How Much Money ?

belfastgal

Daughter off to uni next week.Is getting the full loan of £4600.We are paying her fees for the Course for her but her accomodation is £2800 for the first year.Should we help her with this or let her pay it from her loan? Dont want to be mean but dont want her to be thinking 'ask mum and you will receive' Would be interested to hear what everyone is doing moneywise.

Darren21

belfastgal wrote:

Daughter off to uni next week.Is getting the full loan of £4600.We are paying her fees for the Course for her but her accomodation is £2800 for the first year.Should we help her with this or let her pay it from her loan? Dont want to be mean but dont want her to be thinking 'ask mum and you will receive' Would be interested to hear what everyone is doing moneywise.

I think it depends to a large extent on how much you can afford to help her out. Some people's parents pay nothing and some pay it all - with some in between this.

If you can afford to help her out quite a bit then do so but make sure that she knows that she won't get anything more and also don't pay it all so that she feels like is contributing something towards her bills (not just socialising!).

Another thing is how sensible is she. If you know that if you pay her accom. she will just waste all of her loan money anyway then don't pay it. If however you think she is sensible and would save some of the loan money in a savings account then do pay it/some of it.

waterbaby

Well I spent about £60 a week at uni, including food (excl. accom), so £60x30 =£1800 would mean that I could pay my accom and my living expenses on £4600! And I never missed anything I wanted to do.

But we're all in different circumstances. If that's not reasonable for you, I think the best thing you can do for her is to let her further her money management skills, and this is best done by letting her see a finite income (the loan), rather than you being an infinte income!

If she messes up, of course you will not see her starve, but encourage her to see the loan as all she is getting to live on (excluding accom, presumably).

stockmarket-diva

Hi

I have posted something along these lines earlier on and I don't think I am any the wiser for it. There is a great deal of difference between everybody but the general feeling I got was that most students pay their own way alot of the time.

What I did was pay my daughers accommodation costs last year to get her settled in. She paid her tuition costs.

This year she is expecting to pay all her costs and that was good because she has worked her guts out all summer to save enough money. She is studying in America and got a gift of money from her grandparents to help out but we paid for her flights and she knows we will be there for her if she is in any trouble.

I also hope to be able to pay her a small monthly allowance when she returns but I would like to see her try to earn some money too. She has alot of opportunities as it happens which may not be the case for some people but I equally know that if she had the chance she would sit back a bit which I don't agree with. I know she's studying etc but she has friends who have parents who pay for everything and they will not have a clue when they get into the outside world. One of them had £1000 paid into her bank account for her Birthday, came to London and booked into a posh suite, went out to Camden market and had her handbag and mobile phone stolen and then on the way back to uni had her travel bag stolen which had all her expensive purchases in. .......see what I mean about being a bit irresponsible etc.

clbanks

Hi, my son is also off to Uni in a couple of weeks and unfortuantely he doesn't get the full student loan, in fact his first student loan payment doesn't even cover his accomodation. We are paying his tuition fees, however he is expecting to get himself a job when he gets there and has asked for food parcels rather than money. He knows he'll spend it on Beer and having a good time. I think if parents pay for everything our children won't learn how to budget. However I do have a neice who has had everything paid for her but she is an exception as she has saved all her student loan in a high interest account and will pocket the interest.

belfastgal

waterbaby wrote:

Well I spent about £60 a week at uni, including food (excl. accom), so £60x30 =£1800 would mean that I could pay my accom and my living expenses on £4600! And I never missed anything I wanted to do.

But we're all in different circumstances. If that's not reasonable for you, I think the best thing you can do for her is to let her further her money management skills, and this is best done by letting her see a finite income (the loan), rather than you being an infinte income!

If she messes up, of course you will not see her starve, but encourage her to see the loan as all she is getting to live on (excluding accom, presumably).

I could not have put it better.this is first time for us ,not really sure what costs daughter is going to have, books etc and whatever ? just trying to see what she should be trying to live on each week.

belfastgal

stockmarket-diva wrote:

Hi

I have posted something along these lines earlier on and I don't think I am any the wiser for it. There is a great deal of difference between everybody but the general feeling I got was that most students pay their own way alot of the time.

What I did was pay my daughers accommodation costs last year to get her settled in. She paid her tuition costs.

This year she is expecting to pay all her costs and that was good because she has worked her guts out all summer to save enough money. She is studying in America and got a gift of money from her grandparents to help out but we paid for her flights and she knows we will be there for her if she is in any trouble.

I also hope to be able to pay her a small monthly allowance when she returns but I would like to see her try to earn some money too. She has alot of opportunities as it happens which may not be the case for some people but I equally know that if she had the chance she would sit back a bit which I don't agree with. I know she's studying etc but she has friends who have parents who pay for everything and they will not have a clue when they get into the outside world. One of them had £1000 paid into her bank account for her Birthday, came to London and booked into a posh suite, went out to Camden market and had her handbag and mobile phone stolen and then on the way back to uni had her travel bag stolen which had all her expensive purchases in. .......see what I mean about being a bit irresponsible etc.

I read your earlier posts.....although we are quite comfortable where money is concerned i would rather daughter asked if she needed rather than us offering all the time. she has worked part time since she was 16 and saved quite a bit herself.i think part of the fun at uni is being a POOR student,so dont mind helping those who help themselves .....lol

joe13

where is your daughter going - I wish my daughters fees were only £2,800. for her first year in halls we are having to pay £3,550 and she only gets the 75% loan as we are just over the earnings limit for her to receive the full loan. This means her loan does not even cover her accommodation costs.

As already mentioned in earlier postings I agree that the kids who lose out are the ones who receive only 75% of the loan but whose parents cannot really afford to make up the difference. We have younger children at home still to support.

belfastgal

She is going to Coleraine.only about 50 miles away.

gizmoleeds

joe13 wrote:

she only gets the 75% loan as we are just over the earnings limit for her to receive the full loan.

That can't be true as the 25% portion works on a sliding scale. If you were "just over" the maximum then being just under doesn't mean you would get 100% - you would have got, say 77%, and if your income was a bit lower than that, 79% and so on.

joe13

gizmoleeds wrote:

That can't be true as the 25% portion works on a sliding scale. If you were "just over" the maximum then being just under doesn't mean you would get 100% - you would have got, say 77%, and if your income was a bit lower than that, 79% and so on.

Well gizmo I can assure you it is true, if you are over the limit for the 100% rate then you only recieve the 75%. I have just checked it out in the lea student finance booklet in front of me. In case I did not make it clear we are not just over the 75% level but just over the 100% level.
This is with both of her parents working full time and the only reduction given for having other dependant children is £1025 per year per child.