How much do students need to live on per week/term?

[mrsmootoo]

How much do students need to live on per week/term? DD starting at Bristol this autumn. I have already paid accommodation separately so what will she need for everyday living expenses (food/washing/socialising/books (do they still need books?!)? I'm planning to supplement her minimum maintenance loan so need suggestions for overall figure and then I'll deduct loan and make up the difference. Thanks!

I'm planning on £250-300 a month. Starting at £250 😁😁

If her accommodation is already paid for, then the minimum maintenance loan will be more than sufficient for her to live on. We had this arrangement for my son and he has just graduated with no overdraft. He did work part-time in the university holidays to earn money to pay for going on holidays, to festivals etc.

We gave ours £400 a month for ten months to cover food (assume not catered halls!), travel, phone, going out, society fees (the first term is when they sign up to union clubs so depending on what she joins might be £££), clothes, days out and the two month summer holiday if they didn't get a job.

I'd suggest she divides the loan up into:

• Term time weekly budget
• Holiday weekly budget (living at home)
• One-off big expenses (field trips etc)
• Emergency fund

Then she'll be able to see how much she can spend each week.

We are going to pay the accommodation and then he’ll have the min maintenance loan to live on.

I have had 3 at Bristol and some students have more money than others. You just cannot generalise. My twins get a generous £150 a week paid weekly all year. Loads of people have much less and some have a lot more.

How much loan do they get? If they get the maximum loan and you have paid accommodation they are going to be rich compared to other students.

If they are on minimum loan and you have paid accommodation then they will have almost £4,500 per year to live on which equates to over £85 per week (more if you assume they will be home for the summer). That is plenty to live on.

We couldn't afford to pay my daughter's accommodation termly up front so we gave her a monthly allowance of what she would have had if she'd been entitled to the maximum loan and she paid everything out of that.

Sorry I just saw they are on minimum loan. So after accommodation (assuming it includes bills) I'd say a student can easily live on £75-85 per week so if you want them to have a higher standard of living then perhaps top up to £100 per week?

Look on the university website. All universities have to publish estimates of living costs for students in their city.

We're planning on paying DS's accommodation costs with his maintenance loan (minimal) covering everything else. Hoping he won't have to do too much working during term time, but expect he'll get a job during the holidays

We've given ours £75 a week. Loan covers DD1 accommodation in full and DD2 about £400 short + bills. We also pay for clubs and gym etc

Anything extra they pay themselves.

I’ve been giving mine £400pm but no increase since DD1 went to uni in 2016. Suspect it should be higher as DS1 has taken a job to earn extra but since he hasn’t asked for more (and since he got a comfortable 1st for his 1st year so the job isn’t affecting his studies) it remains at £400. 12 months a year though.

With her loan and our contributions, in term time DD should have around £125 a week after accommodation costs, which I think is perfectly doable. She has an emergency fund for unexpected outgoings, plus savings that she hopes not to need to dip into. As Xenia says, student incomes are very variable. I know DS1 was astonished to meet people who were utterly perplexed as to why his mummy and daddy were so tight they wouldn't spare a measly £20k-plus a year to save the hassle of taking out a loan. On the other hand there were kids whose middle-earning parents had vast mortgage payments and multiple student children, and their parental loan top-ups were very meagre indeed.

I was wondering this too, dd is also going to Bristol.

@mrsmootoo I haven’t paid for DD’s halls yet, how did you know to pay it now?

@bendmeoverbackwards I assume she means she will be covering it because you can't pay it yet.

DS gets just over the miminum SFE loan (we are by no means rich!!!). We give him £1K per term and he has to make up the shortfall between his income and the maximum loan amount himself (part-time job, investment income etc). He did put in a pitch for an increase from us but as he seems to have spent a fair chunk of his money on a new iPad (unnecessary purchase in my opinion) and a Switch, as well as talking about already replacing his two-year-old phone, I'm not buying into it! He does live reasonably frugally (no rock 'n' roll lifestyler!) but seems to have enough to live the life he wants to.

I give my Bristol dd £100 per week and that is plenty.

We sat down and worked out what food was needed after the rent was paid. Rent was £85 per week paid by loans. £23 a week covered all her food and cleaning needs. She walked or used the bus and searched for offers. Many courses end in March/April and students are often back home earlier.

We gave her £100 a month and she never missed out on anything.
She did bar work if she wanted extra money.
She got a good grade as she worked without going mad, and they gave her 50% of her MA course. She clearly learned the value of money and working if you want more.

After DD pays her accommodation out of her maintenance loan, she'll be left with £62 per week. Not sure if that's enough or not, time will tell

We're planning on giving DD £75 a week on top of accommodation to include food and everything except big ticket items like books (hers will cost over £100) and I'll have the odd online shop of basics delivered to her as well.

Start with what is the maximum maintenance loan for that area - eg London, out of London etc. Look at what loan your child actually has. Then see if you can afford to pay the difference.

Eg the maximum loan for parents on low incomes outside London is £9488 a year. The minimum is more like £4422 so the state hopes a parent will make that £4422 up to £9488 - a £5066 difference (£97 a week). So the maximum loan is £182 a week averaged over the whole year for the less well off (to include payment of your rent).

Like everyone we know, we are paying the rent and our son has the minimum maintenance loan to live on. This seems like plenty to me. Whether he is capable of budgeting is another matter.

He has agreed to transfer all of the existing money in his account to me for safe-keeping until his return. This may sound controlling, but it's 10k (18th birthday money) and he wants to buy a car when he's finished and I would rather he keeps this as off-limits for now.

We give £500 a month all year round and pay accommodation
They don't take out the loans (Scotland)

@Comefromaway

Sorry I just saw they are on minimum loan. So after accommodation (assuming it includes bills) I'd say a student can easily live on £75-85 per week so if you want them to have a higher standard of living then perhaps top up to £100 per week?

@Comefromaway would that be for self catering? Dd is in catered halls with breakfast and dinner included so she could live on less I imagine?

My niece is at campus uni (so no travel costs) in the north (so lower cost of living), self catered halls and she reckoned she spent an average of £30 pw on food last year. She managed absolutely fine and caught the train home fairly regularly when it was allowed. But last year they weren’t out socialising very much.

An average term is 39 weeks (unless Oxbridge which is much shorter). I wouldn’t be subbing them outside of term time they would either have the choice of living very frugally or getting a job (especially during the very long summer break).

So if you settled on a figure that you can afford per week depending on whether they are not catered or fully catered etc and you can then give them it weekly, monthly or termly. Noting that Accommodation usually has to be paid termly.