Best way to keep track of money at Uni?

[BobtheFrog]

My DD is hopefully going to Uni this year and I want to help her keep track of day to day spending because, esp with contactless payments, it so easy to go through money without realising - wondering what works for folks?

FWIW tech luddite here, my default was to suggest she took a fixed amount of cash from bank each week, but that feels very 20th century and I think some places don't even take cash these days

How does she manage her money at the moment @BobtheFrog ?

My DS1 is a first year at the moment and he keeps an eye on his mobile banking to make sure he doesn't over spend

Monzo is great. Very user friendly app and tells you how much you're spending daily, monthly etc. you can put each spend into a category so you know exactly where your money is going. I work for another Bank and rave about Monzo as the best app!

Old fashoned spreadsheet. It has her loans, her income ( part time job) , Money from us and then her outgoings . Its on Google drive so if I want I can look ( her choice not mine.
She logs once a week ish all her outgoings from her account ( its all there don[t need a calculator ) then her incomings from job . SHe has given herself a budget for food / fun etc and then if there is any left over she adds it to the (spare) and then she uses if if she wants to do something out of the normal.

crikey, v quick replies, thanks folks

Currently she has a "normal" bank account with contactless card which she uses for snacks and treats etc.

I download the transactions roughly quarterly to a Google sheet and we then marvel at the spend in school vending machine and Costa. She has 2FA on the account so I can only login when she is with me. Not using any Apps or analytics.

With money being almost virtual these days, I feel I have failed as a parent to help build good awareness and good habits - going to Uni will hopefully redress that.

I'd get the student loan money and any parent contributions paid into one account, keep rent money there and put food and fun money into a Food and Fun a/c by weekly standing order. Make sure the Food and Fun a/c starts with some money in it (summer job?) as the first few weeks are v expensive. Worth a conversation about clubs and societies too. Some need subs up front at the start of the year, and you may not want DC to avoid paying for those because of strict weekly budgeting.

Dd has a speadsheet. Many online accounts allow you to code regular expenses from statements. Dc have only ever had regular bank accounts, non student ones. You ned to let go and give her some autonomy. Student loan drops in three times a year and is managed accordingly. Rent in halls is termly but obviously monthly once living out, with regular utilities bills. It is a learning curve but not insurmountable.

My DD used almost all of her maintenance loan to pay her hall fees - I then "paid" her food and fun money monthly, by standing order; that was she couldn't ever spend more than we had agreed per month.

DD has Monzo, she also has a proper student account to get a free £100 and some other benefits but she doesn't really use it
DD keeps all of her loan in a Monzo savings pot alongside other savings and then transfers a small amount to her Monzo current account as she needs it. She get a decent rate of interest and its instant access.
She also had a credit cards linked to her Dads card in case of emergencies or sometimes (with our permission) she uses it to pay for train fares home or similar

Revolut (and I believe Monzo ) have really useful analytics on their apps which really help show there money. goes. You can’t run up an overdraft on Revolut so it can behave rather like a modern version of cash - she can pay a monthly (or even weekly) sum from her main bank account into Revolut and then spend from there. Worked really well for my children.

You really don’t want her lugging cash around, and you can’t always use it anyway.

Monzo pots are great for budgeting

DD2 used Monzo. As soon as she received her loan, she paid her rent, then worked out how much was left over. She divided it by the number of weeks until the next instalment came and transferred that weekly to her Monzo account. She deliberately did not take her "normal" bank debit card out with her, so unless her Monzo account had enough in it, she couldn't afford to go out. She seemed to have plenty of fun and now she is working, she has some really good habits with money.