How Much Do You Spend A Week At Uni?

Elsterap

In my first year at uni: £70 a week rent, £15 a week on food shopping, £20 on eating out, and £40 a week on alcohol.

Oldernotwiser

piefacerecords wrote: »

And what do you think the costs of that lifestyle are? Not just financially, but for the degree? Doesn't really make it worthwhile if you come out with a sub-par grade because studying has taken a back-seat to paying the bills.

My grants, loans etc come to around £7000 a year, my husband's came to about £4500- That's 11.5k income a year.

And between us:
Rent is 700pcm
Bank loan is 97pcm
Credit card repayments 80pcm
Phone and broadband 40pcm
Water, electricity and gas 100pcm
Contents and pet insurance 19pcm
Travel 100pcm
TV licence 11pcm
Food, household items shopping (lightbulbs, toilet rolls etc) 130pcm
= £15, 360 bare minimum outgoings a year

This does not include travel to visit family (£90 round trip for 2 of us on the train, 6 times a year), birthdays and xmas, unforseen expenses e.g. replacing broken washing machine, replacing clothes etc. (primark only, obv...) etc. comes to about 1500 a year.

So basically it costs us around £17k a year to live, which is £6500 less than combined student finance given to us. And this budget doesn't account for a single night out or luxury buy (or even the furnishing of our home!).

Sorry but I fail to see how that is a higher standard of living than most people! It requires 25 hours a week work on top of a full time education just to meet bare minimum requirements. And it's not that easy to do enough hours when your timetable has lectures at different times every day for 5 days a week, anything between 9 and 7. not many employers can cater for that! I'm also going on to do a PGCE when I finish, which requires lots of voluntary work experience in schools to get on a course.

I apologise for ranting and for hijacking the thread. It's hard for me to not take it personally when I hear things about students being ungrateful hedonists, and I feel I have to chuck in my 2p's worth (or in this case, long paragraphs worth!)

I realise I am not the archetypal student, but I think that students have a bad reputation and do tend to be wasteful because they are not given the opportunity to be truly independent and take on the responsibilities a normal adult has. I think being at university babifies you - even at my husband's graduation last month the VC made a 'hilarious' speech about how graduates will still expect their parents to do their washing now etc., which I found incredibly patronising given how hard people had obviously worked to be in a position where they are actually graduating.

I don't mind walking away with £28k of debt when I qualify as a teacher, and I wouldn't mind it at all if that debt meant I could have afforded to dedicate my time to studying and give my assignments the attention they require. Sadly, that is not the case.

...I'm off for a cold shower and a lie down!!! Sorry oldernotwiser, hope you haven't lost the will to live after all that!

Still alive and interested.

You see, looking at what you've written, you and your husband are living the life of a young married couple, complete with loan repayments and a pet. There's nothing wrong with this but it's hardly typical for a student and I don't really see why you think that student funding should stretch this far. As I said before, student funding is designed to fund a more typical student lifestyle rather than furnishing a home! You may not be spending money on designer clothes and drunken nights out but replacing washing machines and having pets is really not normal for students and if you choose to live like this then it's up to you to fund it.

Following on from my comment about your doing all the housework in this setup, it also looks to me as if you're the only one earning any extra money as well. You really are making a rod for your own back, you know!

pavlovs_dog

piefacerecords, i DO know where you're coming from. i moved out of home two weeks before my 18th birthday and had to work alongside my last year of A levels before i even got to uni. im fortunate that im happy to live a frugal lifestyle and earn a good wage from my part time job. its saving my student loan thats given me the money you see in my sig. we get cheap board and lodgings at my OH's parents, but i have never received a penny from my family or his towards the cost of my a levels or degree, neither will they be contributing to my PGCE. i dont expect it and wouldnt take it if it was offered.

i agree with what you say about the existing finance arrangements not doing more for those students who genuinely dont get a penny from their parents. im quite rich by student standards now, but the first few months of uni were very very difficult for me due to real cash flow problems. had i felt the need to visit the union bar several times a week, the situation would have been much worse. thankfully im not really that way inclined.

i also think oldernotwiser makes a very fair point. a line does need to be drawn somewhere when it comes to doling out finance, and if a 'one size fits all' policy is going to be taken then it is logical that it favours the most common student experience. it does sound like you get few breaks or incentives as a young married couple who are both studying at the same time, that said i guess it could be argued that you are lucky that costs are shared between you; £700 per month rent has to be better than £1400 a month.

nothing's ever easy!

Oldernotwiser

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

we get cheap board and lodgings at my OH's parents, but i have never received a penny from my family or his

Surely getting subsidised board and lodgings amounts to the same thing as receiving money from them?(Not that there's anything wrong with it, you understand.)

pavlovs_dog

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Surely getting subsidised board and lodgings amounts to the same thing as receiving money from them?(Not that there's anything wrong with it, you understand.)

its subsidised but its not cheap IYSWIM. it helps, but ive never had anyone go "here ya are p_d, have a wad of cash." if we werent living with them, we wouldnt be paying out a whole amount more in rent, utilities and such we'd just adjust our lifestyle to suit.

the best (and priceless aspect of it)... well actually its twofold.firstly it offers a security that you dont generally get from private landlords. short of us burning the house down we know we arent going to be given notice to quit anytime soon it also means we spend a lot of quality time together as a family, which we all really value.

starrynight_15

I got all my information from student finance a couple of days ago, and after sitting down and doing some maths, worked out that after board and food, I'm going to have about £15 a week to live on. Looks like another part time job is beckoning!

tsabo

After doing my maths i've worked i'm on a budget of £34 a week (after rent). I know this wont be fun, but i know i can do it. However i seem to be getting horrified comments from my friends (the friends who have parents paying their accommodation and giving them £100 per week spending money..). And yes, i have been down handed out CVs etc looking for part time work and i'm not even living there yet!
It'd say this was about average?

littlepinkstars44

I still live at home and between my loan, bursary and wages i get around £750 a month.
£150 of that goes to my mum.
Leaving me £600 a month or £150 a week.

But then i have debt repayments to pay from that, phone bill, bus fares etc.
So it may seem alot, but after everything is paid i'm really only left with about £80-£90 a week

realised

I'd say i spend around about £50 a week, excluding rent.

Someetimes less depending

Masomnia

One hundred and forty-six pounds per week?! Seriously?

I get:
The full grant,
Loan,
A generous bursary, due to household income & A Level grades
Some money from my mum

... and after rent I certainly don't have that much money. Something's definitely up with that figure.

After rent, including all bills, I spend about £70 per week, which feels excessive!