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?

I'm from a deprived city with a lot of working class first generation uni goers whose parents are living on the breadline. They simply can't afford to subsidise their young people to the extent that some on here appear to think they should.

We can afford it, but we want our ds to learn the value of money, to realise that although we value education that uni is expensive and shouldn't be treated as a 3 year piss up when me his dad for example has hardly any money in his pension due to the cost of bringing up two kids and also not to lord it over his less well off mates.

So we ensure he has the exact same money as the maximum loan which is plenty.

So we ensure he has the exact same money as the maximum loan which is plenty.

yes but of course that isn’t a static amount. Rent and bills vary and so two students at the same uni in different halls could each receive the max loan but have different amounts to live on.

Unfortunately that is life and if you choose a more expensive city/get allocated more expensive accommodation then you have less for other things.

Ds has got very expensive accommodation this year think its something like £164 per week in Leeds whereas if he had gone to Salford it would have been more like £134. He has had to learn to budget and live accordingly.

Yes, things have changed a lot. I guess you didn't have to pay £10k fees per year? Probably got a student grant? Didn't come out with £50k debt?

In other ways, they haven't changed at all. My parents paid me an allowance (no student grant as parents earned too much) and paid my rent. They paid for food shops if they visited. I worked part time. That was 30 years ago

Oh I bet your rent wasn't £11k equivalent either! So that's another change.

We paid ds's rent and he lived off the minimum loan but that as for everything, clothes, food, drink.

Now he's doing his Masters we pay his rent and he works to cover his expenses as no longer gets the maintenance loan.

The poster who gives their child £120 a week on top of rent and bills of £11k must be a very high earner or have some other source of wealth. Most people just cannot afford that.

£11k per year rent is extortionate although I do know some areas such as Bristol or London are expensive. Dd recently did a postgrad in London and her rent in a shared house was £6,480 plus bills of around £1,200 per year.

I'd say the average rent in halls outside London including bills is somewhere between £5.5 - £7.5k per year.

Now he's doing his Masters we pay his rent and he works to cover his expenses as no longer gets the maintenance loan.

That's what we did for dd's postgrad.

And we thank God every day all bills are included in his rent 😂

The kids who come worse off are those who have perhaps for the majority of their childhood been brought up by a single parent but their (usually mum) has recently moved in with someone new so the new partner's income is taken into account but the new partner won't/can't contribute toward the maintenance.

I’ve just watched the Martin Lewis video on this. If you have household income of £60k plus then your parental contribution over 3 years is expected to be a minimum of £15k for a three year course but he stresses this might not be enough. If under 25k then no contribution required. If £45k then you need to contribute at least £7,500 for a three year course.

As rents continue to increase however this will go up.

Dd's bills were not included Pellegrino, she paid those from her p/t earnings.

Lots of people who pay school fees pay much more than that so have just factored that in to their budgets

The majority of people do not pay school fees.

No but in all likelihood the poster who says they were paying their dds £11k rent plus £120 a week probably does 🙄

Yes we are high earners.

I did mean we don't expect her to do paid work, I do expect her to do uni work, that's what she's there for!

We did indeed pay school fees in the past as well.

We pay for everything; rent, phone, food shopping, broadband and DD (outside of London) gets £150 additionally a week from us. She is unable to work and is only eligible for the most basic maintenance loan.

I top my son's income up to the maximum loan value. After rent that leaves him with £140 per week over 33 weeks. I don't give money in the holidays - he needs to work for that. We also pay for travel and phone. It seems like plenty to me (and confirmed by the fact that everyone else seems to have less) but my daughter on a similar budget still seemed to get into an overdraft.

Interested to see most students have less. Are you counting more weeks? Or is rent more? Or are you not topping up to the recommended amount. I have to say I don't think £65 per week if that is to cover all costs: food, socializing, clothes, equipment, hobbies....

We also paid school fees in the past and just consider this an extension of those costs and we can afford the outgoings.

I'm anticipating his rent being a bit higher next year when he is moves off campus. Will have to recalculate then. I expect we will end up with a compromise in which we pay a bit more but he also has a bit less left over

Ds in at conservatoire so they tend to have longer terms. And his rent is expensive. My figures were posted above.

And it's absolutely fine to continue paying an equivalent to school fees, your child, your choice. I paid school fees at one point too though we are not high earners.

But don't go making out it is the norm and making those on a much lesser income feel bad for not giving their children those large amounts of money.

@user73 "Lots of people who pay school fees pay much more than that so have just factored that in to their budgets"

Yes, but only 7% of students have been to private school. The majority of middle class families who earn enough not to qualify for maximum maintenance grant do not have £10-15k post tax income per child for uni every year