How much "allowance" for food?

Parents Forum
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<p>One thing to consider – can she buy groceries easily?</p>

<p>If she has a car, there’s no problem. </p>

<p>If she has to take a bus, things are more difficult. Not only is it very time-consuming to take buses, the amount of food you can carry home is small. Many college students don’t have time to make multiple supermarket runs by bus every week.</p>

<p>Both of my kids moved off-campus (at different colleges) after their sophomore years. Neither had a car. Neither had a supermarket within walking distance. Both ended up spending MORE on food than they had when they were on a dorm meal plan because they lived primarily on delivered take-out food and food purchased in cash eateries on campus.</p>

<p>And these were kids who could manage money. My second one, in particular, managed it so well that I had no qualms about giving her an entire semester’s worth of money, for everything, all at once. But even she couldn’t eat for less than it had cost on the meal plan.</p>

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<p>My D will be living off-campus for the first time this fall – she can be considered anything from a freshman to a junior (long story :-). I told her she had the school’s room & board as her budget. If she goes over, she has to dip into her savings. She wants me to handle the rent check, and she requested that I transfer food money on a monthly basis (but I would have been willing to do it weekly or on a semester basis.) We belong to a credit union that allows her to create a separate savings account for her food money. Our deal is that any money left over at the end of the school year is split 50/50. (Originally, I was going to take it all back, but I figured splitting it would give her incentive to not eat out every meal near the end of the year :-)</p>

<p>I anticipate she’ll handle the finances just fine – she has demonstrated that she knows how to save money, but I’ve also seen her spend every cent of every paycheck. That may be why she’s now working at Kohl’s instead of GameStop…</p>

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<p>Kennedy, I didn’t suggest being miserly with the money sent every couple of weeks.</p>

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<p>OP a couple more suggestions given your last posting. (We only have the info posted to go on).</p>

<p>You described a situation where the parents paid for ALL day to day needs and your daughter’s money is supposed to be saved for a future event … you mentioned a helping buy a house … that is a FAR future event. With our kids we set up much shorter time frame reinforcements for them to learn how to manage their money. We pay for school specific expenses but our kids are on their own for all the play money … if they spend their summer earnings during the summer and didn’t save any … then they didn’t have any for a social life at college. They basically are on a one year cycle of earning, saving, and budgeting for their needs for the coming year. Personally, I think judging a high school kid on how they managed their savings for something 10 years away with no financial responsibilities now is 1) backwards and 2) has a much-much higher chance of failure (in other words … lots of kids who could probably save so they could go to concerts at college next year will not be as good when that same money is for a theorectical house in 10 years).</p>

<p>Second, if you want to encourage your daughter to learn how to budget and save to subsidize eating out all the time is counter productive … it is a black hole of money. IMO pay for basic meals at home, maybe 1 or 2 trips out (pizza or a salad nothing big) … and again, if she wants to eat out more she can work, save some money, and pay to eat out a lot that way.</p>

<p>PS - not that I said that sending out kids money for a full meal plan does provide them some slack to make a lot meals on their own but comes built in with slack for meals out (cooking for oneself can be MUCH cheaper than meal plans) … so again … our kids, depending on how they managed their resources, to go out a few times or a lot of times.</p>

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<p>This. When I was in school, I didn’t have a car, so I took the bus everywhere (and they southern California is not exactly known for its great public transportation). It was hard to buy groceries in bulk or shop around for the best price for things, and I’d often make a couple of trips over a day or two to get a week’s worth of groceries. If she has a car, this isn’t an issue, but it is something to consider.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t recommend giving her money every day, since that will make it difficult to buy groceries, and she would have to budget her meals around when she gets the money. If you’re really concerned about her ability to budget, I would suggest working up to it. Give her a certain amount of money per week or every two weeks, and see how she does budgeting that. If she has the tendency to spend whatever she gets, then start on the lower side, and increase it if she can prove that she needs more money. If she has access to free food as well (meals at home?), then she will need even less for food. Once she gets good at planning out her expenses for a week or two, perhaps change it to some amount of money per month, and then every two months, etc.</p>

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<p>If your concerned about her ability to save instead of just spending whatever money she has, I would recommend asking her to contribute to tuition, rent, food, whatever. Ask her to get a job, if she doesn’t have one already, or take money out of her savings and save it for her. My parents had a deal with my brother that they would help out with his expenses (let him live rent-free, doesn’t have to chip in for groceries, etc), as long as he saved money from his paycheck. If he blew all of his money on useless stuff, they would charge whatever they thought he should be saving as rent. Ask her to chip in, and save the money for her. If she shows that she can live on a budget and save her own money instead of blowing it on extravagant things, then you can go back to paying the bills and having her be responsible for her own savings.</p>

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<p>A few thoughts, based on my college days sharing an apartment with 3/4 other people (depending on the year):</p>

<p>One girl had a truck. She did weekly shopping. We all kicked in for her gas money. We had a shopping list on the fridge, she would buy what was on it. She did her best to shop sales, but didn’t hit a ton of grocery stores or anything. Sometimes I’d go with her–not required, just to help out. We would also all kick in for toilet paper, dish soap, and other general supplies.</p>

<p>Each of us would make one dinner a week, for everyone. It didn’t have to be fancy–I would do spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread and a salad, for example. This way, we all ate “home cooked” meals fairly often, and you picked which night you cooked, based on your schedule. We’d have general stuff for breakfast and lunch–deli meat, cheese, tuna, cereal, etc.</p>

<p>If you wanted something special (say, steaks for a special meal with your boyfriend), you would pay for that on your own, and label it so nobody would take it on you.</p>

<p>A system like this gives you some variety, saves money, and lets you develop some cooking skills. </p>

<p>I’m afraid any dollar amount I gave you would be hopelessly out of date, but I imagine $100/week would be plenty these days. I probably wouldn’t do daily money transfers, probably not even weekly. I would give her, say, $400 a month, and help her to budget for weekly meals. She needs to understand budgeting–she doesn’t have to love it, but this is actually a good way for her to start. especially if she has ramen/mac and cheese as a back-up–if she eats through her budget in takeout pizza in the first three weeks, well, she has a whole week of ramen to think about why that wasn’t the best choice, and hopefully she’ll do better the next month.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t be one to suggest throwing her to the wolves or anything, but I find with my college kid, she’d be perfectly content for me to do everything for her. When I force her to become more independent, she rises to the occasion.</p>

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<p>We gave our kids $50 a week and neither had any trouble living on that amount for food. Both went to college in major metro areas. We deposited the money into their accounts once a month when we deposited their rent and utility money into their accounts. If either had an issue, we never heard about it. Both had jobs…and both also were very good at shopping the sales at the store, and using leftovers wisely (and not cooking way too much to begin with).</p>

<p>We gave them gift cards to their grocery stores on occasion. If you are really concerned that your kid won’t buy groceries with the money…you could buy gift cards to the grocery store.</p>

<p>But really…we agreed on an amount and made it clear that we would reevaluate the amount after 2 months. Neither kiddo required a change in amount. We then made it very clear that the money needed to be used for food and we would not supplement that account…and we didn’t.</p>

<p>Either they budgeted well, or they used their own earnings to supplement.</p>

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<p>Wow, you guys are great with lots of comments that are making me think. After taking with my husband we decided that giving grocery money every two weeks would be better than every day. Regarding the availability of groceries, they’re really not very available to her on campus, but she comes home (just 15 mins away) almost every week for a half-day to a day, and groceries are 2 mins away from us. She will have floor-mates, a couple of whom she knows already, to share groceries and cooking with, if she chooses. I want to clear up the “savings” thing. She has a savings account for major future life expenses, to which she has contributed nothing, and to which we don’t expect her to contribute for the foreseeable future. Se also has a checking account, where her paychecks are deposited as well as the money we provide for necessities. We expect her to use her paychecks to pay for concerts, dining out, clothing beyond what we think she needs, etc. I hope that clears some things up. Thank you again, and more discussion would be appreciated!</p>

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<p>Sure, PM me a list. The cheapest thing I could make at home that I could eat frequently without killing myself would require 1 chicken ($7), 2 things of broccoli ($2) half an onion ($.75), 8 oz cheddar ($2.25) and 1.5 boxes pasta ($3.75) and would feed me for 2 days (and I’m ignoring the cost of oil and spices), which equates to about $8 a day. I simply don’t see what meal (that has a decent amount of meat and veggies) I could eat for cheaper. And if you want coffee and coke, that’s more.</p>

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<p>I’m glad you backed off the every day thing because that really seemed off to me too. The every other week thing is perfect, and frankly like it or not, what many Americans live off of due to paychecks. </p>

<p>One consideration is how often does she/do you expect she will eat out? Or given the college community here get Starbucks? I think many of the college kids here spend $10 or more a day on coffee drinks.</p>

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<p>How does she travel home? If she comes by bus, she’s still got a shopping problem because it would be hard to carry a week’s supply of food on the bus. </p>

<p>Having to come home to shop could also force her to come home every week, which may or may not be a good thing.</p>

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<p>I always laugh at that. If the cheapest coffee option is Starbucks (I went to one once, it was like $2.75 for black coffee) she absolutely needs a coffee maker. I don’t understand how Starbucks attains and keeps customers, but they clearly have some very brilliant businessmen working there.</p>

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<p>I used to transfer a set monthly amount into my son’s account to cover, rent, utilities and food. We agreed upon the amount at the beginning of the school year, with the understanding we would adjust as necessary. I don’t remember exactly how much we budgeted for food, but $400 a month sounds excessive. I’m thinking it was more in the neighborhood of $200. This was a college town in California. He did have access to grocery stores. For the most part, I thought going out to eat should be on his own dime. (He had money from his summer earnings). I did, however, put about $100-$150 a year into an account the school had for purchases at various restaurants and shops on campus. That way, if he was hungry after class and didn’t have enough time to make it home and back to campus before his next class, he could pick up an occasional (overpriced) sandwich.</p>

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<p>My D is in New York City so all of her groceries have to be carried home on the subway or bus. She spends $50 to $60 per week on groceries and does almost all of her shopping at Trader Joe’s. My D is a vegetarian so she doesn’t purchase meat, but buys a lot of fruits and veggies both to eat and to blend in smoothies. D and her roommate both drink coffee, but most times make it at their apartment. My D has now graduated, but when she was in school I gave her food money monthly and she never asked for more. We did not pay for eating out so that was something she used her money from working for.</p>

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<p>“I don’t understand how Starbucks attains and keeps customers”</p>

<p>I swear they put something addictive in those drinks beyond the caffeine. I never drank coffee at all until Starbucks, and now when I drive by one, I actually get a physical craving for a latte. Sigh. Fortunately, I’m not a college student so I can afford it, but I try to keep it down to 2-3 per week because it seriously is ridiculously priced.</p>

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<p>Oh TempeMom, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Do to our negligence in monitoring and trying to correct her spending habits, SHE thinks she can afford Starbucks pretty much every day, can eat out a number of times per week, sometimes at places that are not “cheap”, and even treat her friends to meals now and then. I see a rude awakening coming when her endless supply of money (which she essentially had until now – again, totally our fault) dries up. I admit to my own Starbucks addiction, but, hey, I lived through the lean years to earn it :)</p>

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<p>One of our sons goes to college in a major city and lives in a dorm, not an apartment (ie, no kitchen). This is the second summer he’s stayed in the city to work, and there is no meal plan available in the summer.</p>

<p>He spends about $600/month in the summer (from his own paycheck) on food, entertainment, and public transit. He comes home two or three times over the summer, and we send him back with a few things, but otherwise he’s on his own. He shops at corner groceries, and has to “cook” with just a microwave and a mini-fridge. He eats cereal or bagels for breakfast, eats lunch out, and then scrounges something up for dinner (on weeknights), and goes out more on the weekend. (We were willing to give him money for food, but he wanted to do it this way.)</p>

<p>Based on his experience, I think that $400/month is reasonable if your daughter isn’t in an urban area and has easy access to a car for shopping.</p>

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<p>Vladenschlutte, she claims to hate regular coffee. She loves the sweet frothy concoctions at Starbucks. Can’t say I blame her, but alas, a coffee machine won’t help. </p>

<p>Marian, sometimes she buses home, sometimes one of us picks her up. Either way, one of us usually drops her back at campus, making it easy to transport groceries. She would want to come home almost weekly whatever the grocery situation, and we’re happy to see her.</p>

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<p>Our S gets what he would get from being on the meal plan if he were in the dorms. Last year, we gave half the semester up front and then the rest half way thru. (Also had concerns about budgeting.) We did walk thru with him how much that worked out for a month, a week and a day. He learned that if he spent too much one day, he’d be eating ramen later. This year, we’re giving a semester at a time…and he knows that if he needs more, he can supplement with his savings. And also, that if he is a bit more frugal with his food $, he’ll have some money for savings (hey, I can dream!)…</p>

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<p>D2 shares a house and attends school in a Midwestern city; D3 shares a house and attends a state school in a college town. Both have fairly easy access to grocery stores and each says that her $200 per month for food is ample (as in more than is needed). Of course they never volunteered this information until I asked about it after reading this thread. I’m guessing if the budgeted amount had not been adequate, they would not have hesitated to let me know! They both cook frequently, don’t buy much junk food. If your student gets takeout often, $200 would not go far.</p>