Reasonable monthly living and fun money for a London student?

[Carsexitthroughthecarpark]

Hi all,

I am trying to work out living costs for DD going to Uni in London. She is in catered halls in zone 1 and we have worked out travelcard cost to uni already.

I am currently at:
£25 a week for food (lunches and dinner on Sat/Sun). She doesn't really eat takeaways and is health conscious and good at cooking.
£10 a week for laundry
£10 a month for toiletries - we will start her off with massive multipacks, this will be makeup costs

Where I am getting stuck is fun money. She might be able to do a hospitality shift at the weekend and is looking at tutoring online too. But otherwise is in college for full days, plus practice at night, so won't be able to earn much.

She doesn't drink at all, but does go to concerts, shows, recitals and plays. She likes the odd fancy smoothie or coffee too.

Is £100 a month too much or too little?

Thanks in advance.

DS who went to uni with the bare minimum, his choice, came home that first summer laden with boxes and bags and his GF had a meltdown she’d accumulated so much stuff over the year so didn’t know where to start to pack it all. Also her mum gave her way to much unnecessary crap to take at the start.

We are planning £350 per month but that’s for all food and fun (she is working all summer so will have her savings to top up). We’re also covering her rent to top up above maintenance which will be £500 a month (although paid termly).

Also paying phone and Apple Music subscription.

Tell her to register here ; https://www.host-staffing.co.uk/ . You can choose which events you work at according to your availability and they take people on with no experience.

3 coffees/juice per week

Why?

@Carsexitthroughthecarpark One of the issues to be aware of is that many dc will want the jobs. Many will be eying them up! There’s no guarantee of getting a job these days. Plus she will probably make friends and follow her friends in terms of food out and coffees etc. What she thinks she might do might not be what she actually does when she makes friends. If they go out, when meals are not in the hall, she won’t want to be stuck in her room.

Brunch to last the day, might be difficult with a busy schedule too. And does the hall serve brunch? Probably not. Dancers use energy and need to eat. Dc nearly always spend more in term 1 when they are trying to fit in. We gave dd £100 a week 15 years ago in a catered hall - there’s clothes to buy too!

£25 a week for food is not enough.

@LuckyThatMyBreastsArentSmallAndHumble She’s in a catered hall so this is for food not provided. That’s usually lunch and 2 dinners. Snacks and coffee out at the performing arts studio will add up. It’s quite difficult to judge as it depends what self catering arrangements there are at the hall. Often not much. It depends on DDs eating habits too so I’d try and find out what self catering is possible, what students do for lunch and what dd actually needs to eat to maintain energy, as she’s essentially working all day.

Thanks so much all, this is incredibly useful.

She has an almost certain job lined up, so I'm not too worried about that. I also think that given where her halls are in zone one, there will be jobs galore if not. She is near a lot of the big hotels and has additional languages which will help.

This thread has given me so many things to think about!

It is if you are in catered halls. My daughter probably spends around £35 per week on food (admittdly she is now in a cheaper city) but when she was in London she still had to budget very carefully.

The big issue will be that if she is going to where I think she is (based on your othr threads) that it is one of th einstitutions with top up fees. So that attracts students from more wealthy families than the norm. So if she is tryig to keep up with those students who may not have to worry about money it could be difficult.

Then there wil be those students for whom paying the fees are crippling so have to live on the bare minimum. That was like my daughter.

£75 a week.

@ElizaSchuyler good spot!

Are the halls specifically attached to DDs institution? If not she may find that the meals are not served at times that fitted with her classes. DD was in halls shared between 3 institutions and it worked well for those at uni but a 5pm dinnertime was usually half way through some of her classes so she would have to find her own supper later.