bit of a dilemma here.

Just picked up Guildhall's Prospectus and they reckon it will cost ?1200-?1500 a MONTH, to live in London. Now in an argument over how to fund 1200 a month which works out at appox 10,000 a year...

So how do people you know dso it? How do you do it? Major help needed!!

Thanks

TSL

First of all, don't panic! I don't know all the answers yet, because my eldest is just off in a week or so, but here's as much as I do know, based on my own child and her friends who are going to London.

Guildhall's estimate is only a rough guide and it's a case of how long is a piece of string - if you're prepared to live very frugally it will obviously be cheaper than if you're living it up. 1500 pounds a month is a huge amount, even 1200 sounds generous.

Biggest cost is definitely accommodation, and there's little you can do about that. In London it seems to be 5,000 pounds a year or more - my daughter will be paying 5,400. After that, it's general living costs, most students/parents I've spoken to seem to work on between 90-100 pounds a week. Remember, that may include transport costs, although it depends where you live and which college you're at, some are closer than others.

Remember you're only at college approx 39-41 weeks a year, the rest of the time you'll hopefully be living a bit more cheaply at home. So it depends on whether you're looking at those monthly costs over 12 or only 9 months.

Now, in terms of getting the money... Your student loan/grant will depend on your income and/or that of your parents. My daughter is getting a tiny grant (she'll get none next year, the goalposts are being moved!), and a big loan. I think in total they will come to about 7,300 pounds a year. Looking at the estimate of approx 10,000 pounds a year, and depending on lifestyle, that obviously leaves a shortfall of 2-3000 a year, this will probably have to be filled by parental contributions or you working.

Don't forget other sources of funding. My daughter has a scholarship which helps the first year at least. She also won a bursary aimed purely at music students in our region, so have a look around where you live for something similar. All the conservatoire websites have links to charities and trusts which offer grants and scholarships, they all have different criteria so something might be worth having a go at.

Of course, this is pure speculation on my part - ask me again once my daughter's really got to grips with it all!

Sorry I have no clue about where you can obtain funding but here are some suggestions for how to live slightly more cheaply, most of which I have practised myself.

1. Try to be a lodger in someone's home instead of renting a flat on your own. There is a scheme under which people can rent out one room in their home for a certain amount of money a year that is tax free. I was able to do this with a friend for two years and it really, really helped. They have an incentive to keep it below the threshold amount (it used to be ?4200 but I don't know what it is now) because if it's higher they have to declare the income. I know that there are websites which allow you to view ads placed by people looking to rent under this scheme, but I don't know of any.

Obviously, any such arrangements are individual and may or may not include a contract, deposit, utilities, etc. You'll also have to exercise the same caution that you would when agreeing to share a home (be it a flatshare or as a lodger) to ensure that your new housemates / landlords are not (too ) dodgy.

2. Learn to cook, then feed yourself this way. No ready meals, and not too many takeaways - your waistline will thank you as much as your wallet. Find a street market that sells fruit and veg at ?1 or ?2 a bowl- they're everywhere. It will mean that you cannot always decide what you want to have before going grocery shopping, because they sell stuff that must be eaten in the next 24-48 hours (that's why it's cheap) but you will get nice ripe fruit & veg that is just as tasty, it just has to be cooked fast. You can make loads of spag bol and soup if you want to be less creative and the internet will tell you plenty of more creative recipes.

3. Use freecycle to get free stuff - it's good for furniture and household stuff, and you can get hourly van hire from Streetvan to go and pick it up.

4. Walk or cycle around, it's much nicer than the Tube or bus if you are confident on two wheels. This is the only suggestion here that I haven't actually put into practice because I am rubbish on a bike and I would rather be poor than dead.

One son has just finished at the Academy with ?30,000 debt in loans and an overdraft which he managed to clear by winning an award in June. My eldest daughter is at uni in London and managed to finish this year, her first, without going into overdraft. Next son is about to start music college in London and we sat down the other day and worked out his budget - with loans he has ?100 a week after paying his rent which is ?400 a month - travel, food and bills need to come out of this so he should be alright as long as he doesn't party too much!

Halls worked out really expensive for son 1 in his first year as he hated the food and ended up buying a lot of 'on the hoof' meals - not to be recommended. He also took ages to work out that a student oyster card was much cheaper than pay as you go travel!

The major way in we have had to help out is rent over the long summer holiday - it's difficult to find student houses with leases that don't run from July to July and their loans definitely don't stretch to that. Son 1 has always managed to get a lot of jazz playing work (anything from ?30-?200 a gig) and managed to save this money and buy himself his dream instrument in his 3rd year. My daughter works over the holidays which has helped her situation.

In short, I think it's perfectly possible to survive in London on the student loans as long as you don't spend too much on partying, and most of the colleges do have bursaries/scholarships which are quite generous. Apply for everything you can, and make it known that you are available for gigs/functions etc - each college has a person who deals with this, as well as things that come along by word of mouth. Son 1 says that the debt is definitely worth it for the experience he has had and contacts he has made. He is very busy and has work booked to the end of 2012 doing what he wants.

Picking up on what other folk have said.

Your local library should have a copy of the Educational Grants Directory which has the contacts for lots of different organisations that give grants to students and young people. Lots of them are very specific but it is worth having a good look. They are arranged by type of need, occupation of parent, subject and by the area in which you live. It it worth having a good trawl through to see if you meet the criteria for any of them.

I had one student who mananged to raise over ?2000 by applying to a number of trusts and getting awards of between ?50 and ?300. It took some work but was worth it for her.

Good luck.

How do they do it?

Some combination of:

Student loan
Grant/Bursary
Parental assistance
Grandparental assistance
Savings
Working part-time alongside studying
Working during the holidays and saving as much as possible

... learning to live cheaply and frugally

EDIT: I almost forgot ... being sponsored by an employer ... probably the best way of all ...

Definitely worth doing - over the years we have been very lucky in assistance received for instrument purchase and course funding etc. There are a lot of awards for under 18's and then loads for postgraduate. Unfortunately not too many for undergraduate level, but it is worth looking and there may well be awards local to you rather than nationally.

In my experience the universities greatly overestimate when they give out those 'budgets' demonstrating how much you need. I found I needed ??6,000 a year to get by, and while this wasn't in London, some cities in the south are pretty much as expensive, with fewer opportunities to work. The university I was at predicted living expenses between ?8,000 and ?10,000.

It may be doing a search for threads about student living in London. There have been many over the years, with some very useful information from London-based forumites.

All the kids I tutor (with uni aspirations) have got jobs as soon as they were old enough ~16 (and a little younger cleaning cars, babysitting etc). They started saving up over two years before heading off to uni, and are able to provide work based references when job hunting in their uni towns.

I'm kind of puzzled - if you're bright enough to get into uni why are you so puzzled about how to fund it? I'm guessing you are looking for alternate advice to "get a job." Is that right? I don't mean to sound rude there - I'm genuinely interested/puzzled.

On some courses having a job is less of an option.
The daughter of a friend was a chemistry student who was in lectures or in the lab pretty much what amounts to full time working hours. With need to private study on top of that getting a job wasn't an option... or not unless sleep and a reasonable amount of down time wasn't needed.

Getting a part-time job anywhere these days is nowhere near as easy as it used to be. My son has been lucky to get full-time work over the last two summers, but he knows many students who haven't managed to get anything.

Mainly, because of conflicting ideas. I believed I was going to be able to make the shortfall, by gigging and teaching my instrument on top of my course. But apparently that won't be enough to make the shortfall "apparently...". I was just genuinely suprised and freaked out by 1500 a month...

I'd actually say if you play your cards right you could earn much more money by gigging and teaching than a part time entry level job would offer.

You'll get a student loan towards your living costs, say that is ?6,000 per year and you have a shortfall of ?4,000 - you can easily make ?4,000 from teaching and gigging without a shadow of a doubt and you'll gain experience in something you WANT to do and not some boring checkout / telesales / shelf stacking job.

So would I be!

I wondered if that's what you meant - about getting gig/teaching work. Like I said - sorry if I sounded rude, earlier OH was chomping at the bit to take the dogs out and I was holding things up, so I was rushing.

FWIW - My teacher was at the RA and mostly paid his way through gigging.

I'm guessing you're about to enter year 12, so if you can manage it - I'd still suggest getting some kind of job, in a shop or bar, even short term, then you've got a bit of a head start (if you need to go down that route in London) as you'll have that all important prior experience which could just tip the balance in your favour. Like others have said jobs aren't always easy to come by. Hopefully though the music will suffice. Good luck!

That's not surprising, but imo it's a huge over-estimation.

I survived on a very low budget at uni, so here, in no particular order, are my tips:

1) Don't waste money. I.e. don't spend more than you have to on anything (you can do this by being reasonably organised and booking things in advance if appropriate), and don't buy too many things you don't really need.
2) Cook as much of your own food as you can.
3) Keep a record of what you're spending. It will highlight anywhere you're throwing money away without realising.
4) Don't automatically buy books that you can borrow from the library, especially if you only need them for one course.
5) Save money during the holidays and find instrumental pupils to teach when you start your course.
6) Take advantage of all the free things there are to do in London (museums, foyer concerts, art galleries).
7) Use every possible student discount and loyalty card you can.
8) Remember that alcohol in bars / pubs / restaurants is very expensive!
9) Cycle or walk instead of taking public transport.
10) Take pride in living frugally. It's very character-building!

If you follow those tips I would be amazed if you can't manage on ?1,000 a month - or less - so long as you can find reasonably cheap rent somewhere. Neither 100 years ago, nor in a cheap location, I survived on ?200 a month, including rent!

Did you live somewhere larger/with more amenities than a cardboard box? Or eat?

Regarding working during school, it's doable, but I just calculated and in my case academic commitments alone amount to more than 60 hours per week, including preparation, assignments and class time, so the amount of energy I have left to put into working is limited. For this reason, I and most people I know tend to go for relatively mindless things like library work, dining services, etc. Then again, if you can afford to work fewer hours in a "real" job related to music (presumably higher paying), the trade off might be worth it.

To be fair the accommodation wasn't much bigger than a box, but yes, I did eat!

After rent, I'm surviving in an 'expensive' city on ~?80 a month including food, so it's definitely possible! Really makes me appreciate going home a lot more too, although I only really go once a year.

I disagree about getting a job in a shop or bar at this stage. I think you are better off sticking to teaching or doing some busking. The school my son goes to tries to dissuade students from getting jobs in sixth form, as it can affect their exam results. At least busking would enable you to perform and you would be playing. My son finds it hard to fit in practise, playing in bands and doing his A level work as it is, I don't see how he could fit in a job as well.

Musicstand's auditioning for London based conservatoires, but I agree with you that the costs seem scary.

And that's a potential whole new discussion.
Is there still the means tested payment to 6th formers?
It wasn't there when my kids were that age but my sister's kids were in a position that with 2 working parents if they needed money they had to get jobs in 6th form whereas friends with parents on benefits didn't.
Ok, I know it's not all quite as simple as that but....

They have got rid of the EMA for sixth formers now. My youngest son has a paper round, but he doesn't have the commitments that somebody studying music has.

Hmm, I was working between 6 and 18 hours a week while doing the Internation Baccalaureat and an additional A Level at college. It wasn't good for my sanity, and I guess it did affect my grades a bit, but not enough to matter when it came to getting into uni. On the plus side, it helped pay for a fantastic time while I was at college (my social life has never matched up to it since!), and at the end of the 2 years I had about ?4000 set aside, which paid for my car this summer.

The trouble with jobs is that you're contracted for x hours per week, and then they soon expect you to work 2x or 3x. Before you know where you're at, you don't have time for anything! So, if you get a job, rule number 1 is learn how to say no. No, I won't do that extra shift. No, I won't cover for you. No, I won't work late that night.

As for EMA, it was the most devisive payment ever made to young people, and caused huge amounts of jealousy and resentment. But those who weren't getting it, really didn't perceive how necessary it was. At the end of the day, it made the difference for many of my friends between them trying to get a job at 16, and going to college. It was also a very good incentive to make sure you were in every lecture! (If you missed any, you lost your payment.) The ?20 a week I got paid for my clothes, stationery and bus fares. Apart from food and board, it let me be financially independent from my parents. I believe it was a very effective scheme.

Hear, hear! I am seeing way too many students with jobs 4 days a week, for 4-8 hours each time, who have also been told that they "have to" commit to staying in the job for the whole 4 years of university, etc. etc. Thay are not only exhausted, their whole focus is on not annoying their employers.

In return for all these "have tos", employers offer nothing beyond an hourly wage....no benefits, no guarantees.
It's great that students take their jobs seriously, but make sure you realize what your terms of employment are.

On the other hand, the students who have the hardest time with study are typically the same ones who have never had a job, and don't know how much their fixed expenses (cell-phone, transport) cost each month. Very interesting!

London resident parent and former landlord to many (music) students here

My tuppenyworth

Get a Job Any Job!

There are loads of jobs in London many part time. You have to be persistent & be prepared to take minimum wage. Try Cafes like Pret a Manger or coffee shops Starbucks. Babysitting works too

Gumtree and Freecycle

Get a Bike a cheap one that you wont cry about when it is stolen (get a helmet and hi viz jacket), traffic here is lethal you have to be confident and move fast!

Get a Student Oyster card asap. Use the buses, much cehaper they run for 24 hours and you will learn London faster. Avoid the Tubes they cost way more and stop at midnight

Get Cheap Lodgings..yes even if it is a cardboard box! Dont look at places alone go with one of your parents dont hand over cash only cheque.

Busking is not easy in London on London Transport sites you need a Licence and for that you have to auditon with thousands of others. Some Boroughs wont allow it e.g. Camden and you will be fined heavily if you try.

Gigs and Teaching - you will be competing with experienced music graduates (thousands in London) but you can try.

Loyalty cards for Tesco, Sainsbury and Boots Essential save points up for 3rd term when you will be really broke

Not only free museums and galleries but the other Royal Colleges and Academy have free events - go to them,

Ronnie Scotts is FREE after 11.pm for music students GO as often as you can. You do not have to drink there it is prohibitivly expensive but soak up the music. If you go often enough ask some1 to give you a membership for a year as a birthday present...after that they will still think you are a member when you rock up at the door at 10.00pm a year after its up!

Have a leaving party before you go to Uni - invite aunts uncle and godparents get your parents to encourage them to give you a present - CASH this is a useful fundraiser

Check out the website The Student Room (TSR) loads of other tips there for London Students

Do a Search on these Forums this topic comes up regularly

Finally tips from my kids: Dont think about the money just have a good time