My D is heading out to the grad school. I am trying to budget her expenses. On the average how much should one budget in addition to the rent and utilities?
Depends on where she lives.
In addition to rent and utilities? Well…our kid uses $30 a week for groceries. Another $30 or so for things like gas in her car/car maintenance (averages out to this). $20 a week for “other”
So about $300 a month
This depends on her geographic region. Her COL will be a lot higher in places like Washington and Massachusetts than it will be in Texas or Arizona.
It is all in the school, the lifestyle. My two Ds are in grad school right now. One, small town Ohio. She has few friends, and her program mates are not very social. She does not spend much, aside from driving places on weekends to meet her BF and coming home on occasion. Her car is her main expense.
Her sister goes out with friends in our moderately expensive town, spends a lot of time studying in cafes and flies out of state to see her sig other periodically. No car.
S went to grad school in SoCal, and went out a lot with his very social class, owned a car.
Then there was my friend’s D who went to Stanford, and I heard tale of ski weekends in Utah and so on with grad school buddies.
Does the geographic region influence much other than the rent? And not groceries? She is in STEM. I expect her life will be somewhat simple. Don’t they study 18 hours a day and no vacation?
thumper, $300 a month seems doable.
Does this grad program offer stipends to its students for TA or RA?
What honest to God saved us when H was working on his Ph.D., was that UW-Madison has married graduate student housing. Our rent was below dirt cheap and very convenient to campus. Once I got pregnant, we qualified for a two-bedroom place, too.
Does she have a TA ship with tuition remission? Just throw her some crackers during the summer if she does not have a summer position cause she could get hungry.
^Yes. But the rent seems high.
Depends on where- totally. Other than tuition in professional grad school- The main cost for D was car/ flights in St. Louis, not rent. Other D in Brooklyn main cost is rent and to a smaller extent food, but no car, few flights.
Depends on lifestyle. When I was a grad student, I lived on my TA stipend.
Beans, ramen, generic shampoo, cycling? Eating out, expensive toiletries, car?
What do you spend on living expenses at home?
I’ve noticed that you do this a lot - ask vague questions. How can anybody answer this without knowing a) the city / location and b) if she needs a car or can walk / bike / use public transportation? It’s like asking “how much does a house cost.”
Well, I am interested in the general question… have visions of D2 living for years in abject poverty while in grad school. 
And not saving for retirement! I hope to talk her into applying to the University in my city – guest bedroom available if she wants it, or at a minimum occasional home cooked meals and groceries dropped off.
It really, really depends. “Grad” student can mean anything from a 21ish year old getting a 1 year master degree to a 25+ year old, married, and getting a PhD which will take many, many years. These two people are going to have TOTALLY different needs.
For example, when I was getting my Master’s, I could’ve easily lived on 300/month after rent, etc. But now that I’m a PhD student, I have a whole different set of needs: books, travel, conference attire, etc. Yes, these things are all reimbursed but they still need to be budgeted for. Not to mention that now that I’m in a long-term program, I bought a house and treat it like my “job” rather than just a quick grad program.
So you really have to be more specific if you want any kind of helpful advice. Like there is absolutely no way I could live on $300/month now even after rent and everything- and I am a pretty stingy person.
Try searching for “graduate student cost of attendance [school name]” and see what you get (for specific professional programs like MD, JD, MBA, try “[program type] cost of attendance [school name]”).
Of course, PhD programs are generally funded to some level – typically tuition waiver and a stipend from a fellowship or pay from being a half-time teaching assistant or research assistant. You can look up what these pay levels are for each school.
I’ve heard that getting a Residential Director job in an undergrad dorm is a good gig for a grad student. Housing, sometimes a salary, free or reduced tuition.
This was H and me. Yes, we lived in poverty and I actually had D1 in his third year, and D2 while he was doing a post-doc. I was on WIC with both pregnancies and while I was nursing. But we knew it was temporary and we survived. They usually do. 
When I was a TA, I easily spent as much money on liquor as food. But I had classmates who spent as much money on dry cleaning as food.
There’s no easy answer.
@teriwtt, gotta admit – I don’t think I can stand to see my kid living in on so little she is getting WIC.
Terriwtt, we would have lived in that grad school housing, but I had a dog. It was a deal, and interesting place to live as well.