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Annea

Independent living at college

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Hi everyone can I have some feedback please?

My daughter who is 18 is in the last year of her A levels , she boards at an independent A/s college.

 

Her plan for this year in readiness for uni next year is to budget for herself, this includes getting an allowance for her breakfast lunch and tea any snacks etc. in this she has to get EVERYTHING from bread and milk to butter etc....

 

She has rung me and they have just finalised her allowance which is £15 per week. This means £1 per meal if she eats 3 meals a day. Is it me or does this sound a little mean? We have looked at tesco website ( the only place near enough for her to shop) and we can not get a balanced diet inc fruit and veg on this amount. Her place is funded through welsh Assembley so should I be insisting on more or does anyone have any ideas on how she can feed herself for this tiny amount?

 

 

Thanks for any input.... X

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It does seem little tight to do a shop like that

 

A lot of basic staples such as bread, milk, butter etc... would easily eat into this amount. Plus if she needs to get cooking oil and any seasonings. When I was a student, you could do a lot with some mince, a tin of tomotoes and some herbs, but even tomatoes are not that cheap anymore!!

I think once all the staples were bought you could then perhaps survive on £15 a week, but even that would be tight, as you say fruit and veg are not cheap and a set to go up in price after this years weather

 

Lisa

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Just went on a well known supermarket website

 

Cheapest loaf 47p, value tin of toms 31p, own brand cornflakes £1.29, cheapest butter 81p etc...

 

Could your daughter/ you perhaps do a little research? Come up with an example menu plan and costs for a week and present that to them?

Edited by LisaKaz75

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To be honest I think that is a bit rediculous. We are trying to prepare young people for life in the real world here.

 

Four years ago I spent two years away from home 5 days a week at university as a 43/44 year old and I know how much it takes to survive. For example at the university they ran an 'eat with us scheme' which was a card with a fixed amount on each week wich could be used for breakfast through to an evening meal to all sorts of things like getting a drink whilst going between lectures.

 

The value of that card is now £43.20. Now the general concensus was that it was good value compared to shopping for food yourself. Whilst I didn't get a card I did more or less decide to use the facilites rather than cook for myself and my 5 day budget was around the £40 mark and that meant a beer or two if I was very disciplined. Now before all the adults say thats loads I will highlight I could have eaten for less than that but the issue is other students simply do not have the discipline to put budgets together and cook for 4,5 or 6 people at the same time as a family does.

 

To put this in perspective on my postgraduate course there were about 30 Chineese students who had been sent across sponsored by their government. I think the university insisted that they were given at least £50 a week for food as part of the package. Because I knew them working on projects alongside them I saw how some of them lived. Now I am talking about pretty small women with very small appetites used to having a very simple diet because of their backgrounds. Even at this most basic level they were getting through £30 to £35 a week minimum.

 

Another point is that Universities are never located in the cheap areas of a city as such your local Tesco extra always costs a fortune. When you decide to go for cheaper accomodation you invariably spend a lot of time commuting is also an issue. So to drive out with your kids to some massive Asda on the outskirts of your town and load up the car is not really a transfarable concept for the majority.

 

University is about learning and growing as an individuals not about trying to recreate a third world scenario of depravation. I think this college needs to take a reality check. I would also think about what is a good set up for your daughter should she decide to go to university and if a loaf of bread and a jar of jam is the way to go. The first week at college was always amusing seeing 18 year olds walking around Tesco with a fiver trying very hard to buy the weekly shop just as mummy and daddy had told them and getting nowhere beyond the loaf of bread a jar of jam and then picking up a big bar of chocholate at the end of the check out line as the pressure hit home. In contrast you would never see them in the local markets haggling over a few bruised vegetables or an end cut of meat.

 

I think a lot of the colleges thinking here is based on 'in the good old days I managed....' Well in the good old days at university I had my account frozen by the bank and was allowed £25 a week to live off to stop my debts increasing. I have to be honest I did manage to live off £25 a week but that was in 1983/1984!

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Although it might be possible (just) to manage on £15 a week, it would mean bulk buying and storing food. I don't know what facilities your daughter will have, but I suspect it will just be a small cupboard and maybe one shelf of a shared fridge.

 

I think rather than doing sample menus and budgets yourselves, you should ask the college to provide her with samples showing how to stretch £15 for the whole week.

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The more I look into this the more silly it seems...

 

You are right with your sugestions however a couple of things.... she DOES have to buy all her own staples out of this such as seasonings etc.

She also can NOT hold any money over from week to week if she could in order to buy something more expensive the next week.

 

Thing is, who wants to live on the same meal every single day of the week?

The only supermarket she can get to, is Tesco, so that is the only place I can check out and have checked out...

 

I mean she is a really healthy girl and she runs, so is a size 10 and if she doesn't eat, she loses weight very rapidly.

 

I think I will have to intervene.... initially she was getting £2 for her evening meal and was struggling with that. But their final calculation is 50p extra for her lunch and 50p for her breakfast. I just don't see how they can work that out.

 

It almost makes me feel that they are preparing her to fail.... I mean I don't want her coddling, it was our idea that she be pushing independent living skills, but all her friends are now at UNI and none of them have as little as she does to eat. it means she can't even really drink anything other than water. She is not a tea / coffee person but does like herbal tea every now and again. No chance of that as it will blow 2 days food budget :)

it would be so easy for me to shop online then send it to the house, but I am reluctant to do this as they have already been paid to provide for her.

 

x

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Annea I think their beliefs here are completely to pot.

 

We are talking about a young healthy adult here. There are these stupid beliefs out there that university is a rite of passage and this is what young people have to go through. It is those beliefs which say live off white bread, rice or pasta for your student days it will toughen you up. No they are wrong living off the lowest low grade carbohydrates is not healthy living. In a similar way cutting protein out of your diet because of a budget does not lead to a healthy life position it leads to medical issues.

 

I have lived with students in my appartment block who live like this and they wonder why they struggle to get out of bed before 11:00, the answer is easy they are ill all the time.

 

If you look at my profile you might see I am a very keen athelete and you simply can not live like this and be healthy in body and importantly mind. I will go as far as to say that the majority of dogs and cats are fed a more balanced diet than the average student in our country. Some parents expect their kids to basically live off stuff they wouldn't even contemplate feeding their dog.

 

Annea I am not saying you think like this but personally I would be ringing up the school and telling them to get their act together because they have a responsibility concerning the welfare of your daughter and that include her diet and ensuring it is balanced and healthy.

 

I could go further and say this is getting into the realms of child abuse. I have been a foster carer to young adults of the same age in preparing them for independent life and social services would have me hung drawn and quatered if i was giving them a budget of £15.

 

Just a thought.

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Annea I think their beliefs here are completely to pot.

 

We are talking about a young healthy adult here. There are these stupid beliefs out there that university is a rite of passage and this is what young people have to go through. It is those beliefs which say live off white bread, rice or pasta for your student days it will toughen you up. No they are wrong living off the lowest low grade carbohydrates is not healthy living. In a similar way cutting protein out of your diet because of a budget does not lead to a healthy life position it leads to medical issues.

 

I have lived with students in my appartment block who live like this and they wonder why they struggle to get out of bed before 11:00, the answer is easy they are ill all the time.

 

If you look at my profile you might see I am a very keen athelete and you simply can not live like this and be healthy in body and importantly mind. I will go as far as to say that the majority of dogs and cats are fed a more balanced diet than the average student in our country. Some parents expect their kids to basically live off stuff they wouldn't even contemplate feeding their dog.

 

Annea I am not saying you think like this but personally I would be ringing up the school and telling them to get their act together because they have a responsibility concerning the welfare of your daughter and that include her diet and ensuring it is balanced and healthy.

 

I could go further and say this is getting into the realms of child abuse. I have been a foster carer to young adults of the same age in preparing them for independent life and social services would have me hung drawn and quatered if i was giving them a budget of £15.

 

Just a thought.

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Thank you for your input, I absolutely would not put her at risk.... she is a very healthy young adult her ideal meals would be wholemeal past/ rice / chickpeas etc with lots of fresh fruit and veg.. This is the sort of food we eat at home. as this is a new plan she is still eating from her old allowance which also allowed her to dip into the store cupboard, so she does have things frozen. But i have spent the date looking at what constitutes a balanced diet and it can NOT be achieved on that amount. I also found out that three of the other students who budget as a group actually have several pound more per day EACH than she does. I just need to get my facts straight about this and wanted to reassure myself i was not being OTT .

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Annea you are not being OTT. There is a big difference between a healthy diet and a diet you can survive on. I am not talking here about luxury good or treats but things such as having 100g of quality protein a day in her diet given her age, sex and size. Now whether that protein id found in meat, fish or dairy products such as cheese it does not come cheap. I am not talking about 100g of something which has protein in it rather 100g of protein. So for anyone who thinks that is easy on a £15 budget go and have a look in your fridge and start working that one out.

 

To throw one other piece of information into the equation. The current allowance for a secondary aged pupil is £2.25 for a single meal. Now that is the difficult challenge facing caterers in providing a balanced meal which goes towards hitting recomended levels for that meal. To hit those levels this meal has to be supported by other meals such as a breakfast and tea at the same levels. So in effect there is the £15 gone already. Now of course there are overhaeds such as staff wages and energy in hitting that £2.25 target but there is also the advantage of bulk buting and commercial catering techniques.

 

Its not OTT thinking its simple common sense.

Edited by LancsLad

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sigh... I feel so sad at the moment and feel this last year is falling apart for my daughter...

 

As you can see from my first post she budgets for 5 days a week and every other weekend the college is closed and she comes home. The other weekend she eats with the other students who are cooked for by the staff.

Last night, she was ever so upset as she had been upstairs in her room studying.. she is right at the tip of the house as the only female. When she came down stairs she realised that tea had been served and eaten and basically she had been forgotten! No food had been cooked for her. Of course due to her difficulties she couldn't confront anyone but spoke to me and was so very upset.

 

All of the independent living task were supposed to have been put in at the end of last year, but when she went in September the manager of the new house had very different ideas of what she wanted int he house.. We are now coming toward end of first half term and it is a shambles. They are trying to put things in place but this is causing disruption within the house and with other students, noone seems to know what is happening. The principle actually visited me at home as the college is an hour away and I am not always well enough to travel. he assured me that everything would be sorted ASAP but now these latest issues.... I am so dissapointed that this her final year is turning into such a shambles.

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