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How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:51 pm
by frosties
One of my DC is off to a London Uni in a week. They've got loans for tuition and accommodation, but can anyone help me decide how much weekly allowance to give them for food, books, other necessities? Already had one DC at Uni but that one wasn't in London. Realise it's more expensive but need to have an idea of how much more I need to give them.
Thank you!

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 5:56 pm
by yoyo123
Because her loan barely covered Miss Yoyo's accommodation, we paid her rent. She was very frugal however..

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 6:26 pm
by hermanmunster
I agree with yoyo - I just paid accommodation and then they can manage the loan they have using it for travel books food and entertainment

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:01 pm
by frosties
Thanks for the replies.
If they use their loan and we pay for accommodation, they'll be getting over £250 a week.
I only gave my 1st DC £80 a week for food etc (their Uni was in the North of England) so now I feel like I was stingy!

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:09 pm
by yoyo123
London is extremely expensive, the main outlay is accommodation, we were very fortunate to be in a position to help her. Both of us had grants, I was 29 and so had full grant and a mature student allowance as I had paid income tax for the previous 12 years.

Things are very different now

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 9:07 pm
by hermanmunster
frosties wrote:Thanks for the replies.
If they use their loan and we pay for accommodation, they'll be getting over £250 a week.
I only gave my 1st DC £80 a week for food etc (their Uni was in the North of England) so now I feel like I was stingy!
If they are getting the max maintenance loan (as it sounds like they are) then agree it would be reasonable for them to pay something towards the accommodation and hence you give them less - sorry not sure how much, I was as student in London decades ago and it has got much more expensive than the rest of the country since then

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 10:22 pm
by KB
Transport is the big one - can they walk most places they need to get to?

We made ours do a weekly record of expenditure to start with ( having given them some money to get going) and then reviewed with them a few weeks in.
Eldest was so careful at beginning they had to be encouraged to increase food expenditure :)

Our elder DCs are naturally careful - expecting a different story with youngest!

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 10:49 pm
by Guest55
Food is a similar price in London and travel can be cheap.

KB's idea of a spreadsheet is a good one but I think £250 a week is too much.

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 8:02 am
by Minesatea
Appologies for a slight side track to this thread but does anyone know roughly what percentage of London uni students commute rather than live in halls. DS is hoping to go there and is considering commuting from home as the rail fare is significantly cheaper than accommodation but I am concerned he may miss out if the majority of students are in halls.

Re: How much weekly allowance to give at London University?

Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:44 pm
by KB
From experience of fair number of DCs friends I would guess that the accommodation choices of students in London is much more varied than at most other Universities.

There is much less opportunity to be in Halls and especially those within short walk of where you are studying so commercial halls, hostels, flat shares etc seem more common for 1st years.

Having said that there is obviously a difference between living at home and sharing with other young people in whatever location. It would probably require more effort to really get to know people although doing that in London seems to need more effort anyway.

Is it a long commute - issues of getting studying done if tired/ commuting takes time and obviously being able to attend social activities?

Also depends on nature of DC. One of mine hated student life and would have loved to be able to live at home. Another one loved it and would have hated to have been commuting from home....