<p>Now that D has decided on a school and we know how we are paying for it, it's time to stress about different things!</p>
<p>D is in an IB program and was a competitive swimmer all through high school so part time jobs were never an option. I paid him for A's and he gets a token allowance for household chores but for the most part, if he needs money for something, we just give it to him. (thankfully, he is very low maintenance and really doesn't want or ask for much!).</p>
<p>Of course, now he's about to go away to school and we did an awful job of letting him handle expenses on his own and I'm stressing about how to handle it now.</p>
<p>So my question is, how do you handle your kids "discretionary" spending at college? Credit card? ATM card/checking account? Cash?!</p>
<p>How much do you give them? </p>
<p>Also, for those school charges, do you have your kids pay them and then you reimburse them so they can see what you are spending or do you pay it yourself?
(thinking meal plan, school card for printing and fees here).</p>
<p>For what it's worth, he will be at a large state university in a college town doing engineering so I don't want him doing a part time job. He is NOT a clothes hound or party animal (yet-that could change!) but will have to buy his personal articles and things like that that I usually just pick up at the grocery store for the family.</p>
<p>Thanks for any advice and if you have any books you can recommend on this subject, I'd greatly appreciate those as well!</p>
<p>Start him practicing budgeting now–give him a budget for everything and make him start paying–gas, food, clothing, etc. Have him do the family grocery shopping, give him cash equal to what you normally spend and make him figure out how to stretch those dollars. As for “giving” him money in college, make him work over the summer and use that as his spending money. Make a list of what you will and will not pay for in college and he has to figure out the rest. Keep most of his money in a savings account and have him transfer money once or twice a month at a set amount so he can work on “do I have money to buy this or do I need to wait”. Even with an engineering major there is no reason he can’t work 10 hours/week or so.</p>
<p>This is great if it works out, but in my experience, kids have a very tough time finding jobs in the summer between high school and college because they have fewer weeks available, in most instances, than either older or younger students do.</p>
<p>Some ideas ~ I have my own checking account, and then a joint checking account with college daughter, and another joint checking account with college son. They have debit cards only - no credit cards. My daughter has overdraft protections, my son does not. (my daughter’s better with money). When my daughter left for college we deposited an extra $1,000 in her account and said that was for emergencies only - she should not consider it available to her. If she dipped into it we wanted to know why. She never has. Very different with our son- I make sure he has at least $30 in his checking account, but beyond that he never want to provide too much in his account - probably no more than $150. He texts or calls and I transfer funds (by phone) immediately if he needs $ and if I know the reason. But money slips through his fingers quick, he’s extremely social, enters into betting pools on the basketball tournament $20 here, $20 there & he has lost his debit card twice. They both make summer money. I’d say they need to have available, one way of another, $150/mo to spend - as long as they are on a campus meal plan + have “university bucks” to pay for laundry, printing at the library.</p>
<p>Every engineering and “hard sciences” student I know can handle 8-12 hours of work a week. Many jobs let you study on the job. I think it’s really important for young people to make and manage at least some of their own money. How else can they do it when they graduate??</p>
<p>Many jobs let you study on the job? I think YMMV. If your kid’s college is in a small college town, most on-campus jobs may go to work-study students, and there may not be many off-campus.</p>
<p>I don’t like the sound of ‘reimburse’. It implies they can spend what they want and send you the receipts for reimbursement as if they don’t need to be responsible about their spending. ‘Allowance’ is the term I am more comfortable with. I would give him a debit card linked to a stand-alone checking account (not your primary checking account) which you have access to, and I would make periodic deposits of pre-determined amount which is set as his allowance. Anything extra or out of ordinary, he should have to call you for.</p>
<p>When DS 1 was a college freshman (engineering) he lived in dorm and had a meal plan that included “dining dollars” for about 2 or 3 fast food meals per week. Before he went to school we did a Costco run for toiletries, snacks, etc. That was it for us. He spent his savings and HS graduation gift money for personal stuff. Second semester he started a 10 per week campus job and handled it well… Made the Dean’s List!</p>
<p>Sophomore year he lives in an apartment- has a food plan for 3 hot meals per week and cooks the rest. We give him $200 per month and he uses his earnings for the rest. </p>
<p>In high school I put money into my kids bank accounts for school lunches, haircuts, part of gas costs, etc. they have debit cards. They quickly figured out that if they pack a lunch from home daily it frees up a lot of money for discretionary spending. DS2 even found a kid at school to cut his hair for half the price of a shop! </p>
<p>So I recommend giving him control of some spending decisions now.</p>
<p>Marian–that is a cop out–sorry. I don’t know of any kids that haven’t been able to find SOME kind of summer job–it might not be a “fun” sexy job but there are jobs out there–especially seasonal jobs–for kids everywhere. Most city, county, states hire summer workers to cut grass in the parks and along roads, retail establishments ramp up hiring in the summer because they are busier (and offer hours over Christmas break etc), fast food places look to hire because regular employees take vacation time, etc. Factories hire production workers because demand ramps up and regular employees take vacations. Plenty of people are looking for kids to watch their kids over the summer because they don’t have day-care or need someone to cover hours their kids were in school. Not everyone can get a job at Abercrombie, no, but there are jobs out there…</p>
<p>We’ve been “practicing” this senior year of HS using a PayPal debit card, which has been a great deal. I transfer the money to his card; I can set a minimum single charge amount for which I want to be notified by text ($20 now, which I’ll increase), and I always have the option of reviewing the history of how much/where he spent the money.</p>
<p>Now that he’s decided on a college, we researched the ATM situation and he’s just opened a Wells Fargo account since that’s what’s in the student center. Still working out how we’ll combine those two with the college’s bucks program on the student ID card.</p>
<p>As to who pays, he’ll have his savings in the WF account for backup.</p>
<p>We didn’t qualify for work study, so the deal we struck is that one of his scholarships requires a minimum of 40 hours a semester working on theater production for renewal in future semesters, and I’ve told him that he can treat this as his job the first year…$18.75 per hour, on campus, flexible hours doing something he likes. That $750 per semester is applied toward his tuition.</p>
<p>He’s applying for full time summer jobs now, but the point above regarding shorter summers is especially true when the employer knows that the student will leave the area come August.</p>
<p>My first semester, before I started working, my parents set me up with a checking account linked to their bank and a debit card. I don’t think we ever explicity set out an allowance, but my mother could also review my spending. There was overdraft protection, had about $100 in it at a time, and I would ask for more when it was low. This was also before I had a car, so ther weren’t that many places to use it on campus.</p>
<p>Summer jobs are pretty hard to come by back home. We have a huge high school and cc population and preference goes to students who are there year round or who are coming back for the summer after already working there previously. Much easier to get a job at school.</p>
<p>While we have not settled on amounts, the mechanics are pretty well worked out. We are taking a multi-pronged approach. First, a joint checking account that I can put money in for general living expenses, which for the dorm should be fairly minimal (clothes as needed, laundry, and other incidentals) Second, “fun” money is not my problem - want to got to a movie? Have fun, but not with my money. The third is a co-signed credit card. Yes, a real credit card. This is to be used for school expenses only, and the bill comes to me. Need a textbook? Credit card. Need a lab coat? Credit card. Want a pizza? Don’t even think about it. It gives 4 years of building credit to him, for money that is going to be spent one way or another. There is also value in having access to credit for real situations, such as a emergency trip home.</p>
<p>Your son sounds a bit like mine. Given that financial aid and our contributions paid his tuition/fees, room/board, and books/supplies, he just did not have any other expenses except entertainment and personal care items. He had his own bank account with savings from family gifts and odd jobs and generally tapped that as needed via ATM for these expenses. I don’t think he really spent more than $50 per month on incidentals or entertainment. He did have a credit card and we paid the bill but he reimbursed us for anything other than books. Since he moved off campus, he pays his own utilities, part of his rent, and many incidentals from his savings. I think my son could have worked during the year but it wasn’t necessary. He was able to find odd jobs the first summer and internships in subsequent years.</p>
<p>Mine were competitive swimmers, one national level, and they always found work in the summers at any number of pools as lifeguards, instructors, etc. They also gave private lessons which were big bucks for little time $25 for a half hour lesson. </p>
<p>You can give him the basics of budgetting and open a silent joint account where your name doesn’t show up but you can monitor on line, that first year and see how he is doing. And take few minutes each week to go over expenses and get him to balance his accounts. </p>
<p>To be honest though, my kids were no problem, A-1 while they were in college, because like yours they were not big spender types and they were happy with cheap campus activities. They didn’t shop and there was no reason to spend money. So all was great.</p>
<p>When they got out, that was when the trouble started. In the real world, the temptations are everywhere and you need foreplanning and work to save money. Gotta make that sandwich to be ready to take to work if you aren’t going to eat out for lunch and even then if all of your coworkers are eating out, you want to go with them. Too many after work get togethers, too many things that cost money right out there. The car is a money pit. All of a sudden that ATM card doesn’t seem to be endless. Both of my older ones had a lot of trouble with not over spending as they are the kind of people who go with the flow and they were with a fast crowd, I guess, though how those people are spending that way on those salaries is beyond me. </p>
<p>So though I worked with mine in college, and was patting myself on the back at how well they did there, the disaster hit after I exhaled. Sigh.</p>
<p><<< is a popular topic. I miss the poster who gave his dau $750/mo and wondered if it was enough! <<<</p>
<p>lol…who was that? ParentofIvyHopeful? </p>
<p>Hey, anyone who has enough money to pay for college and give that generous of an allowance, plus wonder if maybe they should give MORE, should adopt me. ;)</p>
<p>Like the idea mentioned above of a co-signed credit card building credit history over the four years of expenses. Can you just add an 18-year-old to an existing account, like a Wells Fargo issued credit card?</p>
<p>onesonmon, I don’t know about adding. My longer term plan is to pull my name off the card when he graduates, and sufficient credit/income to hold the card solo. This would give him that much longer a history with the account.</p>
<p>onesonmom–Wells Fargo has a college checking account option and you can get a credit card with that with a $1000 or so limit. If he already has an account with Wells, a Teen Checking or whatever, they will just transfer the account to the college account and then he can apply for the college card as well. We’ve done that with our kids and it works very well. It’s been helpful for our older ones to establish nice credit ratings too.</p>