Daughter #1 to Uni - how much living expenses?

[Night Train]

£500 a month as a student?!

I only earn £800 a month now, and I'm living on my own in a self contained flat (well, bedsit), so have the luxury of not sharing...

I'm only on just under £600 a month at the moment and I have a house and a car to run.
When I was teaching I was on just shy of £800 a month, pre tax and deductions, term time only.



Back to the OP, I think letting your daughter plan her own budget and take responsibility for it will set her up well for life. It is too easy to have open ended spending when 'mummy and daddy' will cover the overspend.
Budgeting and living out will also add to her independence and personal development hugely, something I missed out on at that age as my parents insisted I lived at home and remained tethered to the 'apron strings'.
I should have accepted the offers from Brunel and Imperial and lived in halls rather then Middlesex and living at home.

 

[sabian92]

On the tax credit/child benefit subject - you can actually still claim for a child/young person up to the age of 21 if they remain in education. I'm not sure if it extends to university students, but certainly covers btecs and the like.
As for living expenses -plenty of people live on jsa and that's only £50 a week and covers everything bar the rent.

If you can afford to fund your children through uni with a generous allowance, that's great, but if your funds are stretched as it is then don't feel you have to stump up hundreds, they won't starve on less (so long as they don't drink it all away)

It's only 19 - I've just had my last payment of child benefit but I'm no longer covered because I'm now over 19.

I would ask her to draw up a weekly budget and discuss it with her if you think she's being unreasonable. If it's your dime she's spending then you have a right to tell her if she's spending too much. Obviously you don't want her to starve but anything over about £80 a week is just madness. Apart from books and supplies you can easily get by on £50 a week and that includes a few drinks in the pub. It can be done, it just takes discipline.

 

[Arch]

Can she cook? I generally spend only around £10 a week on food, maybe more if I need to stock up on big items. I do a lot of pasta sauces and curries, based on Basics/Everyday Value tinned products, and I have a strict budget for whatever the meat/protein part of the meal is, which tends to mean I either have cheap meat, or less meat bulked up with veg. Pasta and rice are cheap. Any sort of ready prepared food is a treat (and, paradoxically, often disappointing in portion size or flavour).

As a bonus, tinned and other non-perishables can be kept in a room, if theft is an issue.

 

[Gromit]

My niece has gone for full board for accommodation as she needs her own bathroom. She suffers from bad migraines and can often be found on the bathroom floor when an attack hits. At least she wont need to worry about cooking and buying food as it's all going to be done for her.

 

[screenman]

£20,000 a year for a girl, why do you think I only had son's. With boys you can let them suffer a bit.

 

[Arch]

£20,000 a year for a girl, why do you think I only had son's. With boys you can let them suffer a bit.

On what planet does a girl (of any age) need £20,000 to live comfortably?

 

[dellzeqq]

on what planet can a girl be any age?

 

[Rob3rt]

I am still a student, but my undergrad finished as recently as 2.5 years ago. I lived on ~£3500 a year for 4 years. Of course during the 3 month long summer, I moved back home.

Book expenses vary, I didnt spend anywhere near the figure Dellzeqq quoted, I spent less than £200 I would estimate in the 1st year, if that, over the 4 years, probably £300-350, upper limit estimate.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Cheers, she's pretty frugal and over the last 2 years working at Waitrose she has amassed notable savings. She can dip into these for the 'luxuries' but we're after a guide on a baseload value. For better or for worse we run a big household budget for effectively 5 adults, 2 cars dog and a goldfish, we're comfortable but not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but conversely we don't know much about frugal living for 1 either ... hence the question! Maybe starting on £80p/week is a sensible proposition and see how it goes ....

 

[Arch]

on what planet can a girl be any age?

Pedant. I meant of course, female of any age, but was mirroring the quote for literary effect.

Well, most universities are charging £9000 per year in tuition fees now, so it's really only £11,000. A year's non-catered accomodation in a large city in the west midlands costs about £6000, so there's only £5000 left after that.

Yes but FF is looking for expenses over and above fees and accommodation. I assumed people would answer on that basis, not on total basis.

Seems some people really struggle to read the question! Let's hope FF's daughter does better in that respect when it comes to essays....

(and 5000 divided by 52 is still £96 a week for food and sundries, which still seems like a lot of money to me!)

 

[screenman]

Whoosh!! that was the noise my little joke made as it went straight over Arch's head.

 

[Arch]

Whoosh!! that was the noise my little joke made as it went straight over Arch's head.

Yeah, well, I'm quite short....

 

[screenman]

 

[al78]

Can she cook? I generally spend only around £10 a week on food, maybe more if I need to stock up on big items. I do a lot of pasta sauces and curries, based on Basics/Everyday Value tinned products, and I have a strict budget for whatever the meat/protein part of the meal is, which tends to mean I either have cheap meat, or less meat bulked up with veg. Pasta and rice are cheap. Any sort of ready prepared food is a treat (and, paradoxically, often disappointing in portion size or flavour).

As a bonus, tinned and other non-perishables can be kept in a room, if theft is an issue.

I'd be interested to know what you eat in a week that only costs £10?

I spend about £40-60 pw for myself, but then I do buy organic, high quality stuff (Abel and Cole) which tends to be expensive plus I eat more than I think I need too in order to make sure I am getting sufficient calories.

 

[dellzeqq]

it depends who you are. When I went to university, in my mid thirties, I bought a big bag of rice, a big bag of dried peas, and some soy sauce. I had oranges every day because they were cheap at the greengrocers up the road. That was it. I lived with a friend and, in my first term spent £35 on food and £750, (more than half my savings accrued over two years) on books. My 'town bike' was a 1954 BSA with rod brakes and rusty wheels. I never took the bus. I bought a leather jacket that got stolen in the first week, and didn't get another jacket until I left university six years later. At the weekend I got my racer out and rode the 50 miles home to see the kids, not having been able to afford to phone them all week. It wasn't uplifting, it wasn't fun, it wasn't instructive, it certainly wasn't virtuous, it was bloody miserable. Not as miserable as working every day of the week for six years on a farm and not having enough money to get the bus eight miles in to Aylesbury or buy cheap icecream more than once a week, but close.

Now the Kid is off to Dublin for a term on an 'Erasmus' all we want is for to have everything she likes. She says she is going to get a loan and budget. That's fine, but she is told that if she's out late and wants to get a cab home, that is what she should do. If she wants an outfit all she has to do is to ask. We want her to float around Dublin like a piece of gossamer, and not have to worry about anything other than her studies, going out and looking at stuff and meeting boys. If she wants her laundry done she can send it home - or just buy new stuff. That will strike some people as over-indulgent, or lacking in moral fibre, but I reckon that she could store up some wonderful memories in the next three months and return home triumphant.