Giving some of my loan to my dad monthly?

username5093032

13

Thoughts?

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

Dancer2001

20

Most people who live at home with an income give their parents money, you do live there. How about adding up what all the bills are each month, and splitting it between the number of people living at home? That would give you an idea of how much money its costing for you to be there. If you don’t like it, move out next year.

Reply 2

Plain1

16

You should be giving him board, I'm not joking either. You really should be giving him money every month if you have an income, your loan is your income. It'd cost you more to move out, but if you don't like paying board then move out ASAP.

Reply 3

curbyourfeminism

10

Original post by camcole44

I received my first instalment of my loan yesterday. The first thing I did was pay my dad back for the laptop he bought me last month. With this month's money, I then bought over £200 worth of text books and gave my dad an additional £140 just to help out. He is a retired single parent and doesn't have a lot of money. I'm now left with about £280 for the month which is pretty good but I still have things left to buy. I really don't mind helping my dad out where I can but the way he reacted made me upset. He didn't thank me for the extra money I gave him and instead just mentioned that he saw I'd transferred it. He then proceeded to tell me about how much money he's no longer getting now that I've turned 18 and that he's going to struggle a lot more now, which made me feel guilty. And not long ago, he said that the reason I get such a big loan is because I should be paying board to him as I'm not living in halls (he wasn't joking.) The things he's said have caused me anxiety because I now feel pressure to send him money every month for the next 3 years. Like I said, I really don't mind helping out where I can and I acknowledge that I'm getting quite a lot of money. But I had plans to save up for driving lessons/a car/a new phone/moving out in 2nd year. I now feel like I have to put these things aside and prioritise my dad. Thoughts?

Right. First of all, scrap the idea of getting a car, especially as a student. You need a substantial amount of income to uphold the cost of a car, which includes insurance, MOT (only £35 a year but still a cost), road tax (assuming you do not have an electric car, which you should for environmental reasons) and car repair costs. Furthermore, the biggest cost of the car is depreciation. By the time you go to collect your car from the showroom, it has already lost value. Depreciation hits you with a lump sum once you come to selling the car in the end. To exemplify, if you buy a car now for around £10,000, and it then sells for £5,000 in 5 years, you have lost £5,000 in 5 years, or £1,000 a year. You need to see the cost of a car from an economic lens first, and then a social one. Why? Public transport is there for you to get from A-Z while keeping the cost as low as is possible and feasible for the government. With regards to driving lessons, I recommend you take automatic lessons. Yes, they cost more than manual ones, but the majority of cars will shift to automatic gears since electric cars are becoming more commonplace. I took only 8 hours worth of automatic lessons, and I am ready for my test. I only spent £440 in total for lessons. I spent £210 initially for 10 hours worth of manual lessons, but in the end, I decided to shift to automatic, since I am going to buy an electric car when I need to. Do not make the same mistake I did, and save yourself money by simply completing your automatic lessons within a 10 hour block booking.

Second of all, when purchasing a new phone, do not feel the need to pimp out and buy one for £1,000. In fact, I have a Samsung Galaxy A90, and it only cost around £290 from Argos. You should not be spending over £500 on a phone in my opinion, unless it has an overwhelming amount of better features than its predecessors.

Lastly, and most importantly, make a spreadsheet of all of your costs. Go on Excel, or Google Sheets, and make a spreadsheet where on the top column, you write all of the months in the academic year, and on the left column, you write down all of your expenses. Here is my one for help. I am yet to fill it in since I move into accommodation this Sunday, and so I will write down my costs from then.

20200929_141301.jpg387.8KB

Reply 4

Mustafa0605

21

If your dad is struggling financially then maybe that’s something you should do. If he is not, then you should save it instead of spending it.

Reply 5

Er01ca

4

Original post by Plain1

You should be giving him board, I'm not joking either. You really should be giving him money every month if you have an income, your loan is your income. It'd cost you more to move out, but if you don't like paying board then move out ASAP.

In what world is a loan considered income? He would struggle equally as much if OP just moved out and stopped being charitable in the first place. I think its great that OP has thought about this and has chosen to help out her dad, however if your parent expects you to sustain their previous standard of living through means of loans and debts then that is honestly crazy.

If i become a parent, no matter how financially poor i am, i would not be demanding income which was previously given to me by the government through my child given the situation in play. Fair enough, if you are working and recieving real income, paying your fair share of utilities is a perfectly fair ask. It seems like OP's father is asking them to debt themselves in the long run whilst being unemployed, which i dont think is reasonable atall.

I can sympathise with the father saying he will be financially worse off since OP will be 18 and can no longer claim for subsidies, however that money was surely given for means of sustaining OPs welfare via clothing, food ect. Not him. Now OP has a loan, this money will be used to pay for her own welfare, thus leaving the father the same financially. If OPs father couldnt financially support himself without this loan meant for his child, should he have stayed retired for so long, relying on income he knew wouldnt last? What happens to OPs father after moving out/ getting a real job?

It sounds brutal but from my opinion, it just seems like ignorance, like staying at home was his way to finance himself for the next 3 years. Essentially forcing his child to top up his pension whilst paying for it at +5% interest a year. Obviously i dont know every aspect from OPs life but this does seem like the case.

I think the question being asked by OP is perfectly reasonable, helping out above what is fair. Ultimately the money being recieved from the loan is hers, she can choose to help above what is fair, but being demanded to pay rent for 3 years is different, honestly choosing to move out for 2nd year isnt a bad option to consider, she can avoid the stress and can still help her dad out.

Good luck if you decide to have children, because if you were my father i would of moved out at 16.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 6

Er01ca

4

Original post by curbyourfeminism

Right. First of all, scrap the idea of getting a car, especially as a student. You need a substantial amount of income to uphold the cost of a car, which includes insurance, MOT (only £35 a year but still a cost), road tax (assuming you do not have an electric car, which you should for environmental reasons) and car repair costs. Furthermore, the biggest cost of the car is depreciation. By the time you go to collect your car from the showroom, it has already lost value. Depreciation hits you with a lump sum once you come to selling the car in the end. To exemplify, if you buy a car now for around £10,000, and it then sells for £5,000 in 5 years, you have lost £5,000 in 5 years, or £1,000 a year. You need to see the cost of a car from an economic lens first, and then a social one. Why? Public transport is there for you to get from A-Z while keeping the cost as low as is possible and feasible for the government. With regards to driving lessons, I recommend you take automatic lessons. Yes, they cost more than manual ones, but the majority of cars will shift to automatic gears since electric cars are becoming more commonplace. I took only 8 hours worth of automatic lessons, and I am ready for my test. I only spent £440 in total for lessons. I spent £210 initially for 10 hours worth of manual lessons, but in the end, I decided to shift to automatic, since I am going to buy an electric car when I need to. Do not make the same mistake I did, and save yourself money by simply completing your automatic lessons within a 10 hour block booking.

Second of all, when purchasing a new phone, do not feel the need to pimp out and buy one for £1,000. In fact, I have a Samsung Galaxy A90, and it only cost around £290 from Argos. You should not be spending over £500 on a phone in my opinion, unless it has an overwhelming amount of better features than its predecessors.

Lastly, and most importantly, make a spreadsheet of all of your costs. Go on Excel, or Google Sheets, and make a spreadsheet where on the top column, you write all of the months in the academic year, and on the left column, you write down all of your expenses. Here is my one for help. I am yet to fill it in since I move into accommodation this Sunday, and so I will write down my costs from then.

I can tell you are not studying anything to do with finance or numbers. Looking through that economic lens of yours, do you think buying a £10,000 new showroom is the cheapest/most practical way to drive at uni? As I am assuming you are telling op to buy a brand new car as you quoted 50% depreciation in 5years.

Firstly, don't spend 10k on a new car, spend maybe 4-5k on a practical used 5year old car, this is a good idea as someone else has paid for the steep depreciation curve of a new car in the first 3-5years, which was kindly exemplified by @curbyourfeminism before. Also being insured on any vehicle young could be seen as a positive with the cost of insurance in subsequent years being significantly lower + no claims. If she wanted to go really budget she could just pick up a 500-1000£ car and be done with it, obviously, it's not future proof but I'm assuming OP is wanting to drive sooner rather than later and isn't planning to daily a Ford KA for the rest of her life. Also, imagine how many ££££ you would lose by depreciation on that.

I did quite enjoy reading about your recommendations for driving lessons though, instead of opting to pay for manual lessons and drive any street-legal car, you decided to look through an economical lens and take 10hours of manual then switch to the more expensive automatic lessons, just to have the luxury of not being able to most of the cars on the road. I think you just couldn't drive manual so you went on a glory speech preaching how automatic is the best. Also with automatic cars being more expensive than manual on avg, I do think it really helps OP keep her costs down.