How much allowance do you give your student dc to live on per week

[FlamingHot]

Or per month? Dd’s halls of residence and course fees will be covered by us and student loads.

We’re not sure how much she’ll need for food/nights out etc. Her halls will be self catered only.

Thanks!

Just adding my input about job availability... I was working in Bath for a few days over the last couple of weeks and I was pleasantly surprised (even shocked) at the number of establishments with job vacancies displayed in their windows.. Lots of shops, pubs and restaurants all looking for people to work part time.

£750 a term (DS gets just over the minimum loan). He also has an investment side hustle (he made £4K profit on a £300 investment last week) and has done some part-time work too.

£13K on halls is ridiculously expensive. I'm afraid we did encourage DS to consider universities with not quite such expensive accommodation options so that he had more money for actually living on.

Thanks @BackforGood. I think we might start him out with quite a small allowance and see how he gets on. I wouldn't say he is used to a luxurious lifestyle, and he is not 'grabby' at all but I would definitely like him to get a taste of the real world. He recently cracked his phone screen and when I told him he could pay half the (enormous!) repair cost he decided he was fine with a cracked screen. Baby steps....

@Vargas if you think your DS will struggle with budgeting you could send it weekly. We did this the first year with our DS.

The second year he had some student loan left over after rent so he allocated himself a weekly amount and has stuck to it.

I do understand that every student is different and some may need weekly/monthly finances at first. The stories of students blowing their termly budgets at the start of term, however, make me think this is a better way to go. I bet those students didn’t make that mistake again, how many adults do you know who live month to month never saving for the future who never learnt that lesson.

I'm amazed at how coddled some of these kids are, to be honest.

Parents are expected to help support their kids at Uni now. When I was at Uni (in the 1980s!) I had a full student grant. We 'signed on' to get the dole and housing benefit in the holidays.

I never had to ask my parents for a penny. We were coddled too, but my the state!

Housing benefit in term time to reduce student rent as well Tulip, or rent rebate as it was called.
I didn't have a full student grant but managed on savings from grandparents, some from parents and by working in the holidays.
And I think the campus cafes , student union offered genuinely cheap food / drink. Its all Starbucks etc now!

@Tulipomania

I'm amazed at how coddled some of these kids are, to be honest.

Parents are expected to help support their kids at Uni now. When I was at Uni (in the 1980s!) I had a full student grant. We 'signed on' to get the dole and housing benefit in the holidays.

I never had to ask my parents for a penny. We were coddled too, but my the state!

IIRC most students have not been able to claim benefits in the summer holidays since the Social Security Act 1980.

You only got HB during term-time if you lived somewhere expensive though.

Pretty sure all students could get not unemployment benefit but the other one well beyond 1980 though.

@BayTreey

I do understand that every student is different and some may need weekly/monthly finances at first. The stories of students blowing their termly budgets at the start of term, however, make me think this is a better way to go. I bet those students didn’t make that mistake again, how many adults do you know who live month to month never saving for the future who never learnt that lesson.

I’d rather continue with how we’re doing it thanks. If my DS had have blown it all in the first term, bank of mum and dad would have been bailing him out. We worked with him to help him budget and he asked for it weekly.

I'm sure this will be controversial but I'd say that an 18/19-year-old who can't manage money on a termly basis probably isn't responsible enough to be going to university yet.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18i think OP said her DD has autism. I agree than generally an 18 year old shouldn’t need to be spoon fed money weekly. They’ll never learn otherwise!

But when there’s a learning difficulty or disability involved its incredibly unfair to say they shouldn’t go to uni because they might need more guidance with day to day life skills.

I agree @NewModelArmyMayhem18

The number of students who live far better lifestyles than I do because their parents fund it is astonishing. In comparison the students from
Working class backgrounds who don’t have parental support tend to emerge from uni with more realistic ideas of budgeting and the real world.

It was 1986 when students were excluded from claiming benefits i the holidays.

I claimed benefits for the first year of my time at uni, which was a few years after that - and I definitely couldn't claim the following year. Only in the summer though, there was no housing benefit by then.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18
It’s not always a question of the dc being unable to manage finances, my own ds is very disciplined with money and I agree that ideally given money trimly would be a good life skill, however, parents needs should also count. It is much easier for me to pay weekly/monthly as I am then paying over 3 salaries instead of finding a large amount 3 times a year.

[quote Crumpetstoday]@NewModelArmyMayhem18
It’s not always a question of the dc being unable to manage finances, my own ds is very disciplined with money and I agree that ideally given money trimly would be a good life skill, however, parents needs should also count. It is much easier for me to pay weekly/monthly as I am then paying over 3 salaries instead of finding a large amount 3 times a year.[/quote]
Same here. I am paid monthly so I pay my dd her allowance monthly. I simply could not come up with that amount of cash up front, especially after having to pay the halls deposit and cost of kitting her out in August.

My son recieves the minimum loan so we give him the difference to what the maximum loan is so roughly 100 a week

Just to clarify, not the rent as well

@Iggii

I got £400 a month back in 1993 and it was barely enough then (self catering)

Families live on that now! How can £100 per week on food and spending money not be enough?

However on how much you need at university other than parents making minimum loan up to maximum it is how long is a piece of string. My sons have more than most as we are reasonably well off but even they have friends with more. there is always someone better or worse off.

This ^
Just like in life - you can always find people better off than yourselves, and worse off than yourselves.

He recently cracked his phone screen and when I told him he could pay half the (enormous!) repair cost he decided he was fine with a cracked screen.

Exactly Vargas. I always think this when you hear parents saying their dc "needs" (or even "wants" and en-suite). If you remind the dc that this is their budget, and they can share a shower and share a toilet with two other people and have and extra £40+ in their pocket every week, or have an en-suite, many of them look at it differently. Some might still choose en-suite, but that is then an informed decision rather than something they just "fancy".

@BayTreey - the thing is, getting the loan money in once a term isn't anything that even experienced adults usually have to deal with. Unless you are a self employed person working on big projects and getting a paycheque only at the end,, overwhelmingly adults have their money arrive every month, and are never expected to make one lump sum last 4 months, so it seems a big ask of someone who has never had to pay their way before.
Plus, as others have said, many parents need their own salary to come in each month before transferring some of that to their dc.
Plus, of course, what parent is going to have their child go without food for 2 months ??

If you remind the dc that this is their budget, and they can share a shower and share a toilet with two other people and have and extra £40+ in their pocket every week,orhave an en-suite, many of them look at it differently.

This is exactly the conversation I've been having with DT1 (starting this autumn). He and his twin brother are getting the minimum loan and our working assumption, for 1st year at least, is that we'll just be making it up to the maximum amount.

Both boys can choose from a wide range of university accommodation and I want them to be weighing up the options with finances in mind. So we're not talking about monthly allowances but about their income and budgeting decisions.

DT2 is definitely already thinking in terms of cost, but DT1 is going on about en suites and liking the look of swish hotel-like accommodation, so I've been doing a bit of nudging. Has he worked out what that choice would leave him per month and whether that would cover his spending, etc. etc. Have sent him some student budgeting links too - so we shall see. Not sure how else they're going to get used to managing finances though.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

I'm sure this will be controversial but I'd say that an 18/19-year-old who can't manage money on a termly basis probably isn't responsible enough to be going to university yet.

Yeah that's pretty controversial. I don't know any 18 year olds who have had to budget living costs and are handed a big lump sum to do so and then told to get on with it without any guidance from anybody.

I'm happy to help my children budget and we sit down and do that before the start of each year. Surely that's what being a parent is? It doesn't stop the minute they go to university.

I wouldn't expect my DC to just get on with it but the basics of understanding how to manage money should already be in place before going off to university, learned through family life, surely?

I don't disagree, which is what we have done with all of our children - but that's not what your post said