What can I give my granddaughter who’s off to uni

Sporks! Ideal for the inevitable student pasta with sauce meals!

Money, towards the end of term.

I would ask what she has, and what might be provided, but IKEA used to do fabulous packs for students or newlyweds. Crockery, cutlery and glassware (tumblers and wine glasses) in a box for about £50. We still have some of them in our caravan. They are white, with dinner plates, tea plates and bowls for four settings, plus knives forks spoons and teaspoons and two lots of glasses. I think they had mugs too.

They do a more general 'kit box' with frying pans, pizza cutters and coasters, but I think that might be less useful.

Either way, if she's in halls a lot of that might be there already, and similarly if she's sharing a flat it might make sense to see who's bringing what, if she knows the flatmates already.

Having spent a night on DD’s student bed I’d give her a decent mattress topper.

Thanks everyone! I did contact her mum who told me they’d forgotten to get cooking knives and a wooden chopping board so I dashed out and got them to accompany the other stuff I’d got.

You could order OR make up your own hamper of food , as well as the usual student staples of pasta etc you could include some nice snacks and stuff like Jam and peanut butter which are expensive for a student .Also , I know they don't write stuff these days but a small notepad, four envelopes and a book of stamps just in case they have forms to fill in and send off, they've always got a stamp etc to hand.Some flavoured coffee sachets.Stuff like toothpaste and toiletries are expensive, so a starter kit of these would be good too.Basically anything that saves them money !

Nansypansy

Thanks everyone! I did contact her mum who told me they’d forgotten to get cooking knives and a wooden chopping board so I dashed out and got them to accompany the other stuff I’d got.

Looks like you are on it👏🏽👏🏽
Am sure she will really appreciate all your help. Hoping she has a great time at Uni 💐

I’ve been putting a bag of goodies together over the last few weeks for my GD who goes off next week. Mainly store cupboard staples which won’t matter if duplicated but also a couple of bottles of nice shower gel and body lotion and a bottle of wine. The day before she goes I’ll make a batch of her favourite flapjack. She and DD have shopped for bedding and towels etc, mainly pink I’m told!

Graphite

Over the preceding summer I gave my godson lessons in how to batch cook vegetable curry from basic ingredients and gave him a big wok and curry spices as a starter kit. I suggested he could throw a small party is his section of halls to break the ice - so similar to J52’s suggestion - which he did.

This is what I did with my son. I taught him how to cook a basic ragu with minced beef which he could also adapt to make a chilli or a keema style curry. All his Uni friends learned to cook and saved a lot of money as a result.

These days most students don't use cookery books but find recipes online - sometimes with video tutorials of what to do.

I still have my trusty student cookbook - even though it was not actually for students. It was Marguerite Patten's "Cookery in Colour" that I got for £1.99 and is a total encyclopedia of cookery and still gets used today.

Vouchers for supermarkets gift cards for Costa, pizza hut Greggs 😊