How much to live on per week

haycorns

My son is starting university this weekend.

I have budgetted for £65 per week for him , after the halls are paid for

I'm thinking:
£25 food
£15 entertainment
£10 books / stationery
£2 mobile £4 travel £3 clothes £4 christmas and birthday presents for family

I'd appreciate comments please - its a balance between giving him enough money to have some fun, without leaving us ans the other two kids too skint to do anything. Also second son will go next year and we'll need to find twice as much.

Tazni

I usually live off £60 a week, but in most cases only £20/£30 is used while the rest goes into savings.

Does his maintenance loan not cover any of his living expenses?

the-mango

Sounds about right. He will need to make sure he does some sort of budgeting otherwise he'll find he goes right over but it's enough to get by

blahdeeblah

How about adding laundry & toiletries to that budget? I don't know if he will have coin-operated washing machines and dryers, but if he does, then they're probably another £3 total to the budget a week - less if you just hang stuff up to dry. Perhaps reduce the food to £20 and have laundry and toiletries at £5 a week if that's the case? That was how I did mine.

nonnatus

Hmmm. You can set whatever budget you like - but will he stick to it??

And if he's old enough to live away from home, is he not old enough to be doing his own budget. It's a life skill he needs to learn sooner rather than later...:)

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

haycorns wrote: »

My son is starting university this weekend.

I have budgetted for £65 per week for him , after the halls are paid for

Our son has roughly £70 per week after halls. (It might turn out to be a little more if he gets his SL early in January but he is budgeting for getting it in mid/late Jan to be on the safe side.) Whether this is enough we don't yet know - we hope so. He seems really up for budgeting and has got himself a great phone app.

Basically, we are paying his halls and he gets to live on his maintenance loan which is the minimum - roughly £3500 per year; spread over 3 terms. We have sent him off to uni with everything he needs to get started - plus we are paying for his gym membership (£200 for gym and swim for term time), his books, his phone contract and any train tickets home.

I have to say, that his halls seem to be top quality and the facilities are amazing at his uni - we're well pleased and they seem like excellent value for money.

Nikkisun

My son will have £40 per week to live on after paying accommodation (hopefully more if Tesco get their finger out and sort out his student transfer to a store near uni but I'm not holding my breath on that one).

I pay his for his phone and his gym membership and am buying him a bike so he can get around up there (will probably end up buying him a bus pass too) luckily he's not really one for going out drinking (although that may change when he gets there) so with a bit of careful meal planning hopefully that £40 will be enough as I can't afford to subsidize his living anymore than I already am.

Tazni

Learning how to budget was a very important skill that I learnt when going to university, my parents didn't help with it. It's allowed me to save over £10,000 in 2 years of university... I'd give him the money and let him do with it what he wants, if he makes mistakes and goes a little over budget he should learn from it for the next weeks etc..

EmSp

I didn't get any money from my parents when I was at university (2005-2008).

I worked in a shop every weekend and used my wages and student loan to pay for everything.

I never felt like I was living on the breadline and didn't use my bank overdraft right until the final term (when I went a bit wild!).

My housemate received £70 per week from her parents and I thought she was spoilt!

I had a great time - went out lots, but was just careful with my money!

So, in answer to your question, I think £65 is more than enough!

mrs_motivated

My daughter is getting £70 per week, which she is managing on fine.

He maintenance loan just covered her halls, therefore she would have been left with £5 for the year, so I have to give her something to live on.

However she is getting £25 on a weekly basis, for food, toiletries etc and the balance paid monthly. I feel I am learning her to budget (in baby steps) . I will see how she manages and they maybe next term switch to monthly payments for the full amount. I can't afford to pay it by term or annually though, so monthly will be the most she will have to budget for.

the-mango

This thread might also be usefulfor people to guage the amounts people get/what they spend it on/how they cope

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2135081