By some strange set of circumstances, in the past fortnight I have packed both my daughters off to university for the first, leaving me suddenly with an empty nest. An emotional shock to the system, for sure, and also a financial challenge. Oh, and shall we throw the words "cost of living crisis" and "energy price hike" into the mix too?! But, amazingly, we managed to do it without breaking the bank so I thought I would share my tips for anyone looking to get their children off to university in the near future.
It is a bit weird, what with my two girls being 21 months apart in age, that they should both leave home for university at the same time. Because the eldest was born in October and the youngest in July, they ended up only being one school year apart, something we have become used to over their 13 years in school. However, with the pandemic and the distruption to university life, my eldest decided she didn't want to start university in 2021, whilst a lot of lectures were still being held remotely. Instead she spent a year, living a home but commuting into London to complete a one year Art Foundation course. In the meantime, my youngest completed year 13 and so it came about that they both started their degrees in September 2022, fortunately a week apart so we were able to help both of them move.
Having realised in September 2021 that this scenario was going to play out, I also realised that if I were going to send them both off with all the necessary equipment and living essentials I would have to start working on that straight away. So, should you have a child in Year 13 or college then I would recommend planning and acting early.
One of the first things that I would recommend, if you haven't got these things in place already, is to make sure you have supermarket reward cards, a Nectar card and other point earning schemes in place on anything that you already use. I mean, if you are already spending money in a particular way, in a particularly place, then you may as well earn some rewards from it, and it is suprising how well these things accumulate into useful amounts.
For example, we have a Tesco loyality card and credit card so that just earns us Tesco points without us trying and these can be spent on useful things such as a student railcard, should you not get one as a perk from opening a student bank account (e.g. like you do with the Santander student account). Even if you can't find a reward like that to spend it on, then you can spend the points in store on anything you can buy in a supermarket (which is quite a lot of varied stuff). Having accumulated lots of points over the years I was able to buy them each a pack of 3 pans for £10 and £25 worth of essentials such as foil, sandwich bags, kitchen towel and toilet paper, all paid for with my Tesco vouchers and therefore costing nothing.
Similarly, I have my Nectar card linked to my ebay account, my energy bill and Avanti Trains so you can imagine that those points accumulate well too, especially during the year that my daughter was commuting into London 3 days a week. As it happens I ended up cashing those in as part payment on a new washing machine after our last one broke, but given that you can spend them in Argos, Sainsbury and ebay, that gives quite a bit of scope for getting more student essentials for nothing.
The next thing I would recommend is joining Freecycle or Freegle, or Olio, or Facebook Marketplace, or whatever local groups you have where people give away stuff they no longer want for free. I started to keep a keen eye open on these groups right from last September and over time I managed to pick up crockery, cutlery, kitchen utensils and airers for no money and as much effort as it took me to drive over to pick the stuff up.
I would also recommend asking your family if they have any spare bits and pieces, and also to have a good rummage in your own cupboards. It is easy to accumulate stuff over the years, some of which you never or hardly use. After 19 years of being a parent, it is hard to imagine how your house will work when there are less people in it, but you just won't need as much stuff so it is worth viewing it as a good opportunity to have a bit of a sort out and declutter. My two took frying pans, knives and a few other bits from the kitchen. It's when you realise they already have a preferred sharp knife that you realise they are very much becoming adults! In addition, my mum and their elder sister found things in their kitchens to donate, and my mum gave them bedding and towels and over-purchased cleaning supplies too. Not only did this benefit my daughters but it helped with decluttering too so it was win, win.
Despite all this, I realised that there would be a few things that we would need to buy new so I viewed Christmas as another opportunity to boast their equipment. No 18/19 year old wants their Christmas to be dominated with boring domestic equipment so I didn't make it their main presents. Instead, I made them an advent calendar. These days there are all kinds of novelty adult advent calendars you can buy containing everything from socks to beer so I decided to make them a university kit advent calendar instead and gave them things such as potato peelers, mini air freshener (for those trips to the shared bathroom facilities), bottle openers etc. I confess that neither them found it very exciting to open their advent calendars last Christmas but they told to me that it all made sense and that it was all useful stuff when we got it all out again at the beginning of September ready for packing.
Also at Christmas they received a voucher for The Natural Collection website from their aunt and uncle. They had received the same vouchers the year before and it had been a bit of struggle for them to find things they wanted to buy that year but, having familarised ourselves with the website previously, I decided to pin the vouchers on the noticeboard for a few months (they were valid until December 2022), and we came back to it in August when they used them to buy dried food goods, stocking up on lots of pasta, rice, sauces and soups. I wouldn't necessarily recommend The Natural Collection as a go-to student website as it is all ethical, eco and organic so pricer than the usual student food of choice, but I would suggest that if you have any influence over what gifts your relatives give at Christmas/birthday then vouchers that could be used in this way are a good idea.
Oh, and a final thing to suggest, is that a few weeks before the move date you start saving boxes and maybe jars too. It can be handy to decant a small amount of spice or flour or whatever into a jar from the family stocks rather than buying them their own whole container. And you are going to need boxes for all their stuff!
So off they went with everything (and possibly more!) that they need to become independent and it had cost us very little. Not only financially savvy but environmentally friendly and immensely satisfying. And you know what, should any of it get broken or stolen this coming year, none of us are going to cry about it.
