Supporting DC at university- how much did your outgoings change?

[Majoring]

Inspired by the retirement age thread!

If you're DC only qualified for the minimum loan how much have your outgoings changed in either direction once they started uni? (Assuming you're weren't paying school fees)

We currently pay a lot each months for clubs, music lessons etc and I'm hoping monthly spending may even go down? Saving a bit each month specifically for the loan shortfall but that's becoming harder to do.

Im hoping my DC will be able to get part time jobs too. Lots of variables o know but just wondering what others experiences are?

Just sorting our budget for Sept 2023. DC will get minimum loans. Currently DC gets every month;

£100.00 chore money
£100.00 lesson activity money
£40.00 gym and phone

I estimate our added outgoings are;

£100.00 water and energy DC showers a lot!
£100.00 food for college and extra meat fresh stuff at home etc he is diet conscious and very food orientated.

Total £440.00

Budgeting £600.00 a month to support him for 6 years so hoping I only have to find another £260.00 a month to make up the shortfall (440 + 260 = 600). I have 40 k saved up but I’m trying not to touch this and get the monthly £600.00 from the monthly budget. It will be tight. DC also has the CTF which he can access in August when he is 18 it is currently £6000.00 which he knows is his emergency fund for University.

600-440=160 not 260

Are you planning on supporting your DC £600 a month including rent or giving them £600 a month to live off?

If the latter it is an obscene amount and you could certainly cut back on this figure.

Learn them to budget and the value of money (by having a summer job) before they go, to be less entitled and more realistic and also learn them how to shop, meal plan and how to cook for themselves.

That’s even better then! Maths especially mental maths was never my strongest point. No excuses let’s hope DC can budget better than me DC is doing Maths A level I just scraped through my GCSE Maths with a C.

With raising costs and rent I would budget £500-£600 per month. There is no support or consideration for multiple children attending university at the same.

DC currently volunteers in a hospice every week so I have intentionally encouraged them not to seek paid employment until after A levels. I would expect them to get a summer job and we are looking into training to be a lifeguard or something similar. I’m not sure how I am going to give the money. My husband and I grew up in poverty with no parental support what so ever and I suppose I would like my DC to learn to manage money better than we both did in our twenties and thirties. I have no control over the CTF it was invested in S&S and it did very well from some Xmas and birthday money being deposited into it over the years. DC understands this is an emergency fund for University and needs to make it last and add to it if possible. I will open a LISA when they turn 18 and deposit their birthday money into it and I am hoping they continue to put in a little bit even when they are at University. The first hurdle is the A levels and at the moment all focus is on them and again there is no guarantee in life.

@BeeBB sorry didn’t answer your question £600.00 includes rent so minimum loan and £600.00 a month from us needs to cover all expenses.

£600 with minimal loan would include rent from me.

We originally budgeted 5k a year which takes them into maximum loan territory, but dc2s accommodation costs are almost 8k, which would give them 1k a year to live on. So it's costing us almost 8k a year plus she has a termtime job. Dc3 will take a gap year and spend a good proportion of that working and saving. Depends on where they go and the lifestyle they want - we've always said we'll cover rent and food but lifestyle has to be paid for with a job.

We get minimum maintenance grant so have to top up the accommodation costs by approximately £4-5k and then add more for food and travel plus DC does have a part time job.

What is difficult is that the maintenance grant is paid in 3 stages so you need to budget to meet the gaps and shortfalls. Student halls monthly payments are usually condensed into a shorter period than the rental term so that there are higher monthly costs. The halls and private rent costs are usually contracts that run from Sep - July even though the students are unlikely to be there for all of that time. Oh and beware that a few months into their first year the scramble for 2nd year accommodation starts and you need to have deposits ready for this.

Im hoping my DC will be able to get part time jobs too. Lots of variables o know but just wondering what others experiences are?

I think Uni is incredibly hard for students now, so much more pressure than we ever had.
So i actively encouraged my DD not to get a job (she was doing a health related degree and had many hours of placement) and gave her an amount of money that she could draw down on, if needed for emergencies.

She did get a job in yr 3 but because she wanted too not because she needed too

In her 3 years at Uni, a student on her course took his own life and another who she didn't know did the same.

Its bad enough them having to worry about their uni work without worrying about money too.

2 years after grad, she has a good job and has paid me back some (without me asking) what i gave her.

Thats not as bad then.

My sons rent in year 1 is payable in 3 termly instalments for I think something 40 or 42 weeks. Whereas, I think and next year it is paid monthly with a 51 week contract.

We give our DC so much per month to live off (which is easier for us and helps him with budgeting). As well as topping up his rent payments as the minimum loan doesn’t even cover his SC accommodation. He worked last summer after A levels and he will be working again this summer (as are the vast majority of his friends).

Then, to some extent, it depends on the students' expectations of what they "must" have...... are meals out / take aways / coffees out a treat or a regular thing ? ..... do they think beauty treatments or gym memberships are a luxury or something they expect?....

I think ^ that sums it up.

The way we worked it out was that Dc was only entitled to minimum loan, we had already saved up for uni thank goodness, so we topped up their loan to the full amount meaning £5000 from us per year. First year accommodation cost was deducted and what was left was divided over the number of weeks they are at uni. This worked out at £100 per week. Cost of food and laundry still sees them with a huge amount of money left over every week, around £60. No course materials due to the course and only travels home once during the term. Socialising at uni is usually going to someone's house with your own drinks as it costs far less. No eating out really either, no take away coffees or new clothes every week. They use the left over money to cover them for any socialising when home, concert tickets etc as they are very good at budgeting money and they still don't spend it all.

First year was a trial year to see how they fared. Accommodation costs make a massive difference to how much they have left over. At home we saw a slight reduction in electric and food but we still have another teen here.

Dc intends to put their savings from us supporting them into a LISA account for their house deposit so we are happy to continue to pay them the higher allowance rate. They also get money from their Grandparent so that pays for their phone, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify.

I’ve been intrigued by posts about uni costs as my parents didn’t give me anything and I worked during summer holidays and I haven’t quite grasped why so many people have such high costs. But… I just looked up the minimum maintenance loan amounts and I’m shocked how low they are. I’m fairly sure my loan was around £4k a year 20 years ago and accommodation costs are clearly going to be much higher now. I can see why this is an issue now!

I think the student finance is an unfair system. They don't take into account any overheads or other DCs, just literally means tested on parents income. And as it's a loan and not a gift, why can't you apply for more if needed. Doesn't make sense.

I have twins, thankfully only one went to uni, but it would have been very difficult financially if both had gone. If you have two or more at uni at the same time (as the poster above), then this should be taken into account.

It's ok saying plan ahead but not everyone has the spare cash every month to save for the future.

I think it needs to be advertised at a much younger age that not every child will be eligible for a full maintenance loan. For many parents it's not until your child is in 6th form and you start looking into it that you realise this, especially if you don't have friends or family that have been through it.

And it should be widely publicised that the loan comes in three instalments- not enough to cover accommodation which also comes in three instalments. We needed to find 3.5k between September and January.

DD is entitled to about £5.5k loan, this is about the same as her halls in year 1. We give £250 a month to live on, and pay phone bill, obviously all bills are included in the halls and they are on campus/ walking distance to town so no travel costs. So we figured £250 was enough for food and a bit of a contribution to social life, and she's found a weekend bar job to top that up.

One obscene cost to factor in on halls is washing- washing and drying a single load is about £5. Luckily DD found one type of halls that had washers in the flat.

I’ve already supported one through university. I decided that paying the rent would be my responsibility and their minimum loan would be theirs for whatever else they need. They could get a job if they wanted more cash. I paid 50% of his rent which was bills inclusive, exH paid other half. That was around £250 per month. It was mainly covered by my lower petrol and lower food bills.

Younger child is going next year and I’m still married to his Dad so we will pay rent again. Obviously this is twice as much as I paid before but this child is much more expensive child who has an activity costing £200 a month for classes and additional costs for travel. University has a society where they can do this for free. They also like to come out with us to cinema and theatre etc. so that always costs more.

I am starting to think that we’ll be better off financially when he leaves.

I gave ds1 a lump sum in September and give him £300 a month to top him up from minimum to max loan. It’s very tight for us as despite our earning being (just) over the threashold, we have a lot of debt so our outgoings are high. DS has been unlucky insomauch as, despite applying for the cheapest accommodation, he was actually allocated the most expensive, but his general living costs are quite low.
I don’t give any extra. I buy Xmas and birthday gifts but he needs to pay for all clothes, shoes, transport etc.
As we live rurally we paid quite a bit to get him to college and back so with that and the reduction in the food bill I’d say we are about £3000 worse off than when he was at home. I know parents who spend a lot more - buying groceries, clothes, sending money for nights out, paying for Ubereats, paying for train tickets home etc. it’s a bottomless pit if you want it to be.
I naively thought I’d be much more financially settled by the time mine were higher education age so it would all be fine. TBF, without the covid and Brexit double whammy, we would have been (dh business quite badly affected but we’re getting there). Dd1 starts this September <cries>

It's evened itself out with us.

Ds is a musician and had piano lessons, singing lessons and for a short amount of time bass lessons. That reduction of cost alone covers what we give him monthly for food/other expenses.

Our food and heating bills have also gone down, plus I am not doing half as much running about taking him to rehearsals/lessons etc so petrol costs have reduced.

Ds uses his loan to pay his rent and we pay him a weekly amount to live on. He has managed to get quite a bot of paid work playing piano and keyboard for amdram societies too.

Both dd in uni. Food has gone down a bit and they now pay for their own phones. Loan covers accommodation, We send them money each month which is equivalent of pocket money / dinner money they use to get. and they work part time. I'd say we are marginally better off but not much:

One DC at uni and is costing us £900 a month to top up over the minimum loan. They aren't in London but still a expensive city.

It's very tricky to keep things fair with more than on DC at uni.

Nominally £5k, but we actually cover rent and they pay for everything else from minimum loan. This way the ones in more expensive cities aren't worse off than the one that chose a cheaper city. They all work, either in the holidays or term time or both, depending on how much extra spending money they want, or are saving up for travelling etc.

And yes, the system does not take account of having more than one at uni. And everything is paid out of taxed income, unlike the (very) old system.

£15K would be exceptionally high costs for a student though. (£3.5K plus £1.5K min loan for 1/3 of the year).

Students need to understand they have choices - and yes, I am aware that a few Universities allocate accommodation you haven't applied for and you end up with a bigger bill than budgeted for - but very few students would need this much money.
If a student has decided that the course they specifically want to do can only be done at a particular place, which has expensive accommodation, then that is part of the student's decision and they need to input into how they are going to help finance that. Which might well be by working for a year and saving those funds before they start.