University allowances - advice needed please Post Reply

[Double trouble]

I am hoping that there may be some parents of teens on here who could give me some guidelines about university allowances. I had thought that we would pay for our daughter's accommodation - she will be in self-catered halls and then we will ned to give her money for food and I guess a few treats. In my head this comes to a max £400 per month. However, she is telling me that friends are getting allowances of double this. Would anyone be able to tell me if I am being too stingy. I don't want her too not be able to go out etc. but I hadn't expected it to cost me a small fortune either.

[Needcoffeenow]

Our youngest left last year and, as with his older siblings, we based his living allowance on what he would have been able to borrow if he had been eligible for the full maintenance loan. So we paid his accommodation and were paying him £125 a week in addition. In addition we paid for larger items (field trips etc) and gave him a small allowance in the vacations but expected him to work when he could. My main tip is to pay the allowance by weekly standing order so they never run out, suggest they save up extra for fresher’s week and expect fairly frequent pleas for extra money!

[FamilyinBalham]

Our eldest is at a uni in north of england. Last year she had a budget of £100 a week. She also said that friends had more. Even though there are cheap club entry and drinks deals for students there, she struggled and did not have enough to even replace worn out clothes or shoes. I paid for things like this as well as train tickets. Basic groceries are much more expensive now (she was in self catering). This summer she has worked and saved quite a large sum of money and feels much happier about the coming year as she won’t be “completely broke”. It’s impossible to know what they are spending their money on and if economies could be made, but in our experience last year £100 a week is a minimum, depending on what part of country they are in.

[AHW]

Our eldest went last year - to an Oxbridge college - and seems to live on fresh air - he manages to save a significant portion of the c£100 a week that he has left to live on, partially because all he seemingly has time for is rowing, working and the odd trip to the pub/college bar, and partially because the terms are so short.  He could eat in college but chooses to self cater and manages to do that for about £30 a week. (He paid for a ski trip out of the money he saved, and we've not topped him up at all over the first year. )  

My daughter is heading to catered halls on Saturday and we have gone with the same principle you suggest - we are paying for her accommodation and she will have to live on the remains of the maintenance loan - which works out at just over £100 a week - which given all of her food is covered and most things are subsidised, I think will be OK. I suspect she will have to budget harder than my son, because she is doing a less intense course than my son and is much more of a party animal - but she is allowed to find a part time job in term time, which my son is not. We have told her to be honest if she is not managing. 

We do pay for train trips home and larger ticket items if they need them for their studies or sport etc.  I am sure that there are children on way more, and way less, but talking to friends with children at similar establishments to mine, £100 a week seems to be about average for the first year. I'm anticipating for the second year at my daughter's uni to probably cost more, depending on what sort of house/accommodation she ends up with. 

 

[Orange123]

These have been helpful to read. Having paid the accommodation fees, I gave my son £200 a month in catered accommodation last year and was planning on giving him £400 a month for self catered this year. But reading the above it seems others give more.
I struggle to see how you base it on the maximum maintenance loan as this seems even thinner ;
Max loan for outside London £9,978
Our accommodation costs for 44 weeks; £8,000
Roughly leaves £64 per week for food and living if you assume 8 months (32 weeks) of University.
I agree they must need about £100 per week for food and living.

[chitchat]

It is worth taking out a subsistence loan , or it could get expensive (unless you are including this money iyswim)
If the *only money she has at all is £400 per month this definitely will not cover everything -food,books,travel etc

[chitchat]

It is worth taking out a subsistence loan , or it could get expensive (unless you are including this money iyswim)
If the *only money she has at all is £400 per month this definitely will not cover everything -food,books,travel etc

[Busymumof3]

We also did £100/week last year for our son who was self-catered, in the north-east. It seemed to work well enough - he learned to be savvy with his supermarket shop, keeping it to around £50 for a shop every 10 days or so, and didn’t complain that didn’t have enough for beers in the bar. We would help out with train tickets occasionally. It wouldn’t cover new clothes, but either he’d get clothes as presents, or with his own money (he works a bit in hols). He set up a separate account that we pay his £100 into, so keeps all his student expenditure separate, so that helps him budget. I’m sure some get more, but he hasn’t complained, and learning to budget is an important skill. We’ve told him to let us know if it’s really not enough.