Weekly budget at uni

[1Wanda1]

How much does your child have to spend per week AFTER rent and bills?

DS and DD both have a weekly spending budget of around £65. Both in unis outside London. DD is sticking to this no problem. DS keeps overspending, has maxed out the overdraft, now doesn't have enough money to pay December rent, and the only way he'll be able to do so is if we bail him out (again).

He doesn't seem to think anything is wrong, as says he hasn't been living extravagantly and only goes out once a week and it's just "cost of living". I think that £65 a week is plenty to buy food and a few drinks.

He's looking for a job but that's not really the point. He thinks I'm really unreasonable and mean and I don't know how to get him to budget. Is £65 enough or am I deluded?

DC is left with £50 per week ( calculated over 52 week year) after accommodation (bills are included)
She manages fine on that week to week but she has a summer job where she builds up some savings to tide her over. These savings pay for gig tickets, train travel , shopping treats etc. She’s a thrift shopper for clothes and batch cooks though so doesn’t spend much. Also.. not really into clubbing .
She moves the £50 into a different account each week and then uses that to keep to budget.

Your answer is right there. Dd has enough. If you increase for ds increase for her too. Tell ds sorry he will need to get a job in holidays

( posted too soon ) ..do you think he would try moving his weekly amount to another account ? it might help.
i don’t think you are being unreasonable but some kids don’t have a clue how to budget and find it really hard to get their head around .
i think £65 is enough but I’m wondering if the location of his uni makes a difference compared to his sisters .. does he spend money on buses ? My Dd can walk everywhere but her brother had to spend quite a lot on buses.
would he accept you sitting down with him and trying to work out what he’s spending his money on?

He wouldn't accept any advice over the summer as we fell out over the fact that he refused to get a job in the summer as preferred to spend time with his GF. As he had maxed his overdraft we felt he should be more concerned with paying it off.

His university is in a less expensive city than DD's.

Should add, we pay for trains home, plus occasional "big spend" items like gym membership, club memberships, on top of the weekly allowance

In which case he is not budgeting very well. I give DD £500 a month, however, for this she pays for everything, absolutely everything. Food, social, gym membership, clothes, things for her flat, presents, trains home, everything.

Sounds like he's determined to learn about managing personal finances the hard way. Whether that happens sooner or later depends on how much longer you keep bailing him out for. Refusing to get a job so he can doss around with his gf all summer is pathetic.

@1wanda1 Dd pays for everything ( apart from her phone and insurance which we pay)out of that £50 and summer job money . I don’t think you can keep bailing him out when he has a sibling living somewhere more expensive who is coping. Unfair on her to give him more?
If he won’t accept help or suggestions , the only other thing I can think of is giving him his money weekly ( if it is is an allowance you are actually giving him -my DD’s money is just what’s left from her loan and our parental contribution) . We give it to her all at once.
Giving it to him weekly means that you are doing the budgeting for him though I guess.. he still won’t be learning much will he !?

When you say after bills do you mean rent and utilities? So the £65 covers food or not? Ds spends around £30-£35 on a supermarket shop which is in line with his university's estimation on the matter. We do send him back with a full shop so lots of basics, tins, pasta, rice, plus toiletries.

He doesn't have any course spending, no books etc. He has £100 per week during term time which does last him over the holidays too. He has friends who are skint so they tend to meet at their flats and not go out out spending money in pubs. Ds drinks something that is £1 a can from the supermarket but £4 in the pub!

If your Ds is expecting you to bail him out I would want to see a break down of where his money is going. He sounds like he is spending way too much knowing you will bail him out. Maybe he is trying to keep up with his mates. Some of them have obscene amounts of money. Your Dd seems to be managing fine.

The way we have worked it is Ds pays all of his maintenance loan toward his accommodation and we top that up as it doesn't cover it. We then transfer the weekly amount of £100 to him. He is not a spender at all but likes to feel that his money is getting replenished rather than a lump sum getting depleted even though it works out the same.

Should have added that Ds pays for his train tickets home once a term, plus gigs he goes to. He also pays for his phone, Prime, Netflix. His Grandad gives him £50 a month too. I forgot to mention that bit.

I give DD £300 per month and she shuffles her money around into savings accounts. She was also given £2k by my childless uncle who is a great believer in a university education.
She says she is doing ok for money at the moment and feels her workload is too high to get a term time job but she will have bank work at her previous job over the summer holidays or will potentially go and work for her boyfriend’s family as summer is frantically busy for them.

DS gives himself an allowance of £70. He has £90 a week left after his contribution to the rent (we pay a certain amount and he tops up the extra). He saves £20 a week for "just in case"

£70 a week is plenty. He'd probably have more to play with but he still hasn't fathomed out doing proper shops so buys food at the on campus Coop - expensive!!

My DD hasn't asked for any extra cash yet (we "top up" to the equivalent of a maximum maintenance loan, and she managed to get a very cheap room). She uses a budgeting app on her phone, everyone goes into "pots"/envelopes, and she finds it very helpful. Could that help?

I went to uni about 18 years ago and I couldn’t live off that much then never mind now!! But then I did have Job that guaranteed me 200-300 per week between pay and tips. My parents paid my rent and I paid everything else. I know that’s not normal for students these days in England (I was in Ireland) but even 100 per week would be better if he could get a job! My niece works 8 hours on a Saturday and gets €13 per hour, that does her for the week, and it’s experience in the industry she wants to work in full time!

Dd has about £65pw after rent and bills too. She worked full time over the summer and plans to look for a job in her uni city after Christmas.

My DC both work in the holidays and save a cushion. I pay for big ticket items, bus pass, gym membership and mobiles. I send them the odd shop I.e on their birthday but other than that I don't contribute. Their loan covers rent with about £2000 left over.

Does the £65 need to include weekly food shop? If so then I don’t think £65 is enough and I had more than that when I was at uni 15 years ago. Of course he won’t starve on that but then there’s nights out and the odd takeaway and day trips, clothes, haircuts, extras. BUT that doesn’t mean you need to give him that extra, he should have worked in the holidays to build up his own money and should either work in holidays going forward sir get a term time part time job. Either that or he has to accept the minimum that will cover food and a couple of drinks and forget the extras.

£300 a month and he’s doing ok. I do treat him to extra when I want to but if you bail him he’s not going to learn imo. At home my son had a job and would Uber eat a lot, he doesn’t now.

Thanks all. Sounds like £65 a week (which is to cover food and socialising, not utilities) isn't too meagre.

To add context: he went up for his first year with £4K saved up from working in his year off. Towards the end of the summer term he asked for a top up and it came out that he had spent the £4K, plus the £4K maintenance money he'd had over the year (his maintenance loan of £4.5k paid for halls), AND an overdraft of £1k. So nearly £10k in a year on eating, drinking and socialising. We had stern talks over the summer, which resulted in a big fall out because we were so annoyed he didn't work in the summer holidays to at least pay off the overdraft.

As a result of this he refused to discuss his finances with us when he went back. 6 weeks into term he said he didn't have enough to pay December rent. Having worked out that he's had £1500 loan and £1200 maintenance money, and his rent and utilities are £465 a month, this works out at an average spend of £160 a week. He is defensive and says he hasn't spent any money on anything he didn't need.

He has a GF there and they basically live together, splitting the week between their 2 houses. I suspect he is paying for food for both of them. He likes to eat meat every day (which I've pointed out is a luxury for students) and his GF is a picky eater who doesn't like things like beans and lentils.

It's getting really hard to talk to him about this as he gets angry and defensive and genuinely thinks he's hard done by. Everyone else's parents give them more, apparently.

One obvious difference between the two siblings is that one of them has a GF. Is DS trying to finance two people from his budget?

Fair enough to refuse to discuss budget, jobs etc right up until he keeps running out of money.

It's not different at work. I get a budget for a project. If I keep within that, I'm allowed to get on with it. If I need to ask for more, the figures are subjected to a lot of scrutiny.

Don't think students who are being financed should be so very different.

Full disclosure, I lost track of spending early on as a student. My parents had no idea. I had one term with no cash once my rent (including bills) and food (three meals a day) were paid for.

No alcohol or 'fun' food, got a job doing technical services which let me in to any events going on for free (though I did have to set up and break down each time rather than go home via the chippie with everyone else.

It wasn't exactly fun but I never made that mistake again.

Time for a chat, I'd suggest.

We give DD 30 quid a week. The rent and bills we've covered.

She does a lot of batch cooking which helps I think.
She worked over the summer and has that for extras.

Would he agree now to get a job over the Christmas period when there is usually shops hiring. If he refuses he is way out of line. Some are spenders. My ds ..May have ADHD..ws a big spender and he doesn't even drink. Dd insisted on being independent working for all pocket money. We paid accommodation for both.. in lreland where there is no loans.
I think after Christmas he may have to transfer all money he gets into another account ( yours!!) And only transfer rent month at a time and spending week by week. But it sounds like he is not easy to talk to and is using some bullying tactics to get his own way. Not easy as ds while being a spender was prepared to do anything to get more money so l didn't mind topping up when he was making an effort.

Worth remembering guys often need more food than girls and often, in my experience, girls pool cooking while guys not so much.

I would be livid - £10k in a year?! I know he's an adult but he's not acting like one and I would absolutely not be bailing him out without seeing his bank account statements to try to understand where it is all going. Are they having take outs all the time / buying lunch out every day / socialising every night? Is there anything else going on (anything more sinister - sorry to ask).

I think its time for some tough love. If he refuses to get a job in the holiday periods just because he can't be bothered and wants to laze about with his girlfriend, I wouldn't be paying for anything (not even the £65) - why should I be going to work to pay for him if he's not prepared to work to pay for himself?

I have a DS who is going to uni next year - one week a month now, he has to shop / cook / budget etc for all his meals for a week and find the time to do that around school / sport etc to get into the habit. He gets £30 a week and so far so good. There are a few cupboard essentials that he "borrows" - tin foil, bit of oil etc but everything else is out of the budget. He's not a brilliant cook (but improving) and he's not gone over £30 yet. I know uni will be different, but its about choices and learning to budget. £65 is enough but there is something going on here that you need to get to the bottom of.

Without the back story, I'd d probably be allowing him a £100 a week budget

With the back story, I'd be annoyed. Very annoyed.

I bailed my now 24 year old DD out a few times and tbh, I expected to do so. It's part of being a parent and that's fine

It would not have been fine if she'd literally whipped through 10k though so I'd be saying to him that yes, you're open to talking but he's got to give you the full facts of what he's spending it on. If he can't do that then how can you just give him more money?

Ds is in halls so all his bills are included. He has £68.50 per week left over to cover everything else including mobile phone and trains home.