Just interested as how everyone else manages or not as case maybe . Thank you 😊

I pay for my DD’s accommodation and she lives off the loan she gets.
She also worked part time for the first two years, increasing her work in the summer to save up for the rest of the year.

My parents paid most of my tuition and rent. I had a student loan (to help with tuition). I had a part time job to help with expenses. We didn't have maintenance loans.

We pay for accommodation.

ds has no funding as when he started we lived overseas. We pay his rent and give him a monthly allowance. He has had two internships over the summer of years one and two and also used to tutor maths and chemistry so saved a decent amount to supplement his allowance. He does not have an overdraft.

When I went to uni in 2016 I lived in student halls the first year, I got £475 a month student loan which just about covered my accommodation (£500/pm). I worked in a nightclub for money for food, nights out, clothes or whatever. I didn't have a lot but most students I knew didn't. My parents couldn't have afforded to pay my accommodation or anything like that and I wouldn't have expected them to. If I was stuck for money for food etc my mum would help me but I budgeted with my wage as best I could to avoid this. I live in Scotland so we don't pay tuition fees, they're covered by the student loans company

I also tutored secondary school students in the subject my degree was on outside my work and uni for some extra money too

We aren't high earners so my dd's rent is covered by her loan and she should have some left for the term . Along with what we give her she should be able to live ok but she is always skint. But won't tell me exactly what she has left so I'm a bit reluctant to keep handing money out when by my calculations she should be able to budget and be fine .

Thank you for replying and contributing to my query. Our daughter gets max loan however bursary reduced this year as I had a small increase in salary - very slight - now Dd is panicking as in OD. I work FT and her dad is retired only on state pension. We try to give her a little bit a month to help her food bill .. though I’ve tried to explain she needs to budget and not buy clothes and not shop everyday as she seems to be doing! Any other advice is greatly appreciated. She also doesn’t need travel
Money as we drive down to pick her up at end of the term.

Try and sit down with her and calmly work out a budget, how much is her accommodation? What other expenses does she have? Keep a track of outgoings.
Student unions provide good help and support.
We do help our DD and pay her accommodation costs, she gets minimum maintenance loan and lives off that, she is still overdrawn. She does spend money unwisely on occasions like on festivals! I think most student bank accounts offer repayment plans when students finish uni.
I think it should be feasible to live frugally off maximum student maintenance loan but i suppose it depends on accommodation costs and other expenses, for example art students spend a fortune in materials. Are you able to help her at all? pay for her travel to and from home and uni or help out in other ways occasionally? Finding a job helps but its really hard to find anything right now. Might be worth seeing if she is entitled to any bursaries or grants

@Runnerduck34 thank you - I’ve explained to her the OD is there for emergencies, I’ve been there and recall having very little £s at 20 and living alone. We’ve explained that she needs to track her spending and try to meal plan. Not sure about getting pt work as she’s a medical student and in Bristol which isn’t cheap sadly. She gets a small bursary which reduced this year as I received a small increase and role upgrade (very slight increase).

@Monica53

Thank you for replying and contributing to my query. Our daughter gets max loan however bursary reduced this year as I had a small increase in salary - very slight - now Dd is panicking as in OD. I work FT and her dad is retired only on state pension. We try to give her a little bit a month to help her food bill .. though I’ve tried to explain she needs to budget and not buy clothes and not shop everyday as she seems to be doing! Any other advice is greatly appreciated. She also doesn’t need travel Money as we drive down to pick her up at end of the term.

To be honest with you OP it's something she's not going to learn until she's in the situation which she is now where she has no choice but to budget. I was in the same position as were a lot of other students I knew at the time, many of us were in overdraft and had pennies left to our names. In my experience, it's part of being a student. As I said above my parents weren't able to help with rent or anything, they did occasionally give me money to help towards food if I was struggling as they knew I wouldn't eat if it was the choice between buying food or going on a night out haha!

I would initially sit down with her and work out a monthly budget plan, include her loan and any income she has from a job (assuming she has one, if not this would be step one, obviously it's a lot harder just now as a lot of student jobs come from bars, nightclubs, waitressing etc) and work out what she has left after bills (including an amount to pay back each month towards her overdraft). However, if after this she is still putting clothes and nights out etc over her bills/OD then I think that is where you need to leave her to learn for herself that budgeting money is a priority and has consequences if she doesn't stick to it. Obviously I get not wanting to leave her to panic etc but being a student with my own flat and having to budget for myself after making many mistakes letting my account go overdrawn, spending too much on clothes nights outs etc I eventually learned it was on me to sort it out and no one else to bail me out. I do really think it's an important skill to come out of being a student living on your own.

I'm sure many will disagree but I'm now a few years out of uni, working full time with my owned house, paying my own bills etc and have money in savings to fall back on. Had my mum not took a step back when I was a student and let me fend for myself I wouldn't be any better with money now than I was then

just seen we cross post! no easy answers, students are usually broke and arent always good at budgeting, I would see if see can talk to some at student union they are used to students in similar position. I worked out a budget for DD in her second year, after a spendthrift first year which she is sticking to (I hope!)

@Lou98-Thank you for your response - good in you for managing. We’ve said when she’s home at Christmas will sit down with her and help her set up a budget - even if she goes into OD it’s not that bad however can’t be shopping for clothes all the time. She knows we can if it’s desperate that we can help her out very slightly though she has to budget as my story at her age I had no choice as had no one to bail me out. Learning curve of student life x

instagram.com/the.starving.student?igshid=1if8v36hvgmxt

Going to download student manual from this Instagram account - has lots of ideas abs suggestions along with her Instagram page having recipes

We pay halls fees and give £400 a month spending

My eldest worked - she had a job on a farm before she went and most of the first year so had a lot saved up, and luckily rides to a high standard and thus was in demand and charged £20/hour to school other people's horses. So we never supplemented her money at all and she ran her car and anything she needed she paid for. However she doesn't drink, rarely went out, doesn't buy clothes more than once a year and her main expenses are her horse and her car - she needed the car to get to the horses.

Which part of the country is she in, is her rent very high? I am struggling to see how she could get through a full maintenance loan (9k+) plus a bursary (extra to the loan?) - especially this year when socialising and activities will have been curtailed.

My DS got minimum loan, we topped that up to cover rent, then gave him an allowance - but the total he got was always below the maximum loan amount - not because we couldn’t afford it, but because he said that he had more than enough to live on with minimum loan and our contribution. However, he was in a Northern city, so maybe paid lower rent than in some places? He also isn’t a massive clothes shopper 😂.

What is she spending it on....is she wasting money on excessive clothes/food/takeaways etc.

Can/does she batch cook? DS would do a shop once a week, maybe with small top-ups, then batch cook a couple of meals at a weekend, so that over 2/3 weeks he had 6 different meals in freezer. However, that does depend on them having some freezer space, which I know can be at a premium in second year.

DS also had 2 bank accounts, his original teen account and a student one, and managed those such that one contained only his weekly spend, which I think helped with budgeting. He left the debit card for the other a/c at home, but could move money between them online if he needed to.

Being able to budget whilst at uni is a great life lesson, so maybe she needs help with doing a budget going forward.

I would perhaps give the the difference in the amount of the bursary she is losing, but otherwise agree with everyone else - this is a good lesson for her in living to a budget.

Fairly obviously the problem is her clothes shopping.

My daughter is also a medical student. Obviously not possible in current times but she always worked in the holidays, shops, bars, etc. In term time all she really did was help out at open days (which was paid). Again that’s not happening at the moment.

To be honest both my student children are finding they are not spending as much at the moment due to the curtailment of their social lives so it would be worth exploring what your Dd is spending her money on.

One thing my daughter has found is that lots of her classmates are from well-off backgrounds, plenty of spending money, don’t need to work in the holidays. So check she is not getting sucked into keeping up with them.

Some are just higher spenders than others so it is hard to generalise. If the child here gets the maximum loan that probably should be enough for rent and to live on. For those who get the minimum - more like £4300 parents tend to make it up to the maximum, not more. other parents pay the rent and let the child live off the minimum maintenance loan of about 4300 out of London.

In our case which i unusual I fund them without fee or maintenance loans but that is because I am able to afford it. I do pay their allowance very week 52 weeks a year and did for the older 3 who have now finished and that way they can never say they have run out of money or spend it at the start of term and have run out by the end. I have my university accounts books where I wrote every single penny I spent by the way in the 1980s !!! I scanned some of them recently. It is very interesting. I was always careful with money and liked keeping records.

Also as someone said above some others are better off and some worse off. In fact one of my son has given loans (which is money I earned by working full time without a break since 1983 to people whose mothers don't work which I do find a bit much particularly one that may not be paid back but his choice I suppose and better a generous child than one who is not)

If she gets max loan she should have enough for rent a DH spending money, unless she's in a very expensive part of the country?

Rents in Bristol are not cheap. As a medic she has a full on course and work did students has dried up. I think living in normal times off the loan alone is difficult in Bristol. So you need to check how she can save money.

In second year she will already be in a house/flat. Is she staying there for third year or moving on? Often in third year medics live together. She needs to review her housing costs and can she rent somewhere cheaper? It’s easy to pay more in Bristol to be near the uni but a bit further out is cheaper.

Is she cooking or having take outs? Look at food costs. She cannot avoid bills for the house but she could look at food costs. I assume going out is curtailed but are there other costs that could be trimmed?

As she’s a medic, she has great earning power after graduation. Five years after graduation medic grads do extraordinarily well when compared to other grads. I wouldn’t worry about her having a student overdraft. I think with part time work and summer jobs disappearing this will be the norm for thousands of students.

Also it’s a great shame you didn’t save a bit for her. It’s a great achieving to be a medic student. She won’t be having a whale of a time with this amount of money. I would try and review expenditure with her though and I do think parents should give something. You paid for her when she was at home.

Has she got a monzo card or similar? Mine both had one and it really helps to keep track of spending.

My DS was unable to get a job because of his demanding course and we gave him £300 a month but he was on minimum loan that didn't even cover his rent (we covered the shortfall) he managed fine on that. The max loan currently is £9250, is rent about 400 a month in a shared house? If so that leaves her 370 a month over 12 months (assume she will spend less when she's at home over summer/Christmas?) which seems plenty as long as she's not spending loads on drinking/clothes.

If she pays £110 a week rent, (Bristol is normally 52 week rents) this leaves her £350 a month for 10 months for everything else. Plus the bursary amount. So work up a budget from £0. What must she pay? Cost of food. Transport etc. Then see if it’s doable or not.

£400 a month would be very low for Bristol. That’s under £100 a week. My DD was paying more than that for a very ordinary flat 6 years ago. £110 a week is more realistic. So £5720 pa. The cheap flats and houses can also cost a fortune to heat. So bills can be more than a well insulated modern house.