How much to live on per week

wintersunshine

rubytuesday wrote: »

Rubbish - my daughter is budgeting for £50 a week and is always out galavanting

How does that work?

For example see the following changes to the op.

haycorns wrote: »

My son is starting university this weekend.

I have budgetted for [STRIKE]£65 [/STRIKE] £50 per week for him , after the halls are paid for

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

How does anyone live on £10 per week for food for example? For example say a pint of milk cost 55p, cereal 20p, bread 20p, marg 10p, coffee/tea 20p (per day). That leaves 15p for lunch and dinner!

Also there is no money in this "budget" for make up, cleanser, etc, and all the other things that girls need (nor is there anything in the budget for washing clothes or washing up.)

rubytuesday

My daughter has enough makeup and toiletries to sink a ship I can assure you - not that she wears much make up anyway.

She had a huge stash from birthdays and Christmas and I made sure she was well stocked with provisions before she left - I got her her the Body Shop bag that was on offer and mentioned in the grabbit for example and she has Sanctury stuff coming out of her ears.

I know what not to buy her for Christmas!

I already mentioned that she has done two major shops which were expensive to stock up.

Good food is a priority to her so maybe she will revise that and spend more if needs be.

As for going out galavanting more often than not she gets into clubs for free and often there are drinks on deals but she has come to realise that drinking leaves her depressed afterwards so she is planning to curb that.

Thanks to her brother she gets 40 per cent off a certain online clothing company and has just had a birthday so has treated herself to new stuff.

Her friends all share their clothes on nights out too and there is even one of my T shirts from the eighties still doing the rounds. It's thirty years old!

If you have to manage you can.

I'll get back to you and see what she's doing budget wise - that was just an idea - may be it will have to change.

rubytuesday

My daughter has just spent a lot of money on books - but hopefully that is a one off for the time being - even secondhand they were expensive so her budget would probably be skewed right now but then it should balance out.

It's all a learning curve after all and a lesson in living within your means.

wintersunshine

rubytuesday wrote: »

My daughter has just spent a lot of money on books - but hopefully that is a one off for the time being - even secondhand they were expensive so her budget would probably be skewed right now but then it should balance out.

It's all a learning curve after all and a lesson in living within your means.

So those figures really don't add up do they?

wintersunshine

Originally Posted by haycorns
My son is starting university this weekend.

I have budgetted for £65 £50 per week for him , after the halls are paid for

I'm thinking:
£25 food £18 food
£15 entertainment
£10 books / stationery £2
£2 mobile £4 travel £3 clothes £4 christmas and birthday presents for family

£2 for books and stationery is ridiculous - it would amount to about £80 for a whole academic year. (My son just bought an economics text book that cost £40) Did you never do any printing/photocopying??? A student must use one A4 pad a month - that alone is 50p a week.

And whoopee £18 per week for food. That's £2.57 a day!!! 55p milk, 20p cereal, 20p tea/coffee, 20p bread, 10p margarine. WOW the student now has £1.32 for lunch, dinner and fruit!!

And you haven't included any money for washing clothes (which will be £3 to £4 a week) or toiletries - so really they don't even have that.

wintersunshine

Char_pdc wrote: »

I studied a science degree in London and used to spend about £250 a month.

You must never have left your room because travelling around London alone is expensive! You may as well have stayed at home.

rubytuesday

wintersunshine wrote: »

You must never have left your room because travelling around London alone is expensive! You may as well have stayed at home.

It's also pretty easy to walk around London wouldn't recommend cycling myself but many people do it.

My hairdresser works in Covent Garden and lives in Chiswick and walks to and from work every day.

wintersunshine

Oh yes and loo roll that must another 50 p a week....

rubytuesday

Wintersunshine get yourself over to Old style and have a look at some of the budgets there.

If you have to live cheaply or are doing so to save for a particular purpose then it is possible.

Perhaps a greater income would be preferable but it is possible to survive on less.

rubytuesday

wintersunshine wrote: »

So those figures really don't add up do they?

Why don't they add up - it's just like any household where sometimes you have to pay out for larger expenditures but you don't do it for the rest of the year so it balances itself out over time.

My daughter's budget is not going to be the same as expressed here but that was her plan for now - to live on roughly £50 per week - of course sometimes it will be more sometimes it may be less - it is not written in stone that each week she may only spend so many pounds per category.

It's kind of like normal life!

If she needs to increase her expenditure within her means then she will do so.

It's not rocket science!