Free tool, no sign-up needed
One loan drop. Twelve weeks. What's your weekly number?
Maintenance loans arrive as one big termly hit, and week three is when it starts feeling infinite. Put in what's coming in and going out, and get the one number that keeps the whole term on track.
Money coming in
Money going out (per month)
Your weekly number
£88
left over each week, after everything, until the next loan drop
You end the term roughly £1,060 up
The loan drop curve
what’s left of the instalment, week by week
Where your money goes each month
Illustration only, not financial advice. Assumes a 12-week term (≈3 months of expenses) and steady spending. Your real term dates and instalments come from Student Finance.
What this means
The single most effective student budgeting trick is converting everything to a weekly number. A £3,400 instalment feels enormous; £45 a week after rent doesn’t, and the weekly framing is what stops the classic pattern of a big first fortnight followed by ten weeks of toast. Work out your number the day the loan lands, before freshers’ spending decides it for you.
Rent is the number that makes or breaks the whole budget. It’s typically 40 to 60% of a maintenance loan, and unlike food or going out you can’t trim it mid-term, which is why the time to use this tool is before you sign a tenancy, not after. Everything else is adjustable week to week; rent is a decision you make once a year.
If your numbers show a deficit, that’s common rather than catastrophic. The maintenance loan is means-tested against household income and often assumes family top-ups that don’t materialise. Check you’re receiving your full entitlement, look at your university’s hardship fund and bursaries (much of that money goes unclaimed), and remember a part-time job of even 8 hours a week can flip most deficits shown here.
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