True cost of living- how do others manage?

anna_1977

Hi - good luck and well done for the LBM!

With regards to the kids travelling to Uni. I live in Hampshire and have one child at Uni in Birmingham and one in Newcastle (don't think she could have gone further without leaving the UK!!)

Get them to look at megabus - at Christmas my Newcastle daughter got the bus home for £4 and then flew back for £40. The Birmingham one got a return with megabus for £4.60 - they were both home for 3 weeks. They will be doing the same at Easter.

lifebegins

Mrs Tinks- thanks.
Yes- car tax is the annual cost so a bit more spurplus (I've edited the original now).

I know what you mean about the uni costs- rightly or wrongly OH and I took the view that we didn't want the kids to suffer/ be worse off at uni than those whose parents are low earners so get the full loan from the government so we decided to make up the difference between what they get because of our income and what they'd get if we earned less. This is, in any case, what the student finance calculation expects- a "parental contribution" to make up the shortfall.

I kind of assumed that that's what most parents do and that's what the government expects them to do- to make up the shortfall. I'd be interested to know what % actually do that. I thought the vast majority?

They do have Summer jobs and use this towards their uni costs. One child has to empty their room every term and storage is only provided for overseas students so has to move their entire belongigs 3 times a year. The other one could probably manage.

lifebegins

anna_1977 wrote: »

Hi - good luck and well done for the LBM!

With regards to the kids travelling to Uni. I live in Hampshire and have one child at Uni in Birmingham and one in Newcastle (don't think she could have gone further without leaving the UK!!)

Get them to look at megabus - at Christmas my Newcastle daughter got the bus home for £4 and then flew back for £40. The Birmingham one got a return with megabus for £4.60 - they were both home for 3 weeks. They will be doing the same at Easter.

Wow, that's incredible value! I'm guessing they booked well in advance? Will definitely look at that for the one who doesn't have to empty their room.

anna_1977

lifebegins wrote: »

Wow, that's incredible value! I'm guessing they booked well in advance? Will definitely look at that for the one who doesn't have to empty their room.

No not that far in advance, I think about 4 weeks! Travel on a Sunday was a lot more expensive so avoid then.

They get a much cheaper rate for having an NUS card

foolofbeans

lifebegins wrote: »

I know what you mean about the uni costs- rightly or wrongly OH and I took the view that we didn't want the kids to suffer/ be worse off at uni than those whose parents are low earners so get the full loan from the government so we decided to make up the difference between what they get because of our income and what they'd get if we earned less.
I kind of assumed that that's what most parents do and that's what the government expects them to do- to make up the shortfall.
They do have Summer jobs and use this towards their uni costs.

We also contribute the difference between the loan our child gets and the full loan. We are lucky it is a lot less than you have to pay but then we also have lower income and more children and outgoings. Child pays their rent, travel, food, bills and spending money out of their grant/loan. We pay our £20 contribution each week which covers the cost of fresh food and we pay for travel sometimes but this is usually max £10 on a megabus or £40 if there's a cheap flight available. Distance is 300 miles so we don't have to ferry about during term time and no point paying for car insurance that they can only use for 6 weeks summer holidays (I have the car for my work anyway).
How much of your uni contribution goes toward rent, bills and food?
We would love to help our child more but it's worked out well as they have learned to be very frugal and to work hard in summer to pay for gig/festival tickets and they also had the incentive to get a term time job which gives £30 a week extra to spend. Obviously this depends on the course your child does but they should be working. I know if we contributed more our child would have quite happily taken it and done nothing to push themselves to earn their own money.

foolofbeans

lifebegins wrote: »

One child has to empty their room every term and storage is only provided for overseas students so has to move their entire belongings 3 times a year. The other one could probably manage.

That sounds odd. Is your child in halls? I've never heard of a one-term rental agreement.
Accommodation costs for my child went down quite a bit after the first year as they moved into a shared house. More worry about the legal implications of possibly being responsible for others not paying their way but so far it has worked well and lots cheaper :j

anna_1977

foolofbeans wrote: »

That sounds odd. Is your child in halls? I've never heard of a one-term rental agreement.
Accommodation costs for my child went down quite a bit after the first year as they moved into a shared house. More worry about the legal implications of possibly being responsible for others not paying their way but so far it has worked well and lots cheaper :j

It'll be somewhere like Durham, I have friends whose children are there. The halls lease is for 1 year but the Uni rent rooms to international students over the holidays so rooms need to be cleared

MrsTinks

lifebegins wrote: »

Mrs Tinks- thanks.
Yes- car tax is the annual cost so a bit more spurplus (I've edited the original now).

I know what you mean about the uni costs- rightly or wrongly OH and I took the view that we didn't want the kids to suffer/ be worse off at uni than those whose parents are low earners so get the full loan from the government so we decided to make up the difference between what they get because of our income and what they'd get if we earned less. This is, in any case, what the student finance calculation expects- a "parental contribution" to make up the shortfall.

If you decide you want to keep giving them this money then obviously that's your decision but be aware it's pushing you into debt... or at least it's stopping you getting out of debt.

I personally wouldn't be subsidizing to that degree if it were me, but stating the obvious - I'm not you

I would sit down with them and work out their exact budget and make sure that whilst you may pay for them to live, you won't be paying for them to party, drink or loaf... so set a budget, anything they spend over that they need to fund themselves.

lifebegins

Thanks FoolofBeans- it sounds as though, in total our kids will get the same overall money in total as (amount of loan plus parental contribution) will equal (maximum possible loan amount), it's just that the parental contributions our families pay are different.
Same as in your family, our kids work during the Summer break but for course and location reasons Christmas and Easter are much harder. They still have far less than some of their friends with wealthy parents (or in a couple of cases, parents who hide their income!!)

foolofbeans

Just done a quick loan calculator check and the difference in contributions between yourselves and us is £2000 pa which is £40 a week on top of the £20 a week that we pay so your expected contribution is £60 a week which is more than half of what you pay. I don't know whether your children are studying in London and I have already mentioned we, as parents, always like to contribute as much as we can but if you're paying £750 a month there should be no extras such as car insurance or food - they can afford to buy those themselves.
As a guide: my child regularly posts details of nights out and gigs they are planning to go to so I know they have surplus money and aren't on the breadline. If your children are doing the same they aren't struggling!