How much allowance to give when 18 year olds living at home?

[Bougis123]

My 18 year old DD is about to start at a local college and will be living at home (London). We want her to manage her own finances but realise she won't have time to work during term time. We'll pay for travel, phone, family holidays, college supplies and any food at home. How much weekly allowance should we give her for everything else? Any thoughts?

I don't think I've ever seen a thread suggesting that university students shouldn't work. Most threads point out that, the gap between maintenance loans and actual living costs is such that, if parents can't support student DC financially at all, the DC likely to have to work so many hours to the point that it will start adversely affect their study.

Not that they shouldn't get a Saturday job or work a couple of evenings a week, which is what's being suggested on here.

OP - I take it your DC didn't work during sixth form either? Even more reason to get some work experience.

Honestly @redskydarknight there's been loads of comments like this. Anytime someone says they can't afford to support them through university and that they'll have to get a job. There will be dozens of posters jumping on them saying how unfair that is because they can't possibly get a job as they need to study. I've seen it so many times. It happened to me on my own thread!

DC’s grammar school sixth form recommended no more than 8-10 hours a week.
Totally anecdotal but the teens who got top grades and secured highly ranked university places or competitive degree apprenticeships all worked.

I went back to college in my early 40s and can remember one tutor ask if anyone worked outside of college . She said that those typically who work, run a home and also have college work typically do worse than their peers who don’t work.

well in this day and age we work to live and I worked to give us extra money so had no choice. From that day I was determined to prove her wrong.

my friend and I who both worked got As. It’s all down to hard work and determination, and also time management.

This is MN so expect to be told all DC should work. It's usually followed by " my parents gave me nothing so why should other young people get supported "
It's your choice. Some form of part time work in holidays is useful for the cv but not essential.

As to allowances maybe just a small increase in whatever you gave at 6th form? Also I would recommend giving money to pay for phone, travel, etc as part of the allowance rather than paying for her. She should be able to get a student bank account and manage her own money.

@Zerro

Usually followed by I wouldn't dream of charging my children to live at home/making a profit off them.

A bit of balance is needed here.
Working provides other things than just money.
My son is home for the summer, he gives me £300 a month, but I'm still paying his phone, sky sports, most of the holiday costs. His contribution covers food and a share of the bills.

I agree. I have two grandsons at university and they both have jobs but manage to keep on top of their work while still having a social life.

Bit concerned about all the recruiters on here saying they wouldn’t even interview someone with “zero paid experience”.

My children do/did voluntary work. Isn’t voluntary work as worthy
as paid work?

Just wow

My son worked all through his degree. It’s really important to instil a work ethic into them. You aren’t doing your DD any favours.

No it’s different to paid work.
In a competitive market yp with just work experience/voluntary are at a disadvantage compared to those with that plus paid work.

DofE has really cheapened voluntary work on YP's CVs unfortunately. Too many micro-shifts, organised by mummy and undertaken in a desultory, box-ticking manner.

So if that's not the nature of the voluntary work they've done, phrase it carefully.

I think it depends what it is. Whilst the voluntary work my DC have done (park run, library) has undoubtedly taught them some valuable skills, it's not really comparable to the experience they've got in a paid job. One huge difference is your ability to choose what you do and don't do as a volunteer and to know you can just walk away if you don't like it.

I recruit but not in a tick box way. We pay less attention to "experience" especially if that experience is a Saturday job in Tesco and completely irrelevant to the role and more to personality and culture fit. I honestly couldn't care less if someone has worked in a bar during university - it tells me nothing about them as a person.

People probably wouldn’t like my take on this, but i’ll say it regardless.

DD is 19 at uni, she has no student loans and I give her a maintenance loan of £140 per week (only during term time). It is a lot of maintenance money but DD is very frugal and good at saving, so anything leftover goes into her savings account for the future. I didn’t have time to work part-time when I was at uni and neither does DD, as she does a very demanding and challenging course and I want her to focus primarily on her studies instead.

I do understand the importance of a part-time job in teaching young people the value of money and giving them experience to put on their CVs, but DD knows the value of money as she helps work as a cleaner for my company, and holds multiple leadership/student ambassador roles at university so I’m not worried about her CV being bare for when she applies for placements either. If she didn’t have either of those things, I would push her to get a PT job.

OP, in your situation I think you need to see how much free time she has outside her course first and recognise what she’s primarily spending money on, then set an allowance from there. At the end of the day you can always tweak it depending on how good she is with managing money.

I didn't give anything to my DD while she was doing a year long diploma while living at home. I paid for phone, travel and bought her personal items (shampoo etc). She could have got a job if she wanted more spending money.

I wouldn't give any spending money at 18, you've covered all her living expenses and anything else she wants she should work and pay for. Truth be told, considering how difficult jobs are to come by with the degree she's doing, some work experience would stand her in good stead further down the line 🤷‍♀️

I worked a job in the lower sixth for personal money but I was under no illusions that anything other than the learning came first and work should not interfere with grade achievement. If you are a student your primary task is to be just that. If you can work and learn fine, but if you don’t have to and can’t juggle job and studies you shouldn’t

I'd be delegating the travel and phone to her at this point, even if it means giving a larger allowance to cover it. It's easy not to see how much things cost if it's not coming out of your own budget. (We delegated those at 16, although partly because DD is so frugal that we needed her to get used to spending on something!)

This.

Perhaps she could get a live out for the summer job - with art, she'd be able to apply to work in language summer schools running some activities. It could be a good contrast to live out in the summer among other young people if she's living at home term times and focussing in her studies.

Mine is about to start an integrated masters degree and he has 2 jobs, albeit he might need to give one up. I’m not giving him an allowance. I’ll help him out if he needs but just as I worked as a student, so can he

I do think there is more scope for them to work if they are living at home
I thought mine had enough to do when away from home with doing cooking etc
They did not work term time as I preferred them to focus on their studies
We paid £1100 a month
DC1 did really well and walked into a good job

Wow.

I can't even contemplate giving £1100 a month to my kids for university.

But I suppose if you are used to paying for private education, it's actually cheaper 🤷

We did not use private education.
I do not believe in it