Exploring Ideas for Controlling Budget - Advice. 27 March 2018 at 1:02PM in Student MoneySaving 5 replies 1.1K views

savity

Hi,
My son will (results permitting) be going to study at Uni starting in September.

We as parents are in the fortunate position to be able to contribute towards his maintenance loan / living expenses, but he will also be getting the basic maintenance loan from Student Finance England.

My thought was, that he opens two student accounts. One that he gets the termly student loan paid into and he uses to budget and pay for his normal living expenses, other than accommodation. Another account that we would put a regular transfer into in order to pay his accommodation fees (Although we can afford to pay his accommodation fees, not really all at once and I'd like to budget monthly for that and build the balance in readiness for the termly payments).

We could just set up a non-student account for the accommodation payments, but I was thinking that he could take advantage of a sign up offer (railcard if similar offers appear this year) plus getting his main student account with the recommended largest 0% overdraft facility.

Ideally the accommodation account would also have 0% overdraft to allow for timing issues with fees due before the balance is at the required amount, and also provide a bit of in-credit interest as it's building.

Will this be problematic, unworkable? I definitely want to keep a separate account for his accommodation funds. How he manages his food and drink expenses with the other account is up to him, and a valuable exercise in budgeting, but removes the risk of him not being able to pay his accommodation.

It's still early in the process, but I've no doubt that July/August will be upon us soon and by then need to have an idea options.

Also, he's got a conditional place based on achieving certain grades, but has been given an unconditional backup at the same uni to go on the foundation course. Would a bank accept this as a confirmed place, or would he need to wait til after result day?

Cheers

[Deleted User]

Why don't you just pay the accommodation direct instead of messing around with another bank account?

savity

I was thinking that he could get the additional benefits from a second student account. Yes we could pay the accommodation direct, but we need to save for the payments, so a monthly bank transfer to a specific account for the accommodation will enforce a little bit of discipline for ourselves, and rather than a bog standard separate account, one with a nice perk of a student account (mainly the railcard offer if it's available) would be nice

[Deleted User]

The perks are useful, just check the T&C because many student accounts need you to pay in student loans or above a set amount to be eligible

sheramber

You can only have one student account with a bank.

Some also say you cannot have a student account with another bank sp you would need to check with the bank he is going to use.

Dobbibill

Having more than one account (not necessarily a student account) is a valuable lesson in budgeting.

When my DS went to Uni - we divided how much SL he would receive and created a SO from his student acc to his everyday spending account. This was done on a weekly basis which meant that if the budget went wrong on the first day - he was only ever waiting a max of 6 days before he had the next SO.
It also meant that he rarely used his OD facility and earned interest on the balance in the student account.

After freshers he was a bit down on the plan as all his new friends had all their SL in one go - I asked him to give the plan a month and if he was still not happy then do as his friends did. One month later his friends were skint and he had a weekly income.

Pay his accomodation directly - but please still encourage him to budget correctly.