Meal plan

Hi all, I just rushed booking my accomodation for university of Birmingham. I was late to my booking slot and was left with few choices, and I really wanted en-suite (petty, I know) so when I refreshed the page for the 300th time and finally saw Chamberlain hall with en-suite, I booked...

Anyway, it has a meal plan that obviously adds to the cost. It is like 10k a year and my maintenance loan is 6k a year - will I be able to live? Was this a huge mistake? Am I stupid?

If your maintenance loan is below the costs of the accommodation and meal plan, how do you expect to make up the difference? They are going to expect you to pay them that money so you either need to have it already, your family needs to be prepared to pay that, or you need to very quickly find a part-time job and save up while balancing your work and studying.

Frankly I think en-suites are overrated. You share bathrooms with people all the time - at school and now at uni on campus, with your family at home, with others at friends houses etc. Unless you have really specific medical or religious restrictions which mean that a non-ensuite is completely out of the question I don't think it's worth the extra cost, which is often thousands more per year!

I think you'd be better off going back and finding a non-ensuite that is much cheaper and deciding if you want catered halls or not, considering the cost of catered halls vs buying your own food.

Yeah my family are willing to pay most of the gap weekly (£80 a week total from a bunch of different family members), I was expecting to get a part time job anyway, is this viable? Also, is the meal plan costs included in the rental costs weekly?

My degree is law - will I even be able to properly juggle a law degree with a part time job? The expected hours are 42 a week for lectures and self-study.

I'm first generation and didn't really expect to get in tbh, so apologies if this is an extremely naive thing to do. None of my immediate family have even finished A-level equivalence.

For student halls rent is typically paid in chunks aligning roughly with your student loan disbursement periods (at the start of the first term, after the winter break, and after the spring break), evenly distributed. Some might have an option to pay monthly. While the prices are often given per week, you don't pay rent each week normally basically...anywhere.

Usually degrees assume for a full time course (120 credits or equivalent) this should be roughly 35-40 hours a week worth of work on average i.e. that of a full time job. However much of this will be independent study time and actual timetabled activities make up a small proportion of that (I would expect for something like law maybe 8-12 hours contact hours a week?). Additionally this is just an average over the course of the term and also includes time anticipated to be put in outside of term (e.g. revision over the winter break), so in practice it's usually feasible to work part-time up to about 5-15 hours a week. I wouldn't go more than that though (I'd probably recommend aiming for 10-12 max realistically).

If you want to break down your meal costs per week it'd be better to aim for self-catered halls and buying your own food. You can also feed yourself in self catered halls for a lot less than £80 a week! Easily can do it for £25-35 a week. Might manage less than £25 a week if you exclusively shop at e.g. Lidl/Aldi/Iceland (always a good consideration!)

Presumably you haven't signed a contract yet? If not I would recommend going back and looking at other, cheaper options. You realistically probably want your student loans to align with your outgoing costs at maximum, and anything else as extra to help cover unexpected costs, occasional indulgences for yourself and outings with friends

Going for an accommodation that is £4k per year more than your maintenance loan I don't think is realistic, and it sounds like your family will be supporting week to week costs rather than lump sums - and the latter is what your accommodation will expect (or at least, monthly payments if you are given that option).

Oh wow, ok I didn't know it was in lump sums. The home study time is 30hrs a week, and its 12hrs lecture / contact time.

I have already paid the pay forward thing, it was all done in such a rush. Because I was late anyway to the booking race, I was left with either the cheapest of the cheap (which I really didn't like) or REALLY expensive (like £300 a week) so when Chamberlain popped up I raced to it, and it was £195 weekly. So my options are extremely limited. I am able to cancel, but I think that means I'm removed from the guarantee scheme, and I will have even less choice later down the road....

I also don't understand how meal plans work - I get £64 a week to spend around campus, how is this funded? Is it included in the rent cost? Because without the meal plan, it isn't £64 cheaper, its actually only about £15 cheaper I believe, how can this be?

My family is fine with helping me out financially, as really its less than they currently do anyway with buying my food and other utilities. And thank you so much for all the help so far, I really need this, I'm kinda panicking right now as I don't even know if I can reverse my decision and come out with better accommodation.

For the meal plan you'd really need to check the terms of it: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/accommodation/our-services/student-living-plus.aspx

Sounds like they do rollover each week up until the end of term, but it doesn't accrue between terms. I suspect the reason for the price difference is because in reality the food costs on campus are rather more than the equivalent where you aren't a captive audience, and possibly an assumption most students will end up with credit wasted at the end of term? I can't really imagine students routinely eating £64 a week of food and drink...unless it can be used at Waitrose or something!

Based on the accommodation website it looks like the student living plus option is £50 per week more which is most of that value of the student living plus. You get maybe £15 "extra" value out of it in theory, but in practice you could save much more on groceries buying your own meals if you're sensible with your shopping. Like I said, you can certainly live off £25-35 a week as a student reasonably I think.

If you've already paid a deposit you would lose that if you opt out. If you're confident between your family supporting you and in seeking a part-time job though then by all means stick with it. I don't think it's the best option but it may be more costly reversing it at this stage potentially.

Also I think framing things in terms of "better" or "good" accommodation even might be a bit off base - in general from what I've seen and experience, student accommodation tends to be largely similar and kind of similar shades of crap I would honestly just go for the cheapest option which won't make you go crazy in your room and grind it out while making the most of other activities!

While I can understand for example some unis offer much cheaper rooms but that are shared rooms rather than shared flats and that isn't for everyone, I think things like ensuites and catered accommodation/meal plans tend to be money traps for new students, personally. Yes it's a bit of an adjustment getting used to planning your own meals, buying your own food, and respecting other people's boundaries (and hoping they respect yours!) with shared bathrooms with strangers, but that's part of the experience of growing up and going to uni, I think

These latter points are more for posterity for others who may see this, as it may not be feasible for you to change things now as noted.

I don’t mind swapping , I am in Elgar court?I

Ok, yeah I now realise I have probably gone for a bit of a money trap. I guess I'll just have to enjoy it as much as I can and scrape by for a year while adjusting for uni life, and next year I will go with a much cheaper option as I will know a bit more about the accommodation life.

I'm a bit frustrated that they priced the accommodation differently per week when booking - it said £196 a week which is what it is for a 52-week year, but obviously its 42 weeks, so comes to £244 really

Thanks for all the help though!/, I really appreciate it!

I have an en-suite for £175 a week