parental support

lotties_mum

My son will be going to uni in sept, His accomodation will be paid with his maintenence loan with not much change (£300) approx. he has some summer work lined up and hopes to find work when he goes down to uni but has already been informed that this is scarce. how much money do you give your sons/daughters to live off? Any ideas would be appreciated. We don't want him to go into an overdraft

dieselhead

I just live off the minimum loan topped up with term time work and summer work savings. I have to say that he is doing quite well to have £300 left over from his loan after paying for accommodation. I would say that I usually manage on about £5000/6000 a year just over £3000 from my loan £1500 saved from a summer job and the rest earned in term time.

My parents don't really give me any money to live on.

mumps

I think it is going to be hard for students to get term time jobs this year. Summer jobs are also scarce.

I give my DD £200 a term, pay mobile, and get her a big shop at start of term. She has managed with that, her accommodation left her with similar amount to your son and she did work hard last summer to build up some cash. She is running out of money now. Hasn't been able to get work at uni.

studentbear

Hi all,

I am just coming to the end of my first year at uni. At the beginning of the year I wrote out a budget of what I thought I'd spend and then my dad and I sat down and discussed this and came to an agreement that mum and dad would contribute 100 pounds a month to my uni living costs. Around Christmas time we re looked at the situation and increased this to 200 pounds ( I hadn't factored in that washing was going to cost me 7 pounds a week- i.e. over 25% of the money I got a month!) but this includes me putting away 120 a month into a fund for my car so that I can pay my own insurance and tax etc. I supplemented this with about 300 pounds of savings and a part time job in which I earned about 75 a week during term time. Bear in mind that I was extremely lucky to get a job- it really is tricky!

Clare

studentbear

Oh, and I'm not even close to hitting my overdraft, but I havn't gone without anything Hope this helps!

joaniemerc

Our daughter uses her maintenance loan to pay her accommodation. We give her £50 per week (on a Monday via direct debit, thought that this was a better day than a Friday as there won't be any temptation to spend it socialising at a weekend:rolleyes:), pay her mobile phone bill and the insurance on her car. She has managed to get a bar job in a golf club (basically one shift of 6 hours over a weekend) at £6 per hour, plus she'll do any extra hours if available. She seems to have managed her first year very well on on this money and uses her job money to put petrol in her car and socialise.

We are expecting to shell out a bit more from September as she has to move out of Halls into the private sector for her accommodation. She's started to send off her cv to agencies for summer work as she finishes Uni in 3 weeks, but so far nothing. We're not planning to pay her the £50 per week when she's back at home. So this hopefully won't make her too fussy about what summer work to take (should she get anything!).

PS: She was refused an overdraft by HSBC (she had a pre-student account and wanted to upgrade to a student account which had an overdraft facility) because her credit-rating was poor, ie she didn't have one!!! Not a bad thing tho'.

Char_pdc

I completed my degree last summer. My parents gave me £60 a week during term-time. My loan did not even cover my accomodation so I just lived off my interest free student overdraft and a part-time/summer job at the student union which I got in my third year.

I didn't see any problem with living off my overdraft

elliethecat

My son is away at University and I pay his accommodation costs. He pays for everything else. It was my choice to do this as I wanted him to have plenty of time to study and time to enjoy uni life. So far so good - coming to the end of the second year and he seems to be doing well on both counts - and that's what's important to me.

Stubert

My parents give me £100 a month. In my first year they paid my fees as that was in 2005 and they didn't have the tuition fee loan then. I really wanted to go and study in the United States this year so the money they would have spent on my fees they let me have so I could fund living there (£1200 a year).

When it was £100 a month it didn't think it was that much, but with that extra money they've given me it seems quite a lot. I also have worked over every summer to basically get myself back to the zero pounds mark. I had a job in my first year too.

MarzipanFish

I kept a very accurate record of what i spent in first year so here's a breakdown

Bills were included in accommodation but it was self catered. I wasn't actually trying to keep to a low budget, just happen to not be a big spender (or eater by the looks of it!). I spent more after first year especially on food

Average weekly spending:

Total: £35
Entertainment / alcohol : £10
Groceries: £5
Food & drink out: £6
Clothes: £4
Clothes washing: £1 (my wash was £3 a load but i bought cheap underwear from primark instead and only did a wash every 3 weeks!)
Trains home: £2
Other: £7

Books, cooking equipment & a laptop were bought before i went so aren't included (but still something to budget for )

I think £50 a week would be enough for the majority of people if they're not going out and blowing unreasonable amounts of money on getting drunk (or at least not doing it every week).

Shoshannah

I don't get anything from my parents (except the occasional grocery shop and odd small loan), but I recieve the maximum loan amount because I am from a low income background.

I still have virtually no disposable income but I have a roof over my head and eat a meal every day.

It's difficult though when you only get the basic loan as you really need to supplement it with parental help and/or a job.