I am trying to develop a budget for my son. We are requiring him to cover his out of pocket expenses. What does the average college student spend per week on incidentals (e.g. pizza/beer/social life)?
There is no average. Well, there probably is, but you’re going to see an incredible variance. Best answer I can give you is “whatever he can realistically earn.”
You have to keep it low because they will spend everything you give them.
I started depositing $200 per month. They’ll figure out how fast this amount goes.
The middle child eventually got a campus job, but the other two kept this money as emergency money.
My daughter is responsible for all her incidentals. She spends very little and has found the free stuff on her campus. If I had to guess she spends less than $50/month. (She’s on the full meal plan).
I’ve been asked this question a lot of times.
Fact is…I have NO idea what our kids spent for discretionary things. They had jobs to earn their spending money. They earned it…so really it was not my concern how much came and went.
In my opinion, college kids should have jobs for at least some of their spending money. We expected our kids to work after the first term, and during breaks and in the summer. If they hadn’t been working, they would not have received any spending money from us.
They spend what they have.
They won’t starve, go with unwashed hair, or wear dirty clothes.
It depends. A student at NYU or Georgetown is going to (1) be in a city where you can spend a lot, and (2) have a lot of wealthy classmates with a lot of spending money. That student will likely spend more than a student at a small LAC not in a big city will have fewer temptations.
My kids covered spending money and books themselves. Both saved money from graduation presents and worked the summer before college, which gave them enough for the first year.
Consider whether he will start with any supplies or have a meal plan. My DS going to school in a city where he may have snow from November to April and doesn’t have a car. For his second yr, we bought him enough shower gel, detergent, etc for at least the first semester. (It was all a big teaching moment on how to plan.)
He took classes this past summer, help during a family emergency, and was not able to work much. He Ubers on DH’s account. We expect DS to have an internship and pay for his incidental for his third year and beyond.
DS takes care of his social spending money with his savings from summer job. I take care of what I consider the essentials - things that I normally took care of when he was living at home. So I load money on his campus card to take care of laundry, books and school supplies from bookstore and some additional flex dollars for meal plan. If he needs things like laundry detergent etc, he can use our Amazon Prime account.
My son’s spending around $50 a month on incidentals while on full meal plan – except he just got paid handsomely for accompanying this well-known pianist’s concert in NYC, so I noticed that his splurging spiked recently. 
My kids also were responsible for their own out of pocket spending, including meals after the first year. Like others, I have no idea what they spent. But I know that both were resourceful about earning money , beyond what they earned at work-study jobs. My son has always been frugal, so I’m pretty sure he spent less; whereas my daughter, who managed multiple self- financed trips abroad during college, definitely also worked a lot more. She was in an urban school, so also had more work opportunities available.
My daughter spends less than $40 a month, for the occasional meal or snack with friends. She is on a full meal plan and all of her incidentals are pretty much covered by us (Amazon must love us).
I did $500 a month because my D is in a city and I figured she’d go out all the time for coffee and periodically out to eat and would need money for clothes and entertainment. For her this ended up being way too much and she’s going down to $200/month. I’m glad she was honest about it. In retrospect I think it’s much better to start with less and have them come back to you to request more and why.
If his school requires a meal plan then probably not that much $20-$30 a week?? He can’t spend what he doesn’t have.
For our D she did not get a meal plan so we deposit the amount of the meal plan per month into her account. She uses that for all her expenses- food, gas, movies… She spends way less than what we give her. Now that she sees how much things cost, she is super frugal- almost too frugal. A lot of this depends on where he lives and what entertainment options are around.
If I remember correctly, my younger kid spent 300-400/month and probably another 200 on grocery. She paid for going out (dinners, alcohol), personal toiletries, hair cut, transportation around town, etc. It was 2 years ago.
3 years ago my S15 was a freshman, at a midwest university. he did not have meals on saturday and part of sundays. He transferred $35 a week from savings to checking, and wrote a strangely funny scholarship essay for our credit union about learning to balance his budget for nutritional needs (veggies) against his social needs (beer!). He ended up getting a part time job second semester through now which has helped him out - he could get a deluxe hamburger with a tomato. He is graduating with no loans, a large chunk of savings and a good job offer- i think he’s pretty frugal.
My D was on meal plan last year. I gave her $300 per month for fun money. She still managed to save some of it but I don’t plan to decrease it.
We send $200 a month (D is average only about $50 a month in expenses from her bank account since she has a meal plan and $400 a semester on student ID to eat out at most on campus eateries). Since she just got into a research lab that pays, we will continue to send $200, but will just put it in her savings account.
I give myself $200 a month for discretionary spending. I think I’d like some of you to adopt me. I’d get a raise!
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1995756-spending-money-p1.html
Here is a thread from last year.
Really…this is a family decision. There was a parent on this forum a while ago who gave his kid $1000 a month in spending money and wondered if it was enough ?
There are parents who expect their kids to earn all discretionary spending money.
There are parents who give some spending money but also have the expectation that their kids will have jobs as well.
Really there is no right or wrong answer here. It’s a family decision.