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 😊

So grandparents are paying the ££££ for car insurance? That’s hardly where the OP is coming from! That’s riches in comparison!

I’m a bit concerned that you say she is “finding others to share”. Is she not in a shared house right now? Also £103 a week in Clifton is a fairly Low rental for Bristol but the OP’s DD seemed to be paying over £138 a week. Is this shared accommodation or a 1 bed flat? I am confused as to what accommodation she has? £103 was a fairly ordinary shared rental some years ago. I had heard rents had soared! Obviously not.

Depending where you live, off peak train travel can be a total bargain. But it pays to look around.

Presenting Percy £140pw is pretty standard for Clifton/Redlands. There are cheaper/rougher areas, where students have started colonising as they get priced out of the traditional/lovely areas.

@PresentingPercy

So grandparents are paying the ££££ for car insurance? That’s hardly where the OP is coming from! That’s riches in comparison!

I’m a bit concerned that you say she is “finding others to share”. Is she not in a shared house right now? Also £103 a week in Clifton is a fairly Low rental for Bristol but the OP’s DD seemed to be paying over £138 a week. Is this shared accommodation or a 1 bed flat? I am confused as to what accommodation she has? £103 was a fairly ordinary shared rental some years ago. I had heard rents had soared! Obviously not.

Depending where you live, off peak train travel can be a total bargain. But it pays to look around.

It costs them no extra on a multi car policy. If she couldn't afford car insurance she wouldn't drive, simple as, she'd spend her petrol money on bus fayre instead.

The OP's dd is disadvantaged in that Bristol is a higher rent area (my dd pays £119 per week for halls of residence) . It's one of the reasons my dd chose not to apply to certain institutions and I am hoping that ds does not apply to London based universities. There are no societies/sports etc on offer for her due to the nature of her course but there are high equipment costs.

One thing that has helped dd to budget is that she gets her money monthly rather than in a termly lump sum. She asked for it to be that way, That would involve your dd trusting you enough to hand over her loan and for you to give it back in monthly instalments. We worked out that because dd's accommodation isn't paid in equal instalments she would be short of money until March then have almost twice the amount left over after March.

It does sound very difficult that because your income increased her already low income has decreased. She can't control that.

The reason it decreases is because they assume you then have increased power to help her. So I'd be trying to do that a little. Even if you did a monthly 'big shop' online that would take the pressure off.

OP one of the keys to the problem is in one of your first few posts. You wrote that she needs to not buy clothes and shop everyday as she seems to be doing. So that needs to be addressed. And it may be something she has to learn for herself through experience. She’s not the only student who went a bit mad clothes shopping when properly independent for the first time. I did it. But the key to budgeting is to be very honest with what you’re spending money on and track everything. Coffees out etc add up. Do you think she’s spending more on clothes now because of lockdown and it’s something to do? As a PP said, the amount of money being spent by students should be lower right now due to lockdown.

As an aside and not relevant to the OP, it’s a bugbear of mine when parents of medical students consistently refer to their offspring as medics. It’s misleading and grandstanding, even if it’s a term widely used for medical students, although it’s interesting that most parents of medical students on here don’t use it. ‘Medic’ implies medical training, as in training that is complete, and someone who is is professionally paid to give medical advice. A first year medical student in their first term knows jack shit. Ditto even for second and third years. Any medical student worth their salt would tell you that and the ones I know certainly would cringe at being called a medic and would hate their parents to refer to them as this. The term medical student is much more appropriate. Rant over

Thanks Juno. We are not a medical family, so I was not aware. I had heard references to medic sport vs University sport, and things like "she is sharing with two medics and an engineer" and so assumed it was common parlance. I will be more careful in future.

It is general common parlance among the students @Needmoresleep - I wouldn’t give it any headspace. My daughters flat last year had four medics, two engineers, a chemist and a mathematician 🤷‍♀️

Mathematician...or mathmo?!

Yes it is common parlance, dictionary definitions even refer to it being a term to describe medical students. For me though, since it does have several meanings (and a different one in the US to here), it’s a cringey choice to use when describing your child. Different from students using it amongst themselves as shorthand to differentiate subjects. My DSS who is a medical student would hate his parents or I to use it as he says it’s so misleading and boastful, and his ‘medic’ friends feel the same.

My DD gets the minimum loan, or just over. This doesn't even cover her accommodation so me and DH pay the excess. Her grandparents give her £200 a month for groceries etc. She seems to manage ok on this. It helps that she's not a drinker/clubber really. We also send the odd bit of money for a takeaway or an extra food shop now and then.

I think with students its a combination of budgeting, cooking more often rather than take aways, being a bit thrifty, part time job term time and working longer outside of term time, occasional cash hand outs from parents although if your DD receives the max ML you won’t be in a position to help out. If your DD hasn’t made lots of bad choices she could also apply to her universities Hardship Fund. She will only have a couple of weeks of term to go tell her not to but anyone Christmas presents and could she look for some work in the Christmas holidays i.e in a supermarket, bar or restaurant (if open in your area etc).

That’s your choice 🤷‍♀️ I don’t really have enough spare time to worry about such things. I generally refer to my child as a medical student but on a thread where presumably parents are trying to share information and experiences about their university student offspring, I think the student bit is implicit and the important part is the advice and support.

The big issue isn’t clubbing right now. It’s a high rent. Mostly minimum loans don’t cover accommodation and parents often make the amount up to the maximum loan. Obviously some cannot afford this. I also think loads of students go overdrawn and parents never know. Bills, transport, phone, food, some entertainment, clothes, was for clubs and sports would all be extremely hard to do on £200 a month.

When we did multi car cover at one point, all cars had to live at the same address. Student addresses, separate from parents, not allowed I recall on our policy. Too high risk. Who pays for servicing the car? Seems like a lot of money being given but not accounted for.

fees for clubs and sports....

Hostess it is absolutely my choice, which is why I said it’s a personal bugbear and that I was talking about a minority of posters who use it almost exclusively on every thread. It was an aside observation and not relevant to the OP, which I also made clear. Feel free to ignore!

Back on topic, I completely agree with this from Percy:

“The big issue isn’t clubbing right now. It’s a high rent. Mostly minimum loans don’t cover accommodation and parents often make the amount up to the maximum loan. Obviously some cannot afford this. I also think loads of students go overdrawn and parents never know. Bills, transport, phone, food, some entertainment, clothes, was for clubs and sports would all be extremely hard to do on £200 a month”.

And I have learned and apologised.

I suspect the problem is partly that I don't have a medical background, and also that DD's education has been entirely on line since before the start of the first lockdown. Fingers are crossed that she can resume face to face learning after Christmas. Like others she has yet to meet anyone on her course, and has not seen anyone but parents for weeks. In normal circumstances I agree that using student vocabulary is completely cringey. But I did not know. And also at the moment, like many parents of students, we are hanging in there, providing support where we can. Group working is difficult at the best of times, but really hard when people from all over the world and varied academic backgrounds are trying to work together over Zoom. I get to hear the frustration. It would be far better if DD could download over a coffee with a "medic" peer, but she can't. So cringe it is.

Sorry OP. Seriously off topic. Especially since DD is spending virtually nothing, as she does not go out, and we pay the utilities. (She does however shop for groceries, when she needs a change of scenery and then cooks. So not the worst flatmate to have.)

Ahhh and such is student life! Spend that last £20 before loan day on a food shop or a night out....for me and my friends it was always the latter that seemed to win and we’d make some strange combinations of whatever food we had left for the next 3 or 4 days lol.
I was very fortunate that my mum sent me a monthly ‘allowance’ each month and grandparents helped out regularly, but understand this isn’t always the case.
It’s probably easier said than done but I’d be inclined to just let her figure it out, like I said I got help but when I’d had my money each month that was it I’d had it.
I did a degree where placements were required too so getting a PT job wasn’t really doable, however my campus had an ambassador scheme whereby we would show future students around and get ‘paid’ in supermarket vouchers and it was as and when you could do it, no contract or anything. Perhaps her uni offers something similar?!

The trouble is that everything is small fry and who’s being shown anything right now? DD helped with freshers week and open days. Didn’t get anything for it though as I recall. Certainly not enough to pay the difference between a high and a low rent. So it’s a case of sorting out the big ticket item! Rent.

Need no need to apologise, if that’s the term you like to use then stand by it.

Buuuuut....

I suspect the problem is partly that I don't have a medical background, and also that DD's education has been entirely on line since before the start of the first lockdown

C’mon, this is totally disingenuous. You’re such a prolific posher about studying medicine that it’s not hard to know your DD is several years into her medical degree. Checking shoes she’s in her 4th year of medical school it’s hardly like all her medical degree has been online which is what this implies

Hmmm, as I said, her course has been entirely on line since medical schools closed shortly before the start of lockdown. Which means we have been house sharing with a medical student for almost nine months. So probably picked up some of her usage. I can’t see how this is disingenuous.

It is useful there to have your DSSs perspective. It was genuinely something I was unaware of. Nor am I aware of US usage. Hopefully I can now avoid being cringey.

Given OPs DD is on the same course, I hope I was able to offer something. The first term really was the most expensive. I also agree with other posters. There is nothing like finding yourself stoney broke during the last week of term and having to survive on the random remnants of the back of freezer and cupboard, to decide to work on budgeting skills.

Are “fees for clubs and sports” a thing then? I never joined anything when I was at uni (as I was studying music there were enough in house compulsory activities) & there are none available where dd is studying (dance/theatre). I did join an amateur choir which cost a couple of pounds per week.

University sport is really expensive. You need membership, to join a gym and then the kit....including a blazer.

Drama too can cost a lot, but there is some scope to recoup costs against ticket receipts.

Need it’s disingenuous because you’re saying one of the reasons you call your DD “a medic” is because, with the lockdowns, she’s been at home and so you’re picking up her language. In fact you’ve been using that term to describe her on here for years. So not sure what lockdown has to do with it.