How much allowance per month should I ask for?

Parents Forum
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<p>Whoa. With this attitude, if you were my kid I’d have you pounding the pavement at the local McDonald’s or Chick Fil A before the day was out. If you ever actually do have to work for your daily bread, you’ll discover that no job that is honestly and well done is meaningless. Doing things you don’t want to do is part of growing up. </p>

<p>There would be no need for you to work during school if you work during your summers. Get a job. I have a feeling if Grandpa saw what you’d written, he’d tell you to get one too.</p>

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<p>Are they also paying your cell phone bill? That is another cost to consider. </p>

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<p>Read all of the posts…hanging out at the lake all summer…not like OP is doing charity work instead. Even a job for 2 or 3 months during the summer would pay enough to handle spending money. Enabling people or deluding them into thinkig they are making good choices only serves to hurt them in the end.</p>

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<p>My grandpa loves me. I was listening to him tell stories last night. He values and encourages my dedication to education. Not once has he asked me to work during college.</p>

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In given time you will find this to be not true. Employers want a student who has the technical background and a person who has interpersonal skills. Can’t prove you have interpersonal skills when you only have a 4.0 to prove and no extracurriculars or outside projects. </p>

<p>A job, internship, club leadership and involvement, in-depth hobby or pastime, and volunteer work is a great way to prove you’re more than your brain {which is what employers want).</p>

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<p>@stmarys14 while I understand your frustration about folks seeming to do the old “kids these days” thing, you’d be better off letting others defend you as @niquii77 did very well. And I agree with @halfemptypockets that no job is meaningless and you are sounding defensive and entitled. We have given our daughter an allowance right in line with what others have posted here, which more or less covers laundry, shampoo etc, and miscellaneous expenses. Because she’s taken up ballroom dancing, which can be an expensive EC, she has also worked at school: telephoning alums for donations, doing tutoring, and coming up, working alumni reunion events. She has also worked summers doing research and getting paid reasonably well. </p>

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<p>The spoiled part came through right away. The brat part took a few more posts. And believe me, it has nothing to do with “class warfare”… it’s all about your attitude. You may be ready for college, but it sounds like you have a lot of growing up to do.</p>

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$3000 to $5000 a semester. You will need money for Spring Break trips - must-have college experiences but are very expensive.</p>

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<p>You’re very wrong here. Working a crappy, low paying job shows that you can work well as part of a team. That you can get along with other people. It also shows you’re not afraid to work hard and do things that you may believe are beneath you. This is not about class warfare. I see working crappy jobs as part of growing up. Most of the kids I know are in the top 5% of income in the country. ALL of the older teens have summer jobs. It would be embarrassing to me as a parent to say my 17 year old was just relaxing at the lake all summer. </p>

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<p>I feel like most of the campus EC involvement stuff is overblown. I party at U-M and behind closed doors, nobody really cares about the clubs they’re in, it’s all bs resume fluffing. Same for all the volunteering we’re supposed to do in high school that all of us stop doing after apps go out.</p>

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<p>OP - I think there are research jobs for freshman. Most probably aren’t paid. DS’s girlfriend has a non-paid research job this summer at GT. It is going to look good on her resume. DS is planning on doing research for credit in the fall. That is one way to show future employers that you can follow directions and work well with others. However a part time job this summer really would help when you interview for internships.</p>

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<p>I loved my college jobs. And one undergraduate clerkship eventually led to a graduate research assistantship and ultimately a post-doc fellowship. Contacts can be cultivated just about anywhere. Work experience can be a way to stand out from the crowd of new graduates who lack the initiative to find gainful employment or don’t have the kind of real-life skills to be required to combine employment and school and school.</p>

<p>Plus, honestly, it’s good practice to learn a little self-reliance in college instead of continuing to rely on mom and dad (or grandpa, as the case may be) for everything. It’s part of growing up. </p>

<p>If you look on your college’s employment site, there are interesting jobs listed, including research assistantships that an ambitious freshman might be qualified for. Truthfully, first-year courses aren’t known for their vocational applicability anyway.</p>

<p>(Okay…when I looked on the site, one job did make my eyebrows twitch a little. “Egg donor” is listed as an employment opportunity on the first page of job listings.)</p>

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<p>I grinded hard for 4 years and will be pursuing a very competitive program at college. I’ll likely never in my life have another free summer. So if you’ll excuse me, I think I deserve a couple of months to relax at the lake.</p>

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<p>If you earn money, a job is not meaningless…it serves the purpose of paying for things you need. Over the summer, I seriously recommend at least babysitting. It usually takes place outside of pool, sleep time. Pays extremely well for work you do, especially for young children at night when they are in bed most of the time you are there. And parents who like you are good contacts for future jobs where they might work.</p>

<p>If you’re not being asked to work to help pay for college, that’s fine and you’re lucky. Just don’t take advantage of it for asking to be covered for “fun” things. If your meal plan covers all meals, then you don’t need more than $50 a month for discretionary items, meal out occasionally, laundry. If you are wanting to cover clothing, the new sorority T-shirts, or a $5 coffee every day…then get a job or using summer savings/gift money.</p>

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<p>"$3000 to $5000 a semester. You will need money for Spring Break trips - must-have college experiences but are very expensive."</p>

<p>@4kidsdad‌ - Please tell me you are joking.</p>

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<p>Add “entitled” to the list of descriptors.</p>

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<p>stmarys, I party at my university, too, and I am pretty sure no one cares about what clubs you’re in at that moment… :-/ </p>

<p>It’s unfortunate that you haven’t been able to experience passionate students who run clubs at your future university. I’m involved in a couple clubs and the dedications and passion is truly inspiring. It may fluff their resume, but that is not to say they do not benefit in no other way. </p>

<p>You have every right to relax at the lake for a good ninety or something days, but I will tell you it’s a lot more fulfilling when you’re doing something that benefits others. Not everyone will get the kick others get from charity work or working in general, but…just saying…</p>

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My kids never went on the Spring Break trips because they don’t have a grandpa like stmarys14’s - paid for my high school and has taken care of college tuition, room and board …</p>

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<p>Wow, at the responses. I’m an ‘about to be college mom’ and was hoping to see various responsive replies because I am trying to figure out what my sons need next year. I don’t want to give them what isn’t necessary (with reasonable pizza/movie money) but I feel if they want social money for road trips etc, they should earn that in a summer job. I’m actually kind of against my kids working first year, and my father forbid me to work first year when I was in college. (He was much better positioned to pay all costs, for a variety of reasons, but it wasn’t for that reason.) Freshmen have a lot of things to get accustomed to, and since I want them to get good grades and don’t know if they will hit a proper study -stride early, or will be cramming late, I would like them to get adjusted before working, if they work. A fair percentage of students tank their first quarter, and spend the rest of their college career trying to make up for it, in a gpa sense.</p>

<p>In any event, family and personal decisions like that are up to the individual imho. I personally am ‘requiring’ my kids to work over the summer for social money. They will also have weeks for vacation, but primarily I think they should have a summer job. My Dad, who was able to let us go anywhere we wanted and could get into, required us to have jobs every summer, to learn the value of money, essentially. Beyond that, as I told the one of my sons who isn’t keen on the idea, it feels good, and is confidence building, to learn you can take care of yourself at a baseline level, if absolutely necessary. I did not tell him, but thought privately, that learning how much an uneducated, easy to find job will and will NOT cover is a good reason to value education.</p>

<p>However, I am trying to figure out how much my sons will actually need. Obviously, they will spend whatever I give them. I don’t want them to work first year, however, and I am not alone, I don’t think. I understand a bunch of colleges don’t offer work study first year, for that reason.</p>

<p>I will keep an eye on this thread for budget ideas, myself. My kids will live in dorms and will have meal plans as well. I will pay directly for tickets home, the first year (they aren’t allowed cars freshman year). But I don’t know what cash they need beyond that.</p>

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<p>I also don’t want my kids to work their first year of school unless they think it’ll help with their adjustment. I think there’s enough to adjust to just living away from home for the first time so despite my responses above, I’d also like an answer to how much is a good amount to expect to spend.</p>

<p>Right now, I’m thinking 200 to 300 dollars each month would be good, so maybe $250? But then I think what’ll she be spending money on? So long as I had a meal plan, all I ever spent money on in college was pizza and beer and I did it for a heckuva lot less than 200 a month, even adjusting for inflation. We’ll be paying for her cell phone and her Netflix, so maybe a $100 is enough? </p>

<p>I don’t have any idea and would like to hear some voices of experience.</p>