How much monthly spending money do you give a student at university?

[rouk]

My YP is starting at Sheffield Uni next week.

They’re getting the minimum maintenance loan (£5,048), and we're covering the £1k gap for their shared-bathroom halls.

On top of that, we’ll pay for their phone, Spotify, Netflix, and train trips home. Their course is demanding, so term-time work isn’t realistic, though summer work is an option. Is £500/month in spending money reasonable while at uni, in their first year?

We gave our children £400 per month and that was 8-10 years ago so £500 sounds about right. They had part time jobs to top up .

You'll find people wildly disagreeing depending on expected lifestyle! Many MNers (including me) pay their children a 'top up' over the year to Maximum Loan (so £10.5k - £5k = £5.5k) outside London, so if you've already contributed £1000, you're about right.

I gave £1000 a term ( London)
They both had 12 hour jobs

We are topping up the min maintenance loan he gets to cover rent.
On top of that we’re doing £500/month to cover food, transport, living expenses etc. We’d probably pay for occasional expensive trains home. No idea if it’s the right amount but there was a Bristol student living expenses guide on the Bristol website and that’s what looked sensible from that.

We are giving £400 for London, have paid the accommodation which is catered.

We gave her a bit more for the first month. She is trying to earn some too and saved a lot in the summer working.

My ds was on basic maintenance so we paid the difference of his rent then gave him £45 a week for food. He worked 12 hours a week for everything else.
Our youngest son is in the USA we pay his rent and he is allowed up to $50 a week on food shop. He worked all summer to pay for any extras.

We give £50 a week and pay the difference in rent/ maintenance, we do phone contract and occasional top up shop when visiting

£750. Everything including phone, transport etc comes out of that. She has (and needs) a car. She pays for fuel. She’s looking for a job but it’s difficult where she is. She did have an job over summer holiday.

£500 sounds like a good amount but I’d want that to include subscriptions too and it does depend a bit on whether how much they will be spending on necessary public transport.

also …. How demanding is demanding? If medicine, nursing etc then I do get it but I think a fit young person should be able to manage 50 hours per week combined study time and paid work. My sixth former pretty much did that whilst doing a levels.

Minimum loan here. We gave £350 a month and pay for about £700 of the accommodation that the loan doesn’t cover.

We paid the accommodation for our 2 DC, and they lived on their minimum loan, plus anything they earned in the holidays.
I thought it was important they learned to budget, and make the loan last the full term.

I’m a single parent so can’t afford £500 a month, I was thinking of giving dd around £50 a week for food. She has savings for everything else, no maintenance loan and her grandmother is paying rent.

Well, it sounds like she is quite fortunate if she doesn’t need to take out a maintenance loan at all? That’s very unusual unless someone has a decent income and can afford to support the accommodation costs in full, as it sounds like her granny csn; lucky her! Is there another parent who might contribute to her daily living costs. Guessing not :(

DS will have the minimum loan, which works out at just under £100 per week (over 52 weeks). He will be paying his own phone bill, food shop (except the first one) and everything else. I've suggested he aim to live off £100 / week, obviously the holidays will be cheaper but that gives him some buffer.

We pay the rent and they use the (minimum) loan plus earnings to live on. We also pay for their phone (SIM only), Spotify (family subscription), a food shop when they go back (we usually drive them as public transport a PITA for both unis).

Loan covers rent . We give £300 a month , plus pay for phone , journey back and forth from home to uni and back at the start and end of every term. Paid for anything they needed start of term eg new shoes , a wok , bedding , duvet etc And we paid for her first food shop . We will adjust to £350 if needed. She worked and saved summers and Saturday job so has extra money .

@DogAnxiety dd is fortunate that her grandmother has savings, she’s agreed to pay rent for this year (£7500) but I’m not sure for the subsequent years.

Dd has also taken two years out so has a decent amount of money saved up.

That said I’m not sure if I’m being naive in thinking she didn’t need any maintenance loan at all 🙈 I guess I’ll see how this year goes.

Thank you everyone for all the answers! We'll start with £500 and adjust later if needed. The degree is dental surgery and it's very demanding.

Mine has just started at Sheffield too OP. We’re going for £500 for spending money on food, social, phone, travel etc. He’s pretty careful with money so we’ve said to see how that goes and we can keep under review. He may try and get a job, he’s a saver, and I can see him wanting to save money for holidays in the summer etc. We’ll probably pay train fare for coming home in the holidays too.

I’m not sure if it’s the same for the dentists as the medics that they can have longer terms than other students therefore need more money.

£400 a month. Dd is catered and I pay for phone. No
loans.

We pay rent, bills, gym, phone and the annual bus pass. Probably throw in a few grocery shops. My DD says it takes a £100 a week to keep her after that. That is funded from her summer work. She saved 4.5k from working in the summer so that is her sorted for the year. No maintenance loan. She has zero capacity to work on top of her course.

It's a very fair amount, but how well £500 works really comes down to personality and peer group pressure.
Some kids can manage £500/month brilliantly, budget for groceries, and still save. Others get swept up in the social status of their flatmates—if their circle is constantly going to expensive nights out or buying fancy coffee every morning, they’ll struggle no matter what you give them.
My top tip: set up a standing order weekly -£125/week rather than giving them £500 in one lump sum. It stops them overspending in the first fortnight when trying to match everyone else's spending habits!

My dc have £300 a month each, non catering so they buy food as part of that. One has a bus pass too so doesn’t pay for any travel.

My daughter that’s just graduated from Sheffield and we did exactly the same as you. Topped up accommodation and £500 a month plus phone and car.
She could have managed absolutely fine on that but also had a job. She worked part time one shift a week in job that paid well too.