How much money in total does your student in halls receive?

[WombatChocolate]

I’ve read a number of similar threads. People often talk about ‘paying accommodation’ and then the student living on their minimum maintenance loan, but these don’t give total figures of how much it is costing to live.

Please could people say how much the total to cover everything is. I’m not so interested in whether it comes from parents or loans or grandparents, but the total given and the city/area they study in.

I think this would be really useful info for myself and others with teens setting off in the autumn. We can then work out how much we might need to give them, knowing how much maintenance loan our individual circumstances will mean they get.

I guess I’m interested to know if people are topping up, to the full maintenance loan or significantly beyond this.

Hi. I’m the OP on this thread. Please can I ask if people posting can mention the TOTAL amount their kids are getting for a year in Halls. People keep mentioning paying for accommodation (without giving a figure) and that they have the minimum loan.

Those who say their teen has £11k made up of loan and parental contribution, or they have £14k made up of loan and bursary, or £12k from loan+parent contribution+ £1k earned over summer etc etc are what I’m looking for.

Thanks v much. I want to know the total figures, as then I can work out what to give/plan for.

But thats because accommodation costs vary and what you really need to know surely is how much the kids need to live on.

Accommodation costs can vary to the tune of thousands. You could be paying £9k a year at one university and only £4k elsewhere.

@WombatChocolate which uni are you looking at?
Dd gets the minimum loan and this is used for all her expenses. She also has a job to top up if needed.
We pay the 9k accommodation fees.

Looking at Durham.

Yes I know accommodation costs can vary enormously. But even with that factored in, kids seem to have significantly diffeeent amounts of money to live on.

Is £50 a week enough if you’re in fully catered accommodation (21 meals a week at Durham)
Lots of people seem to talk about £100 per week for spending after accommodation. That seems a lot to me if they have their food provided and to be honest, a lot even for those in self catered who need to buy food.

Is £50 for spending wildly out of line with the reality?

I think so but others won’t. We budget for £20 a day spending money including food, more in the first few weeks when they’re doing freshers week and signing up for events.

We just pay the rent.

Assuming food is about £50 a week that leaves about £90 a week for socialising, travel, sport etc

Ds spends about £35 per week on food which includes 1/2 Macdonalds or Wetherspoons per week then has £30 ish left over for everything else.

He doesn’t drink or vape. If he did he’d need a bit more.

Is £50 for spending wildly out of line with the reality?

DD gets £50 a week for everything - she buys food at Aldi and has nights out anything else she earns. They have so many weeks off she’s back home next week working full time til October -

Thats 5 months to fill her bank account so she doesn’t need to work when there although does pick up bar jobs if she wants to get out and meet people and doesn’t have the money.

Good question OP.

I would bet that the majority of parents can't find £6-10k to cover accommodation or £200 pw spends.

We will have to top up DD's minimum loan to pay accommodation but for the first year we're going to play it by ear regarding weekly/monthly allowance. So starting with £60 pw and we'll see how she manages on that. She'll work throughout the summer holidays now and when she comes home.

£300 a month spends
Plus this year we spent about £2k on accommodation which was the difference between the loan and accommodation cost. Previous years it's been more as we paid the whole accommodation cost and he only got the tuition fee loan but it was too expensive finding £10k a year.

Self catering so all food comes from the £300 a month (but that's only term time)

Over the year it's about 6/7 months away so £2100 spending plus £2k accommodation.

It's really hard to budget for as accommodation costs come out in three or four lumps (August deposit?, Sept/Oct, January, April) heavily weighted to the start of the academic year.

We managed by opening a high interest savings account that allows 3 withdrawals a year, and adding regular amounts but taking out in Sept, Jan and April.

My son is headed for Durham this September too. I really worried about how to pay for it all but it's the only Uni in England that does the joint honours he wants to do. We have selected hill colleges so he can self-cater to keep costs down. I don't know what we'll do if he is only offered a catered college. He only qualifies for the basic Maintenance loan but I have 2 other teens to support and money is already tight.

Remember the "per week" spends only need be max 31 weeks of term time as they'll be back eating all your food home the rest of the year.

My DC is at Cardiff which regularly seems to come up in lists as one of the cheapest student cities in the U.K. They live comfortably on about £10k / annum so just above the max maintenance loan level.

We have two at Uni in London / Kent.

Both pay £8k rent (basic campus en suite) and getting £5k to live on, so £13k each.

Neither are party animals. One is spending it all and the other is saving a bit each month!

As well as total cost, consider when you're giving them the money - trembly lump sum or monthly?

What about during the holidays and term 3 when they might be home early?

eg you might want to give £100pw but only for 32 weeks

*termly

Although the amounts are trembly

Chichester non catered halls en suite room are about 7500. Fees covered by loan. We send 60.00 a week for food etc. Also do big shop at start of term, phone contract and travel costs and anything extra. Ds works in the holidays, budgets well.

DS finished last year but he got minimum loan which he had paid into our account. We then paid his rent monthly (which was way more than the loan amount) and gave him £50 a week for food on his Monzo card. He got an extra £100 a month from a grandparent, and we paid for his bus pass/train travel home. I would also bung him extra money for events/holidays if he was short as I know he budgeted well and worked hard.

He worked in the holidays and saved this money which was used for extras/clothes/social life. He hasn't got time to work while at uni as his degree was full on. I do wonder if £50 a week would go far enough now though, as food prices have increased significantly.

Around 8k each for halls and small weekly budget for food, we also pay for phones

My sons have left Bristol now, but I paid hall fees (and then rent) so eg Wills Hall this year single room with basin catered 42 weeks is 8820. I paid the university fees £9250. I paid 150 a week for 52 weeks. I provided a car (still do) which the twins share and food when at home in holidays.

Maintenance So that is 8820 plus the 150 x 52 - total £16,620 plus costs of car

Plus the 9250 fees

Total £25,870.

I kept the 150 the same in year 2 (as it is quite generous) even though the rented house did not have catering provided and even though they had to pay for heat, light, wifi etc in years 2 and 3.

Dc manages their own money week to week. We give them our parental contribution every term about same time that their termly minimum loan comes in. This means we top up minimum loan to full student loan amount

They have about £53 per week left after accommodation ( inc bills). This is calculated over 52 weeks but obviously when they are home over holidays they won’t be buying food

We pay- phone , insurance and 1 big shop at beginning of year

They work 3 months of summer to get a couple of thousand buffer for all the big extras ( trips away, gig tickets, ball tickets etc)

They are in collegiate uni so some entertainment/ formals are tied up in Colleges.

They are quite frugal -ie Cooks enough for 4 and freezes and can budget well / not wasteful

They managed to save a bit of dosh in first year whilst in fully catered halls and doing full on college events ( ie they had a little of the full student loan amount left at end of year ) . This year that won’t be happening, but when I last asked they said they manage ok.. they spend the £53 and dip into built up summer savings for big items when they need to

Oviously working during summer to get a buffer makes the difference and means the pressure is eased

DD gets the full maintenance loan plus a bursary of £1100 this year. We weren’t expecting the bursary but it has meant that she’s had a little bit extra to play with. Rent has been around £7k for self catered so she has had the remainder for all other expenses. Next year’s rent will be just over £8k so she has been living fairly frugally to make sure she has a bit of a buffer for that.

For those who are expressing how unfair it is that students on full maintenance loans have so much money, I’m more than happy to swap situations with them. I would rather not have had to I still in DD that she has to live within her means as we have nothing extra to give if she runs out.

We gave Ds the choice. We told him that our top up came to a certain figure and he could have it monthly or weekly (not termly as we needed it to come from our wages, not savings).

He could have £68.50 per week during term time only or £40 per week over the whole year.

Some of these numbers are mental. They’ll have less disposable income when they live independently! What happened to the days of eating beans on toast and pasta with jar of sauce? Nursing a single pint all evening. They’re probably out drinking 10 quid cocktails on these budgets. I can’t believe some people are saying their children are putting money into savings.