What to ask DS for bed and board as student

[Orangesandlemons77]

DS (19) is starting university after the summer after taking a year out to work. He will be living at home and going to a local one.

Thing is, he's much better off than the rest of us atm, after having a 12K child trust fund, then working full time for most of the year (maybe 10K after buying a car and driving lessons) and now he will be getting about another 8K from student finance as we are not on a high income.

Given that he won't have to pay any rent as living at home, what do you think would be reasonable to charge for bed and board?

I'm on PIP and DH is self employed, but mid 50s and has a health condition so is not earning that much atm. We get a bit of tax credits but probably won't be changing to UC due to is being tricky with self employment (but may have to I suppose). Just now I'm using the PIP to get shopping etc, and seeking out bargains etc while DS is buying e.g. new phones and fancy perfumes for his gf.

OP has already said they are a very low income household and he qualifies for the full loan.

Op I just wanted to let you know that you should definitely switch to universal credit. If you get PIP - even if your dh works full time and earns over the threshold for carers allowance he can claim the carers element of UC, something which isn’t available on tax credits. That alone is about £160-200 a month. (Similar situation here). If you submit sick notes from the Gp (even if you haven’t worked for years and years you can still get them) you can trigger UC sending you out a health assessment form (similar but shorter than PIP) and you can apply for LWRCA (google this). If you get this it’s about £360 a month. Don’t be put off switching to UC, it’s a lot simpler than it seems.

@stressedespresso his accommodation costs will be zero if he doesn't pay his parents anything when he's staying at home!!!

What are you going on about? He's just bought a car, as I mentioned in the OP he's had a 12K CTF, we've been saving into that from birth for him, also about 10K from working this year and will be getting 8.5K per year for the next 3 yrs from his student funding.

Where do you get £50 a week from?

If you are going to be providing all his food too then I would deduct his travel costs from his maintenance loan and the remainder comes to you. That's what it's for!

Thanks I am thinking about this, what is putting me off is DH's self employment

Mine all went away for Uni
O would only charge DC for living at home if I was skint

Well, she is. Did you read her post??

Yes, along with grandparents

In your first post you said student finance of £8k pa

£8k divided by 52 weeks is £153 a week, leaving just over £50 a week if you charge £100 per week.

I think you should charge him - just clarifying the maths.

i thought so.

One to ponder for the PP calling you grabby, if she cares to reflect on her nastiness.

Why is he getting £8k as a student? Is that a loan? If he's living at home with money in the bank does he need that?

I think you should absolutely look into the UC, there are calculations online to gage numbers if you want to.
Will he still be working part time whilst studying?
I would look around at what a room in a house share would cost and charge 2/3ds of that.

It seems to be the max maintenance loan, which he has chosen to apply for.

It's his choice, seems to be the figure for living at home.

Why has he chosen to apply for it if he doesn’t particularly need it? He’ll be 5 figures in debt in his early 20s for no good reason. Has he really thought it through?

Work out his share of bills including council tax, food, electricity, tv. If you are a family of 4 he pays 1/4 of the total amount.

It's up to him, what he applies for. He has some of his CTF in a LISA and sone in an ISA

Applying for an £8k loan per year plus all the interest it accrues when he’s at home seems crazy. Why doesn’t he just apply for the minimum? Otherwise he’ll graduate with all that debt when he didn’t need to. If you’re living at home and working part time then you really don’t need a huge loan.
Could he pay for things like his own snacks, any tv subs he wants. Laptop, course materials etc
If you need the money then maybe something like £100 a month to go towards gas and electric.

Why has he chosen to apply for it if he doesn’t particularly need it? He’ll be 5 figures in debt in his early 20s for no good reason. Has he really thought it through?

He would be regardless given he'll have a fee loan. Makes no difference to his repayments how much he'll borrow, and the new plan 5 loans don't have real interest applied so the debt won't grow in real terms.

Really not very smart to take out student loan when he had the money saved. He will need to pay it back with interest.

I thought it was always best to take the loan, this is what e.g MSE recommends. DS was told at school to see it as a graduate tax rather than debt

Of course he’s going to have loan for his fees anyway but being an extra 24k in debt when it’s not really necessary isn’t exactly a clever move.

But he would have an extra 24K possibly in savings as well

Yes that’s right for the tuition fee loan for paying fees- rather than paying fees upfront.

But if this is £8k on top of that, then that’s not needed. If he’s at home it’s not like he needs £8k for rent. That’s really what it’s for. If he’s at home maybe taking the minimum would make sense if he doesn’t have a part time job. If he does then I can’t see why he’d need it.