Can I ask how you are managing to afford student accommodation?

[coldchipsfortea]

Hi all

Just looking for people's experiences on this as it can be a bit awkward asking friends what they do without sounding like I'm nosing into their finances...

DD will be going to uni in Autumn - Hall fees look to be around £6.5k for the year. If she got a room in a flat it would be around £600 a month. We have money that we saved for her from when she was tiny which would cover some (but not all) of this. I'd prefer to leave that money if possible - but perhaps I'm being naive on that front? I don't casually have 6 grand lying around - nor can we shell out £600 a month for the next few years without really struggling. We do have savings but the hall fees would wipe them out if we paid upfront, and we are also saving for some fairly necessary house maintenance, so they're not really available.

We've also got a younger DD who might be heading to uni too in a couple of years (providing she actually passes some exams...), so I can't even think about paying for two sets of rent!

What do other folk do generally? Do you use the student loan for accommodation plus top up a bit yourself and expect students to get jobs? I'm keen for my DD to get a part time job as even a little bit extra could really help I think.

I know there's no right or wrong way to do this - it just depends on circumstance, but it would be good to hear from folk just to get a sense of what others do. I'm aware that thousands of families do manage this every year so I am probably freaking out over nothing. I used to think I was good at financial planning, but clearly I'm not!

Are you saying that your dss is having to take gap years to save up for Uni as neither parent will support him ?

It might not be a case of "will support" so much as "can support".

We are going to support DSS as much as we can but yeah he needs to save up before he goes. Wants to go to Bristol and the accomodation costs are eye watering.

Dss also have expensive eating habits. (Gym obsessed and bulking) which he isn't going to be prepared to compromise on so he is going to burn through a lot of money.

He is very young for his year so he won't be a lot older than the others.

DS was clear that he didn't want to work whilst studying, so he has the cheapest possible accommodation ( eg halls but no ensuite) and next year will be sharing a house that costs about £420 pm. We did look at housing costs when choosing universities, and there is a huge difference depending on where you go, but also even in the same city - eg a friend paid £50 pw more than we did for halls at the same university.
DS has a loan which covers most of the accommodation costs ( about 80%) and we top up as and when necessary. But he is quite cheap to maintain, happy shopping at the local Aldi, doesn't go out much. If your DC is more sociable and needs money for that, then they may need to work unless you can sub them. DS has about £200 pm plus a termly accommodation top up of about £400.

Finding £6k for accommodation, is a struggle for most families.

We don't have a huge amount of spare disposable income. Ds1 paid his accommodation from minimum grant, We pay a small amount to him monthly and he has a job whilst at Uni.

Dd gets a bit over the minimum loan. I top up to the level of the maximum loan which works out me paying her about £4000 / year which I split into 12 monthly payments. It more or less covers her rent; the loan she gets is for food, bills and everything else. She works in the holidays and chose a cheapish uni city, thankfully.

A lot of people think that childcare expenses are high but it is also advisable to budget for supporting your DC through Uni (probably cheaper than a nursery?)

Hi, is it an allowance for living in central london? We are giving our dd 650 per month and I am thinking its a bit too much as I think she does not spend all this money. She is not working now though...

@futureistoday - yes an expensive bit of central london too. She's a musician so has costs like strings etc which rack up quickly too. If your DD isn't spending all the money is she being sensible and saving it? If so and you can afford it then maybe continue.

I think OP was actually asking how do parents afford to pay several thousand quid for 3-4 years. Longer if you have more than one child.

I'm upping my hours at work to make the £5k needed to top up.

@BuggerBeige don't think @londonmummy1966 is bonkers at all .. DD is in central London and get numbers stack up pretty similarly .. it's expensive ... we knew that .. she works .. helps tutor younger DCs and has a job and will work hols and we have made other changes so we can make sure she has this amount. We went in with our eyes open but London living is a lot

Her not get

@futureistoday in our house experience don't think that is too much .. our numbers are similar .. and DD doesn't drink .. so she's not partying our money away - literally it's living costs and making sure she can eat and look after herself ok ..

Gosh the typos today ! Sorry ! In our own experience ..