Spending money once they've gone to uni

[PeaceLoveAndCandy]

Are we as parents supposed to put a regular amount of money into their accounts for food, etc once they've gone to Uni and if so, how much do you give them if they do not have a job at all?

It depends on:

how much student loan they get (max or min amount).

Whether this covers the cost of accommodation and leaves them enough to live on (food etc).

How well off you are in terms of what extra you can afford to give them.

The bare minimum you should probably give is the difference between the loan they get and the full loan (as the loan is based on parents income- you are meant to top up the difference).

I paid mine’s accommodation. They used the loan to live on, and topped it up by working.

A lot of people pay for the accommodation and the dc live off the loan. I don’t the other way around because it helps with cash flow and I have four dcs at Uni. So the loan (ours get the min) pays for the lion’s share of the accommodation with the rest being paid by us, this varies from zero to £3,000 per year depending on which Uni. They then get £100 per week during term time. All four have jobs so they can have a social life too.

Depends on how much loan and grant they get. As a starting point you’re expected to top them up to the max loan / grant amount they could get if they don’t get that. My dd gets the max loan etc as we are very low income and we give her £40 a month spending money, plus we pay for her phone £20 a month and her contact lenses £20 a month. She also benefits from using the family Spotify, Netflix and all our other streaming services. If she wants more than that she knows she has to get a job…! She’s managed fine though, she’s now in year 2 and went through year one like this with no job and managed absolutely fine.

We give ours £1100 a month
No loans
They pay rent from this and the rest is for everything else

Wow!

Everything Bayleaf said in the first reply.

Do they live away from home?
How much more is their accommodation than the loan they have?
Is their accommodation catered or not (and if so, how many meals)?
Do they need to pay for transport or do they go to a Uni where they can walk most places?
Do you drop and fetch them at end of term or do they have to pay for trains / flights / coaches / megabus?
Have they got a bursary ?
Are they doing a course where contact time is over 30 hours and then they have to work round placements, or are they doing a course where contact time is minimal and they have much more flexibility ?
What is your family budget like ?
Are you going to throw in a drip feed about them being unable to work for some other reason ?
etc
etc

Exactly this, accommodation varies year to year too so all the loan toward that, we top that up as it is never enough and give £100 per week in term time. He was self catered and his supermarket shop was £30 per week, laundry was £3.50 per load and tumble drying was free. He managed to save money from the £100 to see him over the holidays.

The social side of things does depend on who their mates are and whether they have money to burn or prefer just hanging out in common rooms and not spending money. He also didn't need to buy any books or equipment for his course unlike those maybe studying English Lit.

Phone we pay for as it is on a family contract, he gets money from a Grandparent which pays for Netflix, Amazon and Spotify.

Roughly speaking, the Government expects that a student living away from home but not in London needs £10k. The maintenance loan is on a sliding scale depending on household income. Those earning under £25k, the loan covers everything. Those earning over £65k, the loan covers roughly £4.8, leaving £100/week for the parents to "top up."

This is explained, VERY badly, on the student loan letters!

Obviously insert a missing "k" there. Even this Government can't get away with reducing the loan to £4.80! (or can they?)

(My DD is in uni accommodation she's a first year and her loan JUST covers her rent. But that's not true for a lot of places, and she deliberately chose the cheapest room she could find. Unfortunately some unis allocate rooms more or less randomly, shortly before arrival, so it's hard to budget in advance.)

We gave our DC £85 per week spending money and paid the 2k a year shortfall on the rent.
We also paid for any clubs they wanted to join and any kit they needed for example American football as didn’t want them missing out on opportunities due to lack of money. We also offered gym membership and a bus pass. It varied over the years if they wanted the bus pass due to where their accommodation was.
It worked out about 6k contribution from my DH and I per child per year.

My DC has v cheap rent this year!! I pay that £400 a month then probably another £100 on top, plus phone. They work part time and cover everything else. They haven’t taken a loan.

We paid for accommodation and gave DD £100 per month. She got student loan and worked in Sainsbury's in all holidays, was good at budgeting but still left Uni with overdraft.

When I was in uni my parents paid my accommodation and I worked at the weekend. Between wages and tips I would have 200-300 per week. No loans necessary.

You might as well ask how long is a piece of string - so many moving parts to take into account as PP have said. Bottom line is what (if anything) you can afford. If your DC gets maximum maintenance loan then worth checking out what bursary or other help the uni gives

Yes student overdraft very useful in particular in the first few weeks when costs are very much front loaded - books, bus pass, club subs, freshers week tickets, stuff for the bedroom etc etc

You should at the very least top them up to the maximum loan amount if your incone means they get a reduced amount.

Ours get the full loan (conveniently-timed redundancy) plus a university bursary and that covers everything because the accommodation is very reasonable.

S2 hasn't felt the need to get a job this summer holiday, though I think he's spent a little bit of his Post Office Savings on fancy meals with his girlfriend.

S1 - who also had a choral scholarship which amply covered the extra time he was expected to be there - did very nicely out of the first five terms. Over lockdown they weren't charged rent and he's managed to accrue enough to buy himself a large, bespoke and relatively unusual piece of equipment associated with his hobby.

Students at places with more expensive accommodation, or without such cheap hobbies, or who have a taste for alcohol or an eye for fashion, may consider a part-time job more important

We've found setting the weekly allowance quite hard as I want my son to learn to budget.

He's in catered accommodation so we've agreed £100 per week but have paid for his JCR membership, sports kit and a couple of other upfront costs. I expect him to cover books out of this.

There are so many variables here and I agree it's very difficult. For example, this year my DC has some grant. If I pay the accommodation and give DC the grant, it means they will get approx £165 per week. I think this is too much to be just given, so I did it differently.

Their accommodation is 41 weeks and has to be paid and we are paying this, they are going to be at uni and only need support for 32 weeks. We did a budget which included food, bus pass, a guestimate amount for books and clubs. I added this up, multiplied it by 32. I then worked out what they needed each term. The accommodation and grant are given in 3 equal payments regardless of how long the terms are. Term 1 is the longest. So we worked out how much I needed to give each term to ensure they had the amount per week and sufficient at the correct time to pay their rent. They are 'paid' every 4 weeks.

It sounds complicated but I wanted DC to try and do some kind of budgeting. DC likes to spend and likes nice food. When I asked how much they thought they needed each week for going out they said £100. Yes I did laugh my head off 😂. To answer your question we are giving £120 pw, that is to include food, laundry, books, bus pass and clubs. The thing that is key and I have emphasised is that it is important to do clubs and I don't want DC to not do a club because they can't afford it. That said, if they way they can't manage I will be asking them to show me how they are budgeting. It is difficult at first because we don't know how much things will cost but I want DC to think about sourcing books etc cheaper where they can.

We paid youngeats rent, he covered everything else with maintenance loan.
he divided to move back home for second year. He pays a small contribution towards bills and also works part time now so continues to cover his own expenses.

Mine can't get loans as they are not on their first degrees and already used the loans for first degrees, but are studying in countries where it is significantly cheaper to live than the UK, so they manage on £600 a month each from us (living expenses, not including uni fees).

We give our sons £1000 each a month. To pay for rent, food and everything else. No loans.

I did, my eldest was bloody awful with the loans etc couldn’t budge for toffee
they left after the first year, went a bit crazy mainly wise with first job for a year then settled down, saved enough to get a place with their friend and been gone almost a year.