Weekly spending money at uni after bills/food covered?

[WombatChocolate]

DC is looking at going to a Uni where the halls are fully catered and priced 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. The rents for their halls are high, as they include 21 meals a week.

My question is, how much extra money do you think they need per week in term time?

I know they will still buy snacks and the odd extra meal, but spending in food should be pretty limited. DC isn’t a big drinker but will want to socialise and go out. Realise there will be some bigger costs at start of year for Freshers week etc. But what do you think it would be worth budgeting for them to have weekly?

I’m not so interested in where the money comes from - loans, parental contribution, them working etc. Really interested in what a student who has been fed and watered needs beyond that. Wondering about £60 per week in term time and perhaps £30 a week during hols.

Any thoughts very welcome.

Sorry I can’t help specifically as I don’t have a child at Uni yet, but I am also wondering about this for September. I was thinking £80-100 a week term time if catered as I think the unis my DC is looking at don’t offer lunch, only breakfast and dinner. I’m fairly sure my DH will think this is way too much though. 😆

I also haven't had a child go to university yet, my first is going in September hopefully, so am following with interest.

Some factors that the answer will depend on for you @WombatChocolate are:

will your child be in London?

will they need to pay travel costs to get from their accommodation to their lectures?

Whatever they earn. All students should be working enough to cover non-essentials - they're an adult and can work this out themselves.

My child gets £100 a week during term time in non catered accommodation in a fairly cheap city. She is expected to earn her own money during holidays and does. She says this is on the lower end of what her friends get (not complaining, I just asked) but I think it's generous.

I would have said 40-50, which averages out with your thoughts. Would expect holiday jobs though.

It’s hard to say without knowing more about your dd and how high maintenance she is as people naturally vary. Is she taking a car with her ? Does she do a sport so need equipment and gym membership? How much does she spend on clothes? Toiletries ? will you pay for phone and subscriptions like contact lenses? Does she need to buy prescriptions regularly ?

How long is a piece of string? Depends on city, depends on friendship group. Surely just give what you can, the rest they need to figure out themselves? You're not there to fund their social life. If you're paying for fully catered halls, than you've provided a lot more than most students get.

My DD spent around £50 pw excluding food 2 years ago and £75 pw including food last year (Scotland). She is careful and has cheap SIM only mobile plus free travel locally. We do the pickups/drop offs each term do no costs travel wise.

Ds has about £45-50 per week (extra when he works) but he has to buy his food with that). He usually spends about £20 per week on his food shop so for phone, travel, food out & socialising I'd say about £25-30 per week.

DD2 got £75 a week in first year (term time only). She was self-catering but very frugal and had enough to last her through the holidays.

Presumably we are talking about Durham (??) here given the catered accommodation cost reference. If so I’d be in the £45-£65 per term-time week, which would take the overall contribution up to where the max maintenance loan for students from England should be.

whether that meets need is another question, and I’d concur with @BoohooWoohoo ‘s observations. Experience across 3 different unis is that costs for the same thing - gym membership; specific sports etc - can vary massively.

@WombatChocolate if it's Bristol, the nightlight can be expensive as clubs don't seem to have cheap student nights like some other places. My DC loosely budgets about £100 (regularly goes over) in self catered accommodation and out of that spends about £30 per week shopping.

I would think £40 -£50 a week to start with (excluding Freshers) and see how they go. Also, best not to buy the Freshers wristbands until he starts as a lot of club PR reps pretend to be students to get early sales.
Assuming it's Bristol, there is free bus travel on the buses for UOB students, but not UWE.

A friend's DC is in catered halls at a northern university and cooks occasionally. The DC tells me they often miss breakfast as they wake up too late and snacks a lot on Pot Noodle.

How much does she spend on snacks and socialising as a 6th former? My dcs have followed similar patterns to their general money management throughout their late teens. If she’s frugal now she may continue to be, whereas if she spends money like it’s going out of fashion then she will likely spend whatever she has got.

My daughter started uni in 2019 in non catered accommodation.
We gave her £60 per week. We covered extras like phone, dental appointments, sports membership and some basic clothing.
She bitterly complained!
In her last year we increased it to £80pw.

I read that students who work up to 10 hours pw to earn money statistically have the best results.
Students who don't work or work more than 10 hours do worse

Thanks for your thoughts. To add the extra detail asked for, DC wouldn’t need to pay for daily travel to uni as the fully catered accommodation would be within walking distance. And no, it’s not London.

I realise that costs don’t remain the same every week. Freshers is expensive and there can expensive weeks when they pay for something like a Ball or have to buy a new pair of shoes. If they’ve got the money for the term ahead, understanding expenditure isn’t identical each week and budgeting across a term seems part of the independence.

Again, I’m not so interested in exactly where the money comes from - us/loans/job etc…just want to make sure they have enough to engage with what’s going on and have fun, but also have no problem in it being tight enough to require some thought and budgeting. I don’t want them to be hard-up and not able to join-in or go out, but also don’t want them to have so much cash that they don’t have to give any thought to spending or make any decisions about it.

I know it’s a bit different for each DC and after the first term what seems reasonable might change, but to start off, it’s helpful to have some figures.

I’m hoping to sit down with DS and look at some figures - the price of accommodation, the number of weeks in a term and at home, what looks a reasonable amount per week of term beyond his fully catered halls. After that we will talk about where the money is coming from and talk about loans, our contribution, possible work etc. I want him to understand the costs involved. I suppose I’m just starting from the point of what is the cost of it, and working from there, not what can we give - and you get what you can with it.

One other thought I have is that DS already has some savings from his job and other bits. He will work a few weeks this summer too. Therefore, he will start with a bit of a buffer of perhaps a couple of grand. I’d always think a bit of a buffer is useful for everyone - esp if a big cost suddenly appears. He will have this, but I don’t really want to factor that into the base termly cost/spend, although having it will ease the pressure, if for example he has to pay some yearly club fees upfront, rather than spreading them across the terms.

We will be willing and able to fund house deposits for the year ahead which might be needed before the end of the first term. They ultimately will come out of his yearly income and spend, but he won’t have to draw on that first term’s income to fund them directly, if you see what I mean.

Thanks again.

This is Durham that he’s thinking about. The fully catered colleges with 3 meals a day, 7 days a week are expensive, but seem a good way to meet lots of people and get involved. I know self-catering is cheaper and is growing and growing across universities, but he is keen for catered,and having had that experience 30 years ago, I think it has lots of benefits for the first year.

I agree that some teens will go wild and spend loads and others are more frugal. He isn’t a big drinker or clubbed at the moment and I don’t think he will become one, but he will want to get involved and certainly before meeting his people, will be doing some of that. I don’t want him to feel he can’t join in as he can’t afford it, but likewise, want him to give some thought to spending and have to make some choices. It all seems part of the growing up experience to me.

We are fortunate in that we probably have some flexibility and can afford to give him a bit more, if what he starts with turns out not to be enough. But I want to start with a figure that seems realistic and go from there, rather than have ‘unlimited’ as the starting point.

It depends on your household income, where your child is studying and whether your child is like one of the pampered wealthy Saltburn characters or more down to earth.

The max ML if not studying at home or in London is just under 10K. So maybe subtract the cost you are paying for catered accommodation from 10K and either divide that by 52 and they receive the same amount per week or 39 for term time and they have a part time job to support themselves during the holidays.

They should be able to survive on £40 a week if fully catered but obviously can survive on much less. Its a case of how long is a piece of string if you are willing and able to give them £200 a week and think that is slumming it thats up to you.

Very little then, unlike years ago mine didn't have to buy books. Do they have transport costs? Do you pay their phone contract? If they are getting meals it's literally drinking money!

My dc gets £150 a month but that's self catering

DD is in fully catered accommodation at Nottingham - she has about £80- £100 a week, but doesn't spend it all. I'm encouraging her to save what she doesn't spend as next year she will have to self cater.

We basically pay the accommodation fees, she gets the minimum maintenance loan and lives off that, so anything else, she has to earn. We do pay for her phone contract and travel home though, and some of her sports kit was more than she thought so we have helped out.

@WombatChocolate I forgot to say, we still pay for phone contract, insurance, travel home, subs for clubs and societies and a splurge at M&S when we visit.

In Durham it varies most students mainly socialise in the College bars where drinks are subsidised. Expenditure varies massively.

Some do spend silly amounts on expensive holidays, numerous expensive weekends away, having coffees, snacks/meals out regularly and drink cocktails out. Others are more frugal self catering, food shopping at Lidl and Aldi, go out on student nights, have Pre sessions, drink beer, buy very few clothes have a great time and spend quite minimally and work in the holidays and or during term time.

Okay, so the cost of catered accommodation (non en-suite) in Durham for next year is about £9.8k. As I say…it’s a lot!

So, I’m not interested in where it comes from in the question I’m asking. I can see that if someone has a full maintenance loan and has no access to anything else, they would have zero left over. I’m assuming some mixture of parental input/student work/loan.

If they had £60 per week in term time for 30 weeks - that’s £1800. If they also had £30 per week in 22 weeks of holidays, that’s £660. In total, that’s £2460. So my question is basically if £2.5k beyond the hall fees is enough?

A separate issue is how the money is brought in. For different families that will differ. Some would have the full maintenance loan and then parents would give that additional £2460. Others would have the full maintenance loan and then have a job in term or holiday time and earn the £2460.

In our scenario, what we will give as parents and what DC will decide they need to earn, and what will be taken as loans will be determined by the amount needed.

I think £60 a week if you’ve been fed and watered works out okay if you have cheaper and more expensive weeks. Of course, someone with £100 or £150 could probably spend that. Quite likely if you’d been fully fed and watered, you could survive on £20 too as you wouldn’t starve or freeze, but you might find yourself not able to join-in. Do you think that in this scenario £60 is a good starting figure? Would you go higher or lower?

First off congrats to your DC @WombatChocolate for getting the Durham offer. And it’s only January! 😀

as another pp has suggested taking the max maintenance loan could be a good starting point. I’d argue as per the IFS that as the current max, 9,978, has fallen some way behind inflation a figure more in line with the max for students from Wales, 11720 might be better to work with.

the Durham catered costs are as you indicate….not insignificant. £9745 for a standard over 39 wks, and £10369 for en-suite. Which leaves a balance of £1975 or £1351. Divide by term weeks gives an indicative £45 to £65 per week. That probably would still need some front loading though.

not particularly relevant but I was a bit shocked to see that the shared room discount is only £585.

DC at Durham in 1st yr, fully catered. We give £1k at the start of each term in a lump sum and then they can decide how they split it term time vs holidays so £3k in total for the year. Being fully catered does mean that outgoings vary greatly from one week to the next as it’s all discretionary really. Also this allowed for freshers’ week and start of the year (joining clubs, any books) being more expensive. Seems to be plenty - no complaints about not doing something because of lack of £. None of their friends work during termtime but that may change next yr as living out is even more expensive.