<p>I see no problems with allowing your child to have an additional card(s) on your account(s). </p>
<p>My son is finishing his Junior year in High School and he has two of mine. This seems to be a fairly common practice. </p>
<p>Call me innocent, but I don’t think many kids abuse this. It’s a privilege that can be taken away all too quickly and easily. Kids tend to respect those kinds of privileges. ;-)</p>
<p>Both D’s have credit cards which we pay…they are fairly good with them, and if they happen to go out to dinner, and use our CC, no big deal…if they abused them, then we’d take the cards away…perhaps 300-400 per month for the two of them…</p>
<p>Slightly off-topic, but I’m going to suggest that those who have given their kids credit cards on the parents’ accounts have the kids apply for their own cards instead. Parents can still pay the bill if they choose, but the kid will be starting to build a credit score. Many banks have credit cards for college students.
If you do pay your kids’ bills, but would like them to be financially independent eventually, an added benefit to having them start out with their own credit card accounts is that this will be an easier transition. You won’t ever physically have to ask for your card back, but can instead announce that you are no longer paying that bill.</p>
<p>Another second to Flyaround’s style. “have a meal on mom” now happenS about once a year , since the worm is on a stipend. I tell him to use my card for flight home. When in college, he’d ask before making a purchase. His meal plans did not include weekends, but his meals were always under $10 . He would use my card for grad school applications and new shoes. </p>
<p>My g/f would complain about her son’s expensive meals, but didn’t set limits until she exploded and cut him off completely. </p>
<p>I think there is a good in between. Living within a budget was something we discussed in HS. I had the worm figure out his monthly expenses, then gave him $50 more. I pointed out that he didn’t figure enough for movies and other entertainment, gifts, games. In later years, I would bring up topics about taxes and investments. I started his Roth, but now he contributes. I have little sophistication in these areas, as my parents never mentioned these topics.</p>
<p>This thread reminds me, S still hasn’t applied for his own credit card. He doesn’t use mine either, as he’s here in town and whatever emergency his debit card won’t cover, I can easily take care of. And he makes his own money during co-op quarters so the subject hasn’t even come up. 
</p>
<p>But he does need his own card to start building a credit record. I advised him to get a card earlier and then forgot about it. While he’s home this week he’s gonna walk over to the bank branch!</p>
<p>The rules have tightened considerably for student credit cards. I gave my DD a card on my account before she went abroad, since in an emergency she would almost certainly max out a student card.</p>
<p>To the OP, when I was in college I had a classmate whose father had given him a credit card to use specifically to take girls out to dinner.</p>
<p>Our college students didn’t use our credit cards for ANYTHING at all. They worked to earn any money for discretionary spending, and that included any meals that were not covered on their meal plan. The only things that went on our credit card were plane tickets home, and we made those reservations (and NO our kid NEVER had trouble getting a boarding pass because she didn’t have that credit card…not even once).</p>
<p>We gave d1 our Amex card when she went off to college. She would buy few things on it with our permission. I don’t remember her using it for meals because she had an allowance from us and she also worked few hours on campus. She had 400 to 500 spending money a month. I don’t think D1 was generous with her money. She was very generous with D2. Whenever they went out, she paid for D2, and she bought many of D2’s camera equipments. D1 has since graduated, but she still has the card because it gives her more benefits than other cards.</p>
<p>Just a note - D1 did get credit for having our card. It showed up on her credit report with our balance and good payment history. When she graduated she was able to get her own credit card with a very credit line.</p>
<p>Mine receive an allowance of $X per month, which covers things like going out to dinner with friends and other “walkaround” types of expenses. They also have our credit card, which they use for books / school-related materials, but they also know that at any point if they were buying something and short of cash, they could always stick it on the credit card and we’d settle up later. Both of mine are pretty frugal - indeed, too much so; H and I tell them repeatedly, we work hard for this money precisely so you can enjoy yourself, so make sure you spend it in ways that are fun for a college student - going out for pizza with friends, going to the movies, etc.</p>
<p>So, no, they don’t “have my credit card for dinner out” but in essence, I do / would pay for it via their allowances. I’m ok with that, though. I wanted part of their college experience to encompass some of the freedom to go out for pizza, etc. and H and I have really not liked the idea of their having jobs during the school year. A school-related internship would be different, but in this economic environment, there’s something that would really rub me the wrong way about my upper middle class privileged full pay kid taking the scooping-at-the-local-ice-cream-shop-job out of the hands of a kid for whom the earnings from that job mean the difference between college or not. Ethically, my kid’s “need” to earn extra spending money isn’t as important as the other kid’s need to earn the money that keeps him in college in the first place.</p>
<p>THis is all a parenting issue and how families handle money to their college kids. I see nothing wrong with ti as long as there is no abuse involved. When that happens, the card should be pulled unless the parent wants to continue being a financial patsy. </p>
<p>We did not. Our kids got a debit/credit card from their banks with about $500 credit in their own names. One of ours lost his credit line and is working on restoring it. One misused it and has been paying dearly to get it back in shape. The others have been fine, using it judicioulsy and the way it should be used. So we did not need to share our credit with our children. Also, they had a cache of money from summer jobs, savings that they used to pay for their day to day college expenses. We paid tuiton and room and board when they were in school housing and on the meal plan, up to the agreed upon amount, which pretty much covered it. We also paid ancillary expenses here and there as we helped them move in and when we visited. But the every day stuff was covered by them. If they did not have those credit lines, I would have probably entrusted them initially with a card of some sort that could be used for emergency and by permission. I see no problem at all in doing that. Until the kid abuses the privilege.</p>
<p>My oldest D has her own credit card, which she got before the rules tightened, with a low limit, and she has always paid that herself. When she studied abroad, I gave her one on my account for emergencies, which she has used once for airline tickets. Agree with oldfort in that it shows up on her credit report so it helps credit history.</p>
<p>My S uses his debit card linked to his checking account for incidental expenses. The kid spends almost no money at school that I can see. If he wants to make an online purchase, he calls me and asks to use my account, then reimburses me.</p>
<p>My D doesn’t have her own credit card, though she does have one in her name from my account. It is a low limit one, it started at $500 and is now $750. She has purchased books on it and paid it off within a month, always telling me before the purchase is made.</p>
<p>We primarily bought it for her because she is 1000+ miles from home and if there is some sort of emergency here, then she may need to be able to get her own plane tickets home. Having her name on the card helps with that. She knows that she needs to leave room on it in order to buy a ticket at any time and so has always paid it off almost immediately after using it.</p>
<p>I just checked her credit rating about a month ago and this card showed up on her credit report, even though it is off of one of my accounts.</p>
<p>Yes, even cards on your account, in the child’s name, help build their credit rating. As long as it’s paid on time.</p>
<p>I have 2 kids with cards on my account. One is very good about only using it for “approved” purchases. The other seems to think that McDonald’s runs are emergencies. But, I also have access to his checking account, so I just transfer money to cover his credit card purchases. He got the idea last month when his checking account got down to $2.56.</p>
<p>My son pays the credit card bill from his account, we reimburse him for things we are happy to pay for like textbooks. Younger son is a cheapskate and never seems to go out, certainly not anywhere expensive enough to use a credit card!</p>
<p>I don’t have a credit card so no, my kids do not have an extra card. We all have debit cards. They work year round, and pay their own expenses. I give them $20-40 when I see them as a little gift which they very much appreciate.</p>
<p>My kids have credit cards (we have access to the statements) - they pay the balance and if it’s something we have agreed to pay for (for example, books) we send them a check for that amount. </p>
<p>This thread got me thinking about a number of years ago when I was living in Chicago. I have cousins who are very well off and their son was attending Northwestern Law School. Apparently, he had a credit card that his parents paid, no questions (or few questions) asked. I would have him over for dinner every so often and I was always shocked when he told me where he had been dining on a regular basis. Some of the best and most expensive places in town! (Most of which I had never been to despite the fact I was an adult with a good paying job.)</p>
<p>Nope she doesn’t use my credit card for going out, neither do I.</p>
<p>For those of you that follow your children’s credit card statements and debit accounts, do they have a way to hide purchases from you? As in, do they have a separate card where they could buy things without your oversight? I ask because now that I think about it, I wouldn’t want my parents to know exactly where I’m shopping. Since we have separate finances, it’s not something I’d ever considered. Just wondering. :)</p>
<p>S1 has one in his name that we pay for, only to be used in emergencies or after contacting us. He has never abused the privledge (So far).</p>
<p>D. was using her credi card for going out. But we paid all her expences anyway, so it did not matter too much. D. was not on any kind of allowance aside from the fact that we did not pay her tuition as she earned full tuition Merit award and that was a biggy, the biggest of them all.</p>