Daughter #1 to Uni - how much living expenses?

[Arch]

My dad has just said that the £50 a week is to replace Working Family Tax credit and child benefit. So he wants £200 every 4 weeks off me.

So, you're getting £1400 every 4 months, and giving £800 to your parents for full board (you're living at home right?). That leaves you £600, or £150 a month for 'other stuff'. You don't have to buy food, or pay rent out of that, or electricity/gas/water?

Sounds alright to me. After I've paid rent, council tax and water rates each month, and then accounted for food and quarterly electric and phone bill, PAYG broadband etc, I might have £100 to play with.

Then it's £25 a time to come over to NT's, so if I do that every weekend....

Not that I'm complaining. I have more than I need to eat (hence I'm fat!), and have as much social life as I want (IE, a bit, but not too much), I have a three day weekend and I manage to save a pound or two every so often...

 

[Arch]

My thoughts on this parent are best left self censored.....

I'm gobsmacked.

I dunno, give Matt a bit of an idea what happens to money. Too many people these days seem to think it grows on trees at will and you're entitled to as much of it as you can persuade someone to lend you.

Then again, I recall when Matt had a crash he was asking if his Dad could claim on insurance for money 'wasted' going to and from hospital, so he's obviously a bit careful with the stuff....

 

[Gromit]

My dad has just said that the £50 a week is to replace Working Family Tax credit and child benefit. So he wants £200 every 4 weeks off me.

I think I would go for a bigger student loan and get out if I were you. When I left school in 1990, I was on a YTS scheme which paid £15 a week for working 40 hours a week. My mum took £10 off me, the rest I used for bus fairs to get to work (it just covered a weekly bus ticket). She said that now I was working I had a family to support. She spent her time sitting around doing nothing but smoking and drinking.

I left home at 19 because earning a bigger wage would have meant giving her all of my money. Family credit and child benefit are for the children, it should be taken off parents who smoke and drink it away.

If your living away from home whilst at Uni, your parents have no real right to your money as it is for you to live off. You are an independent adult.

I had a part-time job when I first went to Uni. I think I had about £100 a week to live off. This time around I didn't work during term time, I did much better on my degree.

 

[JtB]

A slight correction to a post above, students living in university halls of residence do need their own TV licence if they use a TV or watch live TV on the internet in their own room.

 

[The Jogger]

Our daughter has her student loans for accommodation, we give her some money for food, pay for some of her foreign travel but she also works part time, during the summer more like full time in a call centre and weekends in a pub. She shares a flat in putney so costs are high. It's good that she is fairly self sufficient.

 

[Matthew_T]

I am living at home and my dad has now said that he would only want £200 every month to save me £50 a term. I suppose it isnt too bad as I will have about £600 left over, and the only stuff I will be buying is bits for my bike (large initial purchase), then the odd bus ticket when the weather is bad, and maybe a bit of food as I will be in college until 8pm on Tuesdays.

My dad said that he would hope that I would have enough money left over to be able to do a week of intensive driving lessons and try to get a license (this will depend on whether or not I have a job by then).

 

[sabian92]

My dad has just said that the £50 a week is to replace Working Family Tax credit and child benefit. So he wants £200 every 4 weeks off me.

That sounds a lot for living at home. It sounds like he's a bit of a penny pincher (sorry to sound rude but I'm of the belief that parents shouldn't ask kids for rent unless they're actually renting properly off them, not just living at home because they haven't moved out yet). Asking for it to replace something he no longer gets isn't really on either - it isn't your fault you're getting older! Although if you ring them up you can claim child benefit till you're 19 if you're still in full time education (I've just turned 20 and got my last payment last month).

You could probably live in halls for that amount of money, have your own space and not have parents to nag you. (And have somewhere to bring girls/guys back to without having to sneak them in! delete either/or for your preference )

As for uni, I know people who live off £16 (yes, SIXTEEN) quid a week. Seriously. £150 a week is just spoiling them as let's be honest, it's going to be making a pub richer and you poorer.

Don't ask me how they do it but they do. I'm living at home when I go next year although I'm still taking out a loan for accommodation so I have some extra money. I'm going to try and wrangle some more out of them as you get more if you don't live at home with your parents (and I don't, I live with somebody else's parents ) so fingers crosse.d

 

[Matthew_T]

That sounds a lot for living at home. It sounds like he's a bit of a penny pincher (sorry to sound rude but I'm of the belief that parents shouldn't ask kids for rent unless they're actually renting properly off them, not just living at home because they haven't moved out yet). Asking for it to replace something he no longer gets isn't really on either - it isn't your fault you're getting older! Although if you ring them up you can claim child benefit till you're 19 if you're still in full time education (I've just turned 20 and got my last payment last month).

I have told him this, but he ignored it. FML

I am technically in full time education (course is two days though) but my parents will be losing because it is a HE course, and it isnt accepted for some reason. Even though I am still living at home and I am still a child (well, adult).

 

[sabian92]

That's pathetic. I'm doing a Level 3 BTEC and that was accepted even at the age of 19.

Your dad must be properly skint to want money off you for that - it was going to happen sooner or later regardless. Have you considered living in halls?

 

[vernon]

That's pathetic. I'm doing a Level 3 BTEC and that was accepted even at the age of 19.

Your dad must be properly skint to want money off you for that - it was going to happen sooner or later regardless. Have you considered living in halls?

Matthew can't consider halls because he's attending a technical college.

 

[sabian92]

Ah, apologies. Didn't know that.

 

[ArDee]

£100 week in Sheffield.

About right Master ArDee went to Sheffield 2007 - 2010 we paid his accommodation so he had the accommodation loan for living; plus we topped him up occasionally.

 

[Sandra6]

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)

 

[GrumpyGregry]

£500 a month as a student?!!

Yes, easily, depending on the course and location of the insitituation. Books, materials, travel, compulsory field trips to the V&A, insurance, etc., etc..

 

[Arch]

I am living at home and my dad has now said that he would only want £200 every month to save me £50 a term. I suppose it isnt too bad as I will have about £600 left over, and the only stuff I will be buying is bits for my bike (large initial purchase), then the odd bus ticket when the weather is bad, and maybe a bit of food as I will be in college until 8pm on Tuesdays.

My dad said that he would hope that I would have enough money left over to be able to do a week of intensive driving lessons and try to get a license (this will depend on whether or not I have a job by then).

Seems a bit rich to tell you what to spend the leftovers on!

(OT, but I'm always a bit worried about intensive driving lessons. Good driving comes from long experience, and the idea that someone can be out on the road after a week or two, if they then happen to pass the test, scares me. I was learning, one lesson a week, for nearly a year, partly because of a couple of delays in test date due to holidays etc, so I saw all weathers and conditions, and by the time I passed (first time), driving felt like second nature. Cycling does help with road awareness, but there's still a lot of difference)