Realistic cost of living at university

[leftitabitlate22]

I just wondered how much realistically a student needs per week/term to live comfortably (not in luxury!) at university.

DD not likely to be able to have a term time job alongside the degree but will be able to work in holidays.

She won't be eligible for full loans so we'll be topping up.

We will still pay his phone and contact lenses.

Problem with these threads is we get the "oh we top up rent/pay all rent and give £500 pm" posters which puts off those who can't afford that much from contributing to the discussion.

Someone will say £50 pw is enough and be told their daughter will become a sex worker if she gets so little to live on (I paraphrase).

What us ridiculous is us standing for our DC being ripped off with accommodation costs.

DD is in Liverpool and rent comes to just shy of 7k per year which we pretty much cover, we’ve asked her for a token contribution of £300 out of her basic loan amount. She is currently living on her loan although worked full time in the summer which gave her a pot to top up out of quite nicely and she still has a small amount of savings. She’s working at home over the Christmas break which will give her another head start and she has decided that when she’s back at uni she’ll look for something then. All in she’s budgeted herself around £100 per week for food and socialising. Unlike most on this thread she is NOT a ‘non-drinker’ and has fully embraced uni life and is out clubbing etc up to 3x per week, sometimes having nights in Manchester depending on what nights are on. She also managed to budget herself a wee trip out to Spain in November to see a relative - although in reality will have only paid for the flights and will have been spoiled while out there.

we’ve asked her for a token contribution of £300 out of her basic loan amount

Why?

Unlike most on this thread she is NOT a ‘non-drinker’ and has fully embraced uni life and is out clubbing etc up to 3x per week

Good for her but it is possible to fully embrace uni life without drinking and clubbing 3 times a week. In fact, you don't have to go to uni for that 😄

Also make sure to compare like with like. The Jux daughter probably got the very large maximum maintenance loan for those with parents on a low income, which is more than double what many students receive even those students whose parents could but choose not to make up minimum to maximum. So someone on a £9k big loan might well have a lot more money than someone on only the minimum £4300 whose parents do not pay a penny over the £4300. Those in Wales also get more money I believe and Scotland is completely different again.

www.savethestudent.org/money/surveys/student-money-survey-2022-results.html#key

The average student spends just under £1k a month outside London. Not £50 a week whilst living off a mumsnet chicken.

The full student loan is less than this

Info about sex work as well on this link if anyone is interested... I am not making it up ... Tutors are now taught how to deal with disclosure around sexwork by students as it is becoming more common. A lot of young female students would not actually class selling intimate photos or sugaring as sex work btw.

Ds gets the exact amount a student on maximum loan would get. After his accommodation costs he has £68.50 per week left over (over 42 weeks). He says he rarely spends it all.

Dd was on a performing arts course where she was not entitled to a loan. She lived on much less.

In fact ds has decided to go for slightly more expensive accommodation next year so he will probably end up with about £60 per week left over after rent is paid.

Haven't RTFT but we have given our children £120 a week at uni. They get the minimum loan because of our income so they give us all the maintenance loan, which goes towards the accommodation costs.

For last year for one of our children the rent was £11.5k and the maintenance loan was £4.5k so we paid the remaining £7k plus £120 per week to live on - around £6k a year - so the total cost to us is £13.2k a year. It will be less next year as accommodation will be cheaper because of shared housing. We'll still pay the £120 per week and top up the rent as £4.5k won't cover it.

We also pay mobile phone bills, do food shops, the odd Deliveroo or Uber Eats and send nice food sometimes.

OP, my dd worked for Serve Legal whilst she was studying MT. It didn't make her much cash but she got food and alcohol.

If she ends up London based lots of the theatres are quite flexible with FOH shifts for students especially now several have Sunday shows.

OP's dd will not have the energy to go clubbing 3x times per week anyway! The type of course she is hoping to do you go home and flake out!

Why? Well why not, the rent is paid in three instalments so we asked for £100 out of each of her loan payments to go towards it. She otherwise has her whole loan (basic amount) for living costs but this means she has to take into account that some of that money has to be spent on something other than pissing it up the wall.

Fair enough re the other point but I just thought it might provide a counter perspective to those whose children live on very little but don’t spend much on going out and socialising/drinking so only really have food costs to cover. Perhaps I should have clarified it with ‘stereotypical uni life’

And I would say that just because she has a busy course doesn’t mean there’ll be no time or desire to go out and get wrecked. I did a full on degree as a mature student and my classmates were regularly hungover AF during lectures and existing on 3-4 hours sleep. Hopefully they moderated things during placement but 🤷🏼‍♀️

Believe me, you only turn up hungover to a 9am jazz, singing or acting class once. The tutor gives you hell and you think never again. !

Ds gets the exact amount a student on maximum loan would get. After his accommodation costs he has £68.50 per week left over (over 42 weeks). He says he rarely spends it all.

This seems much more 'the norm' to me in terms of not needing vast amounts of cash to spend.
What am am wondering though, with all the different posters who have said they 'divide up what is left of the loan after accommodation costs for 40 ish weeks', is where is the money for the accommodation in July, August and September coming from, if it has all gone in to "spends" during those 40ish weeks. Year 2 loan will come in at end of Sept of Yr 2 usually, so the Yr1 money needs to cover spends up to then, unless the student is working through the holidays. If they are working through (which mine all have done), wouldn't that be better building up a cushion for Yr2, than going straight out on accommodation during those 3 months ?

I can answer your question.

I asked Ds if he would prefer I divide his money from us (top up) over 52 weeks or 42 weeks and he chose the latter.
For his 2nd year he has chosen to go into a private halls so it will again be over 42 weeks. If he had to pay over the summer he would need to budget accordingly. (52 week contracts work out slightly cheaper in his university city).

We pay for all accommodation (£7k) and car (he is a medical student so has placements up to 90 mins away so no choice). After that he gets £500 every month

Many students come home for the holidays. They work from their home base, not their university base. So they don’t pay rent to parents. Working from university can add a lot to costs but worth it if they make money.

Like @Comefromaway’s Ds , my Dc also gets the exact amount a student on maximum loan would get ( we top up from min to max amount) .After accommodation costs costs, they have £50 pw to spend on food , going out etc. This is calculated over 52 weeks.

They manage ok and try to keep to that amount spending more some weeks and less others but generally have some money left every term . Obviously when they are home, they don’t have to buy food so they are quids in there . They also work during summer hols to provide buffer for extras / more spenny items/ trips away.

We pay phone and insurance and 1 big shop on drop off.

We plan to pay DDs rent and give her around £500 per month.
She is having a year off so we are going to start putting the £500 into an account for her now rather than wait until she goes so we will be ahead.

Not even tuition loans?

DDs rent in her halls was £8.5k! plus everything to buy in September to set her up! Next year will be cheaper when she moves to a house-however, you pay for more weeks with the house. She gets the minimum loan (just over £4k) so we have had to pay her rent and she uses the loan to live on.

We have had to top up though even though she is fairly frugal. A wash load in her hall is £4.10 then another £4.50 to dry it. 😱

We are in Scotland

@MrsElijahMikaelson1
Depends where that is, but surely there were cheaper options? Students so often want en suite but parents end up paying for that.

If there is a good reason for the ensuite then the Disabled Student Allowance will pay the extra charge. DC1 got DSA to pay the extra £20 pw that their ensuite cost as they needed it due to IBS. It was actually advice on a similar thread here a couple of years ago that led them to apply for it and it was agreed very easily. (Didn't cover the costs of gluten free food though...)

Many universities have room after en suite room. They are certainly not all
taken up by DSA students. I frequently heard that students don’t want to share bathrooms and often want better facilities than at home where they do share. It just makes sense to not have an expensive en suits room if you are on a tight budget. If an organisation is paying the extra, that’s great but it’s rarely £20 a week more. Usually more than that over a basic room.