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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

Weekly budget at uni

221 replies

1Wanda1 · 13/11/2022 08:30

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?

OP posts:
Original poster
1Wanda1 · 14/11/2022 17:58

Today he's asked me to guarantee his rent and bills under the lease for next year's house. I'm going to say only on condition that he pays over his loan money to me as soon as it is received and I then pay the rent payment each month (as his rent is covered by maintenance loan plus a bit extra).

I would like to see his bank statements from the start of this term, in order to tot up where all his money has gone, but I don't think he would show me. His view is that my interest in all this is "controlling" and he's "trying my best to be independent" and I should let him be.

OP posts:
cestlavielife · 14/11/2022 18:05

Guarsntor does not mean you control his money
He needs to learn

harridan50 · 14/11/2022 18:14

Pay the rent yourself and let him have the student loan to live on if he needs more he can get a job. This is what both of my daughters did one worked a retail shift each week the other worked uni holidays. They are supposedly adults

Africa2go · 14/11/2022 18:20

OP have seen your update, he sounds disrespectful. Your update also smacks of him not understanding what he is asking you to by way of a guarantor. Independent is not having a guarantor!!! He can't have it both ways.

You're being too submissive in my view and he doesn't get to call the shots like it sounds like it is IF he's asking you to be on the hook for his financial decisions. By all means let him be independent - in that case, you say no to being a guarantor (and if that causes an issue with getting a house for next year, as I suspect it will, then its not a viable solution).

If it were me, there would be a choice and he has to be a grown up about it. If he wants you to be a guarantor, and potentially be on the hook for hundreds, even thousands of pounds, then you need full transparency from him now in relation to his finances. If he's not willing to do that, then the answers no.

Original poster
1Wanda1 · 14/11/2022 18:40

To be fair, someone has to be the guarantor and the tenancy requires that that person be employed for more than 3 months. His dad can't meet that requirement. Having read the lease, it's joint and several liability between the tenants so the guarantee will also guarantee all of the rent (not just DS's share). I have said to him that I'm not happy to do this (and no one would be) and suggested an alternative solution. He seemed displeased - as though I was being picky and other parents would just agree to this - and said he'd get a copy of the guarantee agreement from the agent.

I'm a lawyer. It's literally my entire job to understand legal liabilities. Surely no one agrees to guarantee the entire rent and bills of a property with 4 tenants, only one of whom is their own child?

OP posts:
Kite22 · 14/11/2022 18:53

£40 from us.
She chooses to work on top of that as she likes to spend, but that is her choice.

I think you need to find a balance. Yes, he needs support to make sure he has money there for his rent, but he also needs the freedom to make bad choices - that is a lot of what this time of life is about. If he can't work it out now, how long are you going to demand he hands over his wages and to eke out his money for him ?

Original poster
1Wanda1 · 14/11/2022 19:09

I wouldn't be bothered about controlling his budget to ensure his rent is paid, if I wasn't also being asked to guarantee the rent. As guarantor if he doesn't pay, I have to.

OP posts:
StickyCricket · 14/11/2022 19:16

He seemed displeased - as though I was being picky and other parents would just agree to this

Well then you won’t be needed because one of his housemates parents will happily do it, won’t they?

Fwiw we’ve paid uni fees and rent for the year up front for DS. He is managing perfectly well on £50 a week, he’s eating well and going out at least 2 nights each week.

FinallyHere · 14/11/2022 19:53

as though I was being picky and other parents would just agree to this

Something is not right here.

How about suggesting he asks one of the other parents to sign and then wait to see how he gets on with that?

As guarantor if he doesn't pay, I have to.

I'm sure you already know that you would be underwriting the full rent for the duration of rental. How many other people's rent would you be guaranteeing ? Just him and GF, or others too.

This has such potential to go wrong.

You say his father is not in a position to do this and it sounds as he somehow expect you to do so and resents that you can.

I'm sorry, this must be heartbreaking for you.

user73 · 14/11/2022 19:59

These amounts seem low when compared to other threads Ive read which suggested circa £20 a day

Original poster
1Wanda1 · 14/11/2022 20:25

£20 a day after rent and bills? That's insane.

OP posts:
Comefromaway · 14/11/2022 20:27

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

£68 per week including having to cover food is more than enough for ds. He rarely spends it and uses the surplus on train fayres to visit mates over the weekends every few weeks. Or saves it to buy himself yet more tech.

Comefromaway · 14/11/2022 20:30

I didn’t have any choice about joint and several guarantor liability when dd moved into a shared house. Every single rental stipulated it. So I took out insurance for it.

TheAsHaveIt · 14/11/2022 20:41

I give DC a weekly amount of approx £120 PW iirc. Everything is paid from this except rent ie bus pass, clubs, food, phone, getting home (unless something I've requested for a family event etc). But this is worked out exactly for the weeks she is at uni ie approx 33 not the 41 weeks they quote as term dates.

I am with you @1Wanda1 re the renting. DC has just asked me to be guarantor ( I started another thread on this). We are really unhappy about it but can't see a way around it except to take out insurance. The house is about 7/8 rooms. I am concerned but short of saying 'no' what can I do. She wants to be with her friends and I understand that. I must admit though I don't really understand how it works, if someone defaults doesn't the landlord just go after them or is the idea that they take the easy option and expect the other tenants to pay? What happens if they all refuse? Confused

TheAsHaveIt · 14/11/2022 20:44

Also wanted to add that I'm amazed that evidently none of the other parents are bothered (well evidently). Do you think parents just don't understand what it means or aren't bothered?

I'm also left feeling that I am the one kicking up a fuss 🙁

MinnesotaMuffin · 14/11/2022 20:45

It might be best for you to pay his rent, leaving him his maintenance loan to live from. You can top it up to whatever the maximum loan amount is?

Perhaps it is location dependent but in my DS’ university town the most common tenancy contracts are individual ones, so there’s no joint and several type guarantor arrangements, even in shared student houses. I have only ever been required to be guarantor just for my DS.

Comefromaway · 14/11/2022 20:46

I think they probably don’t understand what it means.

Original poster
1Wanda1 · 14/11/2022 21:24

@TheAsHaveIt, I'm not sure what the other parents think. This year DS's lease provided for several liability and his dad guaranteed it (we are unamicably divorced). The house he's got for next year is just a standard tenancy agreement with all the tenants jointly and severally liable. So the guarantee will be the same.

I didn't know you could get insurance for this, so will look into that.

OP posts:
AltheaVestr1t · 15/11/2022 07:53

My DS is due to start in 2023. We plan to pay his rent and leave him the maintenance loan (minimum) to live on. How does everyone manage the finances? Does DC give you the loan and you pay them monthly? Pay them monthly and leave them to sort the rent? As an adult, I would find it hard to budget with income every four months, let alone an 18 year old!

Original poster
1Wanda1 · 15/11/2022 08:08

I think it depends on your child and how they are with money. My parents used to pay my rent and give me a living allowance monthly. This was when student loans had only just come in and were quite low.

Before DS went to uni I thought he was ok with money. Certainly better than his sister , but they seem to have switched roles! I think having that £4K of savings in his first year really was a mistake. It had been in our bank account (at his request) specifically to avoid him dipping into it, but when he went up he insisted on having it all and as he was 18 I felt I couldn't refuse - it was his money. I never thought he'd spend it all in less than a year.

He's admitted he was having takeaways several times a week in first year and buying rounds of drinks. Maybe that lifestyle has set his expectation of what life should be like. But as all his friends are always skint I don't know why he would think that really.

OP posts:
user73 · 15/11/2022 08:46

As I mentioned upthread there are other threads where they are talking much higher figures than on here which is interesting. There it was said about topping up to max loan and seemed to be about £100 a week

Runnerduck34 · 15/11/2022 08:47

My DD has minimum maintenance loan and we pay her rent which this year includes bills. She just about manages.
But we generally drive her to and from uni so limited transport costs and she lives at home for free during uni holiday.
The only bill she has is mobile phone.
Car Insurance came out of her savings.
I think she's probably running out of money, she's doing surveys for £10 amazon vouchers that I'm buying off her for cash.

Original poster
1Wanda1 · 15/11/2022 09:19

@User73. The max loan this year is about £9,500. DS and DD get £4,500 loan, so a £5k difference. They each then get £100 per teaching week from their parents: for DS this means £3,500 and for DD 3,800.

In year 1 the loan covered DS's rent so he had £100 a week to spend (on top of which he spent £4K savings and £1k overdraft). In year 2 his rent and bills combined are £5,580 so he needs to keep back some of his £100 a week to cover the difference between the loan and the rent.

DD is in year 1 and her halls are more expensive than DS's rent. Her rent is £7k. We top her up £1,200 (in addition to the £100 a week) so that she ends up with £65 a week spending money, the same as her brother has. He would probably say that he should also get the £1200 top-up, but my aim was to ensure they can both cover their rent and end up with the same spending money.

OP posts:
Comefromaway · 15/11/2022 09:56

AltheaVestr1t · 15/11/2022 07:53

My DS is due to start in 2023. We plan to pay his rent and leave him the maintenance loan (minimum) to live on. How does everyone manage the finances? Does DC give you the loan and you pay them monthly? Pay them monthly and leave them to sort the rent? As an adult, I would find it hard to budget with income every four months, let alone an 18 year old!

WE do it the other way around. Paying the rent and giving your child the minimum loan to live off will give them a heck of a lot more money than someone on maximum loan.

Our ds uses his loan to pay his halls fees direct to the accommodation. He gets his loan fees termly and the rent is due termly. We then pay the shortfall (we negotiated to be able to do this monthly, some halls will allow this, some won't.

We then give him a weekly amount to live off £68.50. We gave him the choice of monthly or weekly and he chose weekly.

GreenFingersWouldBeHandy · 15/11/2022 09:59

Stop bailing him out or he will keep on doing it.

Tell him to get a job NOW. There is plenty of work out there; bar work, coffee shop, shelf stacking etc. I used to work in a Bookies when I was at Uni. Hated it, but it paid the rent etc.