<p>DD has been accepted at a great school,and we are planning a visit next month. To those of you who have been through this processso we are starting to think logistically, and need some advice.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How much is a high/medium/low amount of money needed for an on campus student over and above room and board? Did you allot it to your child as a monthly lump sum or ? If you child had a savings account at home, did you do automatic deposit into their local bank or ? If she chooses her current school, she will have dShe will b</p></li>
<li><p>How did you decide who paid for what? When I was in college, my parents paid for books, tuition, room and board and I paid all spending money. I called them when I needed more, and they deposited it into my checking account from home. That is our preliminary plan, but I had more saved than our DD does as I had worked full time for two summers, and worked full time every summer while in college. I also worked a job on campus - perhaps 8 hours a week - which kept me from having to pull as much out of my checkbook, and made great campus connections. With the economy the way it is, I am not sure if this is a realistic hope for her. </p></li>
<li><p>I read that Amazon has made their prime accounts (the free shipping option) available free for students, so I am imagining that most needed items she will purchase on Amazon before leaving home and ship up there to a local family friend - just seems easier and less expensive as we would need to fly. Is that how you did it?</p></li>
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<p>I pay for tuition, room/ board, and textbooks. My parents’ hs graduation present for my S was money to buy the sheets, towels, and comforter he needed for his dorm room: you can buy this all packaged into a handy hamper at Bed Bath and Beyond. My S handles any other expenses from money he saved from his part-time job in high school. We took my name off his checking and savings accounts as soon as he turned 18, so I have no idea how much is in there, or how much he spends each month.</p>
<p>We pay for everything from tuition/room and board/books/dorm supplies,etc…she pay for most of her spending $$$, not including clothes or incidentals,or dues…we keep her primary ATM card home(her bank account) and add to her debit card as she needs it,so she doesn’t have complete access to her money,and we have an idea of spending…she is ok with this</p>
<p>there have been many, many thread debating this issue.</p>
<p>there seems to be two camps that most families fall into…</p>
<p>Camp I…kids earn their own spending money (or earn most of it).</p>
<p>Camp II…parents give their kids an allowance ranging from $50 to a few hundred per month (or give them a lump sum for the semester/year)</p>
<p>We’re in the first camp. Our kids have summer jobs and work about 8 hours per week during the school year…this gives them plenty of pocket money.</p>
<p>One thing I didn’t read a lot about before DS started college:</p>
<p>He rapidly tired of the Dorm food (although it seemed pretty good when we ate there) and has been eating out much more than we anticipated and spending all his money there. We are switching to a leaner meal plan, from all you can eat to 14 meals/week, which I don’t think he will come close to using up.</p>
<p>We pay for tuition, R&B, books, transportation home on breaks, cell phone, medical coinsurance/meds, insurance bill from the fraternity son joined, and any additional school expenses (fees, computer related, dorm set up, etc.).</p>
<p>Son uses his own earned money for his walking around pocket money and his fraternity dues. He works for a few hours (7-8 per week) on campus, and saved the money that he earned by working over the summer. I think that most of his own earned money goes toward fraternity dues, and the second biggest expense is fast food/take out food.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>After textbooks/room/board, I should think that something like $75/$50/$25 would be high/medium/low weekly spending allocations. We gave our kids a lump sum for the semester, and our daughter always had money leftover, while our son always ran out before the semester ended. Our kids had Bank of America checking accounts, so it was easy to transfer money into their accounts whenever an expense came up. Also, this allowed us to view their spending habits online.</p></li>
<li><p>We told our kids the same thing, which is pretty much what my parents told me. They worked prior to college and during the summers, so we only augmented their expenses for things like bus/train fares to visit relatives and friends. This only fell apart when our son found a great unpaid Summer internship in NYC (i.e. expensive living). So, the following year, we paid all his expenses because he spent any money he had left on Summer living expenses. Both our kids did work-study or were housing RAs at college, so that helped.</p></li>
<li><p>We purchased and shipped a few things (bedding, computer printer, bike), but our kids bought most other items locally (3000 miles from home). When each of our kids started school, we all flew out, so each of us (me, wife, kid, sibling) carried a large bag full of stuff. Of course, for our son, this was before they started charging outrageous bag fees. Our daughter, now a Sophomore, has had to pay more to get her stuff across the country on airplanes (moral: try to fly Southwest Airlines).</p></li>
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<p>Agree with ihs: by year 2, the dorm food becomes monotonous. My D is spending an extra $100 a month thus far on take out and food at off campus places. We are supplementing with a dorm fridge, cereal, milk, snacks, etc. But this is an issue.</p>
<p>She receives $250 a month. One of the bigger expenses is laundry on-campus. She spends money on outside food, donations/activity fees (some campus events charge), sorority activities, books and supplies, transportation/gas/train, and … so on. In my mind, $50 a week should be more than enough. </p>
<p>She did save a lot of her allowance $ for Christmas gifts having run out of her allowance twice earlier in the semester. She receives it every two weeks. Learning to budget and manage funds is how I view this experience.</p>
<p>I feel this is a lot of money BUT when I was in college, I had ZERO money for anything and it was not FUN. I could never go for pizza or to a movie etc., etc. and it was NOT FUN to have so much less money than almost everyone else on dorm. </p>
<p>She also works in the summer and uses that money to pay for part of her tuition and books.</p>
<p>Question for those of you whose kids have part-time campus jobs-- are they hard to get for kids who are not in a work-study program? We don’t quite qualify for FA/work study but don’t have piles of cash sitting around, either. Plus our kids like to work and we want them earning money. </p>
<p>Older D is a junior in college and babysits/nannies to earn her spending money. Younger D will be heading 3,000 miles away next year, won’t have a car or connections to find childcare work, and would love to work on campus. I’m sure it varies from college to college, but was curious if it’s possible to pick up on-campus work if you’re not a work-study kid.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips everyone! Since she is going to school in a big city, and won’t have a car, I think the 75/50/25 figure per month excluding books sounds about right. NOt sure how much public transportation is (she will either be in Chicago, Boston, or most proabably Seattle) but at least this gives her a starting point to look at her savings account and upcoming birthday money. I am guessing that she will need more to start with to get settled, but that can come from graduation presents, etc. </p>
<p>And thanks for the alert on other threads - don’t know if other posters have this issue, but it seems the best way to find a similar thread is to write a question and have it responded to! Sounds kind of backwards, but now I have all kinds of reading material!
Thanks!</p>
<p>As a parent, I pay tuition, room/board, fees, transportation expenses, and basic cell phone service. D pays books, additional fee for phone texting plan, and any spending money (including if she wants to go away for weekends with friends). She works about 10 hours a week on campus (has a job in the campus writing center, which does not have to be a work study job on her campus). She did not work freshman year, though. We also made a deal that if she wants to spend a summer in an unpaid internship, she needs to cover those expenses (and still be able to meet her normal school year expenses as outlined above – although I will give her grocey money during her internship). She does not have a car on campus, but we do have an extra she drives when at home; I cover the insurance, repairs, but she buys most of her own gas. Even if she gets additional scholarship money (which she did this year, unexpectedly), her expenses stay the same, we just use it to offset tuition & room/board. A few thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Her reach school (that she did not get into) was in a pricey area of a big city. I am sure she would have needed a LOT more spending money than she needs in her current small town college.</p></li>
<li><p>I think she is much more frugal with her book rentals/purchases than she would be if I were footing the bill.</p></li>
<li><p>If you want your D to work on campus, there is something to be said for filling out the FAFSA next year even if you didn’t do it this year (if you are allowed to). You don’t have to take any loans that are offered (be sure you tell them right away once you receive notification of what is being offered!). But you may get some work study $$, then your D will have a lot easier time finding a job on campus.</p></li>
<li><p>D opened a checking account at the local bank with the most convenient (and lowest fee) ATM. She checked to see if it has branches in the area where she expects to intern, too, so she would not have to change it. She and I also have a joint checking account here in our hometown. At the beginning of each year, she writes a check from that checking account to her school account. I think she took a few hundred dollars in cash to deposit her first year. Then she deposits her campus paychecks there, too. Her summer paychecks go into the joint checking account at home. She also keeps a savings account at our hometown bank.</p></li>
<li><p>We insisted that our kids find some kind of paying work for the summer after senior year. They have had lots of fun and interesting summers leading up to that time, and our message is now it is time to buckle down and earn some money for their college expenses. Even just being a nanny or mowing lawns or landscaping, but something that pays.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>researching4emb, I have not talked to my son about how hard it is to find a non-work/study job on campus, but I believe that my son could get a job off campus fairly easily, although transportation would be an issue (not because he could not use public transit, but because he has not wanted to bother learning how to use it. I know that public transit is fairly convenient where he is, but one needs to make an effort to explore it). He does not have a car. It has not been an issue because my son has a w/s job this year.</p>
<p>*One thing I didn’t read a lot about before DS started college:</p>
<p>He rapidly tired of the Dorm food (although it seemed pretty good when we ate there) and has been eating out much more than we anticipated and spending all his money there. *</p>
<p>Yes…this sort of thing happens a lot especially if there are a good number of off-campus places to eat. </p>
<p>My kids’ campus has many on campus dining venues, but they still like to go to the off campus hangouts on weekends and such.</p>
<p>One thing that helps my son to some extent as far as food on his campus is that I paid for the most expensive meal plan (my son really does eat breakfast and he is one of less than a handful that seem to eat breakfast). At the school he attends, this plan allows him to eat in a burger place on campus, or have a fancy coffee and a salad at the on campus coffee shop AND still go for the same meal time into the “all you can eat dining hall”. I am not sure as to why he finds this a nice perk, but I know that he does go to both sometimes for a meal. My guess is that he gets a better salad/coffee than what is served in the “all you can eat” dining hall, and then he eats a dessert or slice of pizza in the dining hall. BTW, my son is lean and trim, and he did not gain the freshman 15.</p>
<p>researchingforemb - My D doesn’t qualify for federal work study either and she did have trouble finding an on campus job at first. Seemed like at first all the jobs went to returning students and those who qualified for federal work study. She talked to the head of her program who made a call and got her an interview which led to a great job with flexible hours. But she also got a couple of calls about a month after classes started about other positions. So tell her to be persistent and patient.</p>
<p>shoot4moom - We pay tuition/room/board, books, transportation home and her cell phone bill. She saved her summer job money and has her on campus job money for everything else. So no allowance from home but I do send her $20 from time to time in a greeting card just for the fun of it!</p>
<p>Shoot4moon, I noticed that you wrote about the 75/50/25 range as being high/medium and low amounts of spending money “per month” while ALF indicated those to be for “weekly spending allocations”. I think 25 a month would be too low unless the student had other funds and it was given along the lines that austinmtmom suggested (a surprise gift in a card). But 75 a week sounds high unless the student lives in New York City or some other very high priced location. </p>
<p>I provide 25 a week to a student who has a good meal plan and who lives on a campus that does not have a lot of expensive things to do nearby - plenty of free or low cost activities on campus though including concerts, student recreation center, special interest clubs, etc. There are a number of restaurants in the town but my college freshman and friends (mainly music majors who have very full class schedules and have to practice a lot) are too busy to take the time to go to those places very often. It really depends on what the campus location and culture are like as well as the income range of the students’ families. But the bottom line for me is that I can’t afford more than the $25 per week in addition to all the other expenses for college, so that has to be enough.</p>
<p>As far as shipping things to a campus a great distance away, I know at Bed Bath & Beyond you can order things to be picked up in other states, say the store that is nearest your students college. More than likely there will be one in a fairly close radius. The free Amazon Prime membership to students with a .edu email is an awesome feature that we have taken FULL advantage of and really love! Two day free shipping, upgrade to next day for $4/item. You can find just about anything on Amazon. You can also have multiple shipping addresses so things can be shipped to school, home, paid for by a default credit card that is yours or hers. Staples also offers free shipping over $50 so if she is buying schools supplies once she gets to the dorm they do a very quick delivery.</p>
<p>Whatever your decision with the money I would strongly urge you to have a joint account at a bank where you already have a primary account. You can very quickly transfer emergency funds from your account to hers if necessary. All of our kids share accounts where we do and I can look at them all online at once which is really nice. When someone picks up groceries instead of handing them a $20 which I will never see the change, I go in and made a transfer. Very neat and clean.</p>
<p>For students who are looking for spending money — I found babysitting an excellent way to get some grocery $$$ — because you put the baby to bed and then you can do homework, and are being paid. For contacts, try the grad school. Often grad students and young professors have young families—not that they can afford to go out a lot. But they have friends who are not young professors.</p>
<p>Also the student employment office or whatever they call it is sometimes called by people looking for sitters. And is often called by depts in the university looking for a little odd office help.</p>
<p>Think about busy times at the school–such as right before the applications deadline in the admissions office, or when they are sending letters out. They might have some sorting, filing, stuffing work here & there. Ditto the registrar’s office — if you got a large envelope from your school during the summer, someone filled it. Maybe the bookstore could use some help when they are sending overstock back to publishers, or doing used textbook buyback.</p>
<p>I had a lot of friends who waitressed in local restaurants, too. This can have its drawbacks but the tips can be good.</p>
<p>Like many other parents have said on this thread we pay for tuition, room & board, books, transportation and cell phone. D saved money from jobs she had last summer plus all of her graduation money for spending. D is in New York City and needs a monthly subway/bus pass in order to get around. She is in a very demanding program (timewise) and has found jobs babysitting to make extra money. Next semester she has two afternoons a week free and is trying to get a babysitting/tutoring job for these afternoons in order to have more spending money.</p>
<p>I usually send D a card each month with $20 dollars in cash or a $20 giftcard to somewhere she likes to shop.</p>
<p>FWIW, my parents have not provided me with any spending money since high school. They pay for tuition, room, board, and fees. I pay for everything else - books (though relatives took pity on me this term when books came out to be $1500 and have helped me out a little), cell phone, any eating out I do, and so on. I have found myself spending anywhere between $10 and $60 a week on things like food, pens, haircuts, and so on, but I’m a moderately free spender since it’s my own money and I’m aware how much I can and can’t spend.</p>
<p>My first two years, my only income came from summer jobs. This year, I’ve been working 10-15 hours a week as a teaching assistant, which generally covers book costs (admittedly not this past term) and spending money. I have a checking account linked to my parents’ through Bank of America in case of a monetary emergency, as well as two online bank accounts that earn more interest and so are for the long-term rather than spending money.</p>