Uni budget - can students really live on £40 a week!

[scattysue]

My friend recommended I join a Facebook group called What I want to know about university. I have done and it has really made me think because so many posters on there say their kids live on £35-£50 a week at uni (excluding rent and utilities). This strikes me as VERY low - my eldest DS budgets £60 on a Sainsbury’s shop each week (including alcohol for pres and lots of meat protein) and then, as I want him to socialise and have fun too, I fund two nights out a week (£25 each time) plus gym (£8 a week), laundry (£9 a week - 2 loads of washing and drying as he does so much sport) and then £13 for miscellaneous . So I give him £140 a week. That struck me as fair but now I am wondering if I am too generous! What do u think? DS does work 20 hours a week in hols but he uses that money to fund his car/clothes/holidays - not uni. He gets minimum maintenance loan, pays it to us and we pay rent and, as I say, give him £140 a week during uni terms. Am I out of touch? Or is this uni Facebook group I joined overly frugal and unrealistic?

We pay rent she lives off English min loan which is just under £100 a week.
Laundry is something to factor in, my DD’s halls yr1 was circuit laundry which was expensive.

£100 / wk is if spread over a full year, it’s more like £140 per week based on term time.

Recognise some DC especially once living out will be in their Uni town / city quite possibly longer than just term time, but many will return home for at least part of the holidays, and presumably not be charged for food etc in the parental home. But likely to have uni private accommodation rent still to pay of course. Though you’d also hope they may, certainly in the summer holiday, have at least a part time job to bring some cash in.

Basic gym near me is £20-£35 per month depending what options you go for (peak/off peak).
Fancy hotel one with gym pool sauna etc is around £60 per month if you pay the whole lot in one go for a year, or £65ish monthly.
Im sure there are gyms that can be £100+ especially if you add in any kind of PT stuff but its not the average I would say.

Mine certainly couldn’t survive on £40 a week after rent and bills. DS’s travel costs were approximately £35 a week and DD has a weekly minimum spend on college catering of £20, which is the cost of 4 evening meals. I guess £40 could easily cover her food costs even with expensive minimum charge but there would be nothing left for necessities like laundry, mobile phone, travel, printing, toiletries, let alone buying a coffee or beer.

£140 is very generous though.

@Zodiacrobat Don’t students join the uni gym? Not sure they go to ones not at uni much.

It wouldn’t be fun as £40 isn’t much but on the other end you are certainly a bit too generous

It depends on the uni, I have dc at Bristol using a local gym because the uni gym is too busy and another dc who paid a 1 off fee of around £300 to join the Warwick campus gym for a year and now lives in Leamington spa and uses a local gym chain in the town.

£40 a week is low, £140 is very high!

Flipping heck OP we give our DS £200 a calendar month! Hoping to cut that back now he’s got a job in second year.

Yes but @Comefromaway was asking in general about gym memberships at the end of her post I was replying to.
My DC gym at Uni is around £300 for the academic year Sept to end May so around £37 per month.

Similar at my DC's uni - 30 pounds / month

That’s neatly one week of money out for gym every month then on the £40 a week scenario. Even less left for food and everything else.

I don't think people are suggesting £40 is all they spend, ( for some it will need to be though) just that is a reasonable amount for ( some) parents to give. The student then needs to use money saved from summer job or child trust fund etc. to top up. Giving them a relatively low amount helps them focus their mind on what spending is essential.

Did not read the entire thread, apologies if I repeat what was already said. I find the student loan system so unfair. A lot of students are on minimum loan but their parents cannot afford thousands a year to support their children. I know they are meant to learn good skills such as money management but DD has friends where the parents only top up the maintenance loan to pay for their accommodation fees and everything else is up to them. They are unable to find work in their new cities and are panicking already as they are running low on their savings from summer jobs.

We are in the fortunate position to be able to pay for DD's accommodation when she goes next year (she's on a gap year, having deferred) and it will be catered accommodation at least for her first year. We will continue to pay her phone bill, she does not have a car, her gym membership will be on campus and I am happy to pick up that bill too as it is important for her mental health. This will leave her appx £90/week plus her savings from working during the summer. I do know this is generous and I do feel fortunate to be able to afford this. DD is really good at budgeting and I would not be surprised if she has savings when she finishes her course.

The system should be reviewed to ensure students can at least have their essentials covered such as full accommodation and food cost.

More in line with Wales where there is effectively no income threshold, but rather where income for the model in Wales dictates the grant:loan split only.

DD gets £200 pcm and a £100 Sainsburys voucher
We pay for her phone and she has a credit card she can use for travelling home etc.
We also pay her rent

WIWikAU is my fave love/hate fb group. Some of the people on there really do sound like they’re making up the low sums their kids live off. I can only imagine the kids have enormous overdrafts because I can’t see how it would be feasible at all. Obviously there will always be a range of budgets, but I don’t see how anyone could participate in uni life based on those amounts, even in a catered college. And you can’t guarantee uni students being able to get a job.

I also find it odd how judgy people are about the higher amounts ‘how ludicrous!’ when I’d never post that under someone who was listing out a really small budget- albeit I am commenting here anon!

WIWikAU is my fave love/hate fb group

Same 😳

Peoples expectations at both extremes are wild. I’ve seem people saying they give huge amounts as their “YP” needed to do a course in London, needed a one bed flat, needs Ubers everywhere, needs to eat out twice a day as they don’t enjoy cooking, needs private sports coaching and exclusive gym membership and a clothes budget more than most people’s mortgage, but also you get people with fake befuddlement that anyone is supporting their kids at all and acting like it’s normal to rent their room out before the bed is cold.

Realistically though, parents who can’t afford gym membership for themselves aren’t handwringing about their adult child not being able to afford it either whether it’s £20 a month or £150.

@RavenPie ’fake befuddlement’ is such a perfect summation. My particular favourite is when their kids apparently tell them they’re giving them too much, and so they’re going to drop it next term. Righttttt.

£140pw??? Our family of 4 live on £10 more. You’re utterly mad imo. How will he finance this life when he leaves uni??

I went to uni in 2012, and had £50 a week, but that was with my parents doing a big food shop at the start of term. I used to bring every article of clothing I had and just take washing home. I always lived in halls so bills were included.

I used to get my £50 once a week and blow it all on two nights out lol. I was in York, so walked literally everywhere, including home from nights out. I didn't bother with the gym, and only attended cheap societies. I was awful with money to be honest, but I save £700 a month now and I'm very careful with money! If I'd have had £140 a week I'd have deffo spent it all on nights out and takeaways at that age lol.

My little girl is only 16 months old, but (not talking into account future inflation), I would probably give £35 a week for food, £35 a week for fun, £10 for laundry, then £10-30 for travel, depending on the uni. I'd buy one off purchases like books. Though in all honesty I never bought books, I just borrowed them from the library. The gym imo is a luxury not an essential. As an adult I would not pay for the gym if I couldn't afford it, even if it was for a hobby. There are plenty of other ways to exercise. My uni always had things like free Zumba classes, etc. You can jog, or etc.

We are giving £150 a week. I reckon food alone is £15 a day in hall.

So Dd has £94 a week to live off after all rent and bills. No transport costs and laundry and gym included .

we spoke today and she says she’s not got enough money which is worrying me. I haven’t dared ask how much she’s spent already. She said she’s spending £50 a week on food and is trying to look at prices, put things back because it’s too much, doesn’t have biscuits as she can’t afford them, etc (she has coeliac disease so biscuits are expensive).

she’s doing architecture and says she is spending a lot on material.

i am worrying now about how she’s (we) are going to manage. We are stretching ourselves by paying her rent. I can’t keep topping her up as well. I gave her an extra £50 last week as I had some money left the day before payday but think she’s going to need more than an extra £50 a week.

she did say she’s had an expensive few weeks with materials, they had course trips to two other cities and she had to pay for train tickets, someone had a birthday and she went for a meal, she’s going to a Halloween party and had to buy a costume. She thinks that will calm down but is worried about Xmas. She wants to buy her bf and his parents something. I’ve told her not to worry about us and that we will also give her money for Xmas.

She does need to adjust.

Part of Uni (and life in general) involves looking at prices and putting back things that are too expensive, and going without luxuries if money is tight.

She doesn't need to buy a costume, she needs to rifle through charity shop rails and her and her friend's wardrobes to put together something vaguely creative. Black paper rolled into a cone for a hat and a black mini skirt to be a witch. White dress and a £4 tub of white face paint to be a ghost.

Presents between girlfriends and boyfriends when I was at Uni were little things we'd made ourselves if you happened to be able to crochet or sew or random things we'd picked up in charity shops. One year I bought my boyfriend a packet of HobNobs for his birthday- they were his favourite and usually he couldn't afford to buy biscuits in his weekly shop. She can't be buying a present for his parents with money you can't afford to spend.

You can't put yourself into poverty to subsidise an unrealistic lifestyle. £94 is more than enough for a young adult, but she can't live like she's earning a professional wage because she isn't.

She’s got more to spend each week than my daughter has on full loan. If you are paying her rent then even on min loan she’s got more.

but my daughter doesn’t go out for meals except one society meal once a year. A birthday would be a pizza or a couple of drinks in Wetherspoons. Halloween costumes would be made up of stuff she already had with added make up.

she does budget for one coffee shop coffee per week.