How much money to give DS at uni?

[B1nky]

DS is off to uni (Warwick) in September and we're lucky enough to be able to fund him. But how much should we give him to live on? What is normal?

He'll be in self-catering halls on campus and we'll pay the rent for these. What might he need to meet other living costs - food, going out, clothes, other stuff I haven't thought of?

He's not a big party animal or into expensive things. Sensible with money but quite naive (he has ASD).

Would be really grateful if anyone could give me advice on amounts and also on what might be the best way to send it (monthly, termly, etc).

Sorry, I know this is a first world problem but I'm quite ignorant about this.

It’s a while since my youngest left University so I’m not making a suggestion for how much, but suggest you pay monthly. Largely because salary is paid monthly and they learn to budget. Obviously campus rent is different.

One standard bit of advice is that the "maximum loan" (about £11k) is meant to cover everything including rent. So a good starting-point is to ensure that your DS has that, through your contributions and any loans. This obviously doesn't work if accommodation alone is nearly all of that, but it's a ballpark figure for a lot of people.

We send DD a monthly allowance of roughly £500, which brings her up to that figure.

Ooh I work in a field where I have experience in this. Hopefully I can help…

Start sending him money weekly, then slowly build up to monthly, otherwise he will struggle to budget if he has never had to do it before.
Get him to practice with budgeting for weekly online grocery shopping before he starts uni - if you don’t typically do an online shop, just get him to practice meal planning with a set budget on one of the supermarket sites, he doesn’t need to actually press the checkout button.
Have an emergency pot for him, but don’t tell him about it unless he really needs some extra funds for something important. Don’t tell him how much is in the emergency pot.

Make sure he steers well clear of buying & selling sites, pawnbrokers etc. It’s a dangerous habit that I see far too often where a young person buys an expensive item when they get paid, a few days later realise they can’t afford their basic necessities, and sells the item for less than they paid for it. Then they do the same thing the next week/month etc.

Re the ASD and naivety, keep reminding him not to buy things for friends/flatmates. No drinks for them on nights out, no getting them emergency groceries if they’ve spent their own money, no lending them money. Sounds harsh, but I’ve seen far too many young people be taken advantage of.

For first 2 we paid accommodation costs and then gave them the minimum loan they would have got. I based this on friends who had kids who did take the loans and got the minimum, so parents paid halls etc. In both cases it was pay per meal or later self catering and they covered the food. We will do the same with next one who starts this year.

Oh and we also started paying it weekly. This was what they wanted - one stuck with that the whole time, the other swapped to termly. They were both able to budget, but one just preferred it.

I got a 2.1 and worked part time throughout. I had zero money sent to me by anyone. Does that not happen these days?

My ds graduated from Warwick two years ago. He isn’t interested in clubs and drinking, sporty and likes to cook.
We paid his hall accommodation and then gave him £500 per month for the first few months to cover one off expenses such as annual gym pass etc and then £300 per month afterwards. Trips home were paid in addition to the monthly allowance.
We gave him the money monthly.

My DDs student loan equated to about £55 a week so I think £500 per month is liveable.

All the time of parents if can’t afford to sub it. I expect in your day you got a bigger loan and accommodation wasn’t as extortionate.

Many unis the accommodation starts at £6.5k and the loan provided is £4.5k. Plus food, laundry etc you’d need a part time job that earned you at least £3-4,000 a year. And that’s the unis with cheaper accommodation.

We send dd £100 on a Monday. A grandparent sends her £200 on the first of the month. Out of that she pays for her food, travel, socialising and chooses to save some too. She does have a job down at uni and when she comes home.
her loan covers about 2/5 of her accomodation costs so we have to top that up. She’s in Bristol and accommodation is extortionate.

Mine was at uni a few years ago but she had approximately £400 a month.

If it was now, I'd probably make that £500 to cover everything

BatheInTheLight - children of the poor get loads. Children of the middle classes have a loan that is less even than rent so it depends on parental income really how well off you are.
In my case after paying rent I paid £150 a week all year to the twins which is quite generous.

My DD used to get £50 a week from her grandparents. We paid the excess on the accommodation (minimum loan), she seemed to survive ok on that but this was in 2019 so things have gone up!

She's not a big drinker and also went vegetarian which also helped. I sent the occasional grocery delivery or just eat voucher. And she'd occasionally give me her table number at Wetherspoons and I'd pay for a jug of cocktails or food to be sent to the table.

Ours is going in September. We are topping up to the maintenance loan they get here which is approx £9,500, but we're rounding it up to £10K. This includes accommodation. She's managed to get that for £6,300 (cheapest already gone).
At 1st she wanted a really fancy ensuite room, but we think she needs to learn to manage and budget money so we showed heron paper the difference she has left to live on if she takes an ensuite at £7,600, rather than the cheap room at £5,300.
From memory it was ~ £50pw as opposed to ~ £88pw, so she decided to go with the cheaper room, although that had gone by then, so she's somewhere in the middle now.
Tbh, I think even £50pw is enough for 1 person for food and entertainment, etc, as she's enough clothes, etc, to last a lifetime. We'll also do her 1st big shop with spices, etc, and any utensils or bits she needs for her room at the start of the year.
If she really needs more, she'll have to get a job.

*her on paper...wish there was an edit function!

We made up to the full loan. After accommodation, my daughter had £500 a month to live on. She's in South of England but not London / SE. She gets the NHS bursary (an extra £5k) but did not have a part time job (couldn't because of her course).

It was plenty. Her accommodation was £160 a week (halls). She worked in the Easter holiday (part time). This included a cheap foreign holiday (air BnB type thing) and by the end of the year, she had managed to save £2,000.

She's fairly sensible and managed to run a car on this (although most of the time it was at home, but had it for placements).

So in our experience £100 a week is plenty.

This is what Warwick suggest as an indicative budget:

On campus residence rent: £300-£900 pcm
Off campus residence rent: £320-£600 pcm (not including deposits)

Bills and internet (if not included in rent): £60-£80 pcm
Travel (public transport): £32 pcm (would be less if living on campus)
Food and general expenses (including cleaning materials, laundry): £200 pcm
Books and materials: £25 pcm (could be lower or higher depending on course)
Clothing: £25 pcm (this is a budget aimed at international students and includes buying climate-suitable clothes so could be less)
Warwick Sport Membership: £10-£32.50 pcm
Socialising, going out, trips and holidays, society memberships, subscriptions and gifts: £100-£150 pcm
Mobile phone: £15-£50 pcm
TV licence: £159 pa

They recommend that students learn to use a budgeting app like this one to develop the skills they need to manage money effectively over the longer term rather than living week to week. Also to account for the fact that some expenses do not fall evenly over the year: https://warwick.unibudget.me/budget

That's pretty impressive to have worked every week of the year about 25 hours a week (I guess you were in minimum wage?) to earn the £10-12k you'd need to get through uni these days.

Well done on that achievement.

Thanks so much to everyone - this thread has given me lots of useful advice and a good ballpark figure.

Thanks @Skullcollector - I will definitely make sure he gets your advice and hopefully he won't fall into those traps! It's a worry sending him away; even though he's very intelligent academically I do worry a lot about the practicalities and awkward situations where he may not know what to do. We're doing our best to prepare him over the summer!

DS receives minimum loan. He pays this to us termly and we put this towards his accommodation and give him a monthly amount to top him up to 10K. He isn’t in London he receives this over 40 weeks term time Sept to June to live off to cover everything else. He comes home at Christmas, Easter and Summer and works part time in the summer holidays. He budgets, makes economies, manages very well on this and has a fantastic social life.