<p>My S is in the same situation as poster’s daughter. He got substantial merit money. </p>
<p>Thus year we provided $200 a month as a freshman w/o a car. His college website gave some suggestion on this issue. He is in Colorado Springs and the students do a lot of outdoor stuff on weekends and breaks which aren’t really expensive since usually it is hiking/camping and everyone seems to already have the gear. Skiing has some expense but they can usually find someone whose parents have a place near the resort/lifts and there is a deep discout multi mountain student pass they can buy.</p>
<p>He intends to take his car next year and is earning all the money for that additional expense.</p>
<p>We probably will not automatically increase the monthly amount, but will discuss it as we go along. FYI–S is pretty frugal. Also, his meal plan is very generous, so the recent spike in cost of food hasn’t been a real issue.</p>
<p>Another issue is whether to provide the money at the beginning of the semester or monthly.</p>
<p>hikids: It’s true that the OP just wanted a number, but without more info, that is almost impossible to say. Is the student living in a dorm with all expenses paid? Or is the student in an apartment where they have to buy their own food. Do they require transportation? Are they in a big city that offers theater and conerts, or can they watch these things for a nominal price at the school? Will they be in a place with a climate much different from where they started and might need new things, or close to home where they can go home on a weekend to pick up stuff they have forgotten?</p>
<p>I also think that college is a good place to learn gradually how to budget and live within their means and pay bills on time. The first year, living in a dorm with a meal plan, they really only need entertainment expenses. They should have just enough so they can budget what they have, but not so much that they learn to live a lifestyle they won’t be able to continue when supporting themselves that first year out of college. After that, they should add the reponsiblity of learning to pay the rent, utilities and living expenses out of a monthly budget. While the parents can still have SOME control over what that is and how they do it.</p>
<p>The goal would be that when they graduate, they aren’t suddenly thrown into a world where they have no clue how to mange and nobody to back them up. Unless parents are willing to subsidize and watch over for many years to come.</p>
<p>Notice that I have not mentioned who is supplying this budgeted amount. That is up to each family to decide. Bet you can guess what I think though.</p>
<p>I’m for teaching finance to children and responsibility in managing them. So My wife and I have a joint checking account with my D and she has an ATM card. She spends from it and manages it. I’m planning on continuing that till she kick us out of the account.
Presently the account is protect by My wife and I joint checking so she will never have problem overdrafting. But I get a email the moment she downloads the $1 song from I tunes. But it works very well.
I’ll rather take a loss in cash then have my D stranded for it somewhere.</p>
<p>My S will be in a relatively inexpensive college town living in a dorm and using a meal plan. He’ll have summer earnings, but a small amount because he only has six weeks to work when you subtract time for family vacation and a short volunteer internship. He’s not a big spender. Here’s how we plan to handle it during the first semester:
Agree that we’ll pay for books and the cellphone, and other expenses come out of his allowance.
Decide on a monthly allowance to start in August, based on our best guess of what he’ll need.
Revisit the allowance in two to three months and adjust it then if necessary.
He already uses Quicken to track his expenses, so it’ll be easy to see where the money is going.
Next summer, he’ll work for a longer period, earn more money, and be expected to contribute more.</p>
<p>I would think that ongoing communication through the first semester (or even the whole first year) will help both parents and student figure out what’s realistic. I don’t see how you can really know until they get there.</p>
<p>For those who can’t let go of the issue of who is paying for it, let me rephrase the question. If you were advising your son or daughter on how much they would need to save to meet incidental expenses for the coming academic year what would be your recommendation? Assume that tuition, room, board, books, medical expenses, travel home and cell phone expenses are covered separately. Assume that you are talking about a big city environment but not NYC. Assume that the student is relying on public transportation, including a mix of buses and cabs.</p>
<p>A quick comment on what curious14 said “we don’t really want her to work during the school year.”</p>
<p>That was the way I felt when my older two were in college. Interestingly, despite getting a fairly generous allowance, my youngest decided all on her own that she wanted a job and has worked about 9 hours per week during the second semester of her freshman year. She has told me that filling in that chunk of free time has forced her to be more organized and productive.</p>
<p>Since the OP had a fairly objective question, I want to summarize what I came up with from you all --without the editorials
200/month
300/month
50/week- kids earned
200/month
50/week- kids earned
60/week pt job
75/week large urban
200/month
50/month rural IA
250/month
300/month with summer job
400/month–seemed a little high (per poster)
180/month- LA
50/week
200/month no car
So from this using 4.33 weeks per month, and making no allowance for location/cars/ etc I get
$234.27 per month ‘spending money’
50/month low, $400/month high … I get the impression that this would generally be a no car, dorm type, meals paid existence.<br>
I would think this would be a fair number to start from for budgeting discussions</p>
<p>Yes, the rural IA # is no car, dorm and meals paid, tons of free activities on campus, no need for expensive clothes. A bare bones budget, but it’s what he chooses to spend.</p>
<p>To the OP, in response to your post #45: I agree that the issue of who’s paying is irrelevant, and I wasn’t trying to make a judgment in my post. What I was trying to suggest is, do you have a little flexibility for some trial and error? It’s hard to budget unless you have some specific experience to go on. People have been suggesting the variables–transportation, clubs, etc. As an alternative, can you post this question on the CC forum for your son’s/daughter’s college and see what you find out? Or do you know other kids who go there, and can you talk with their parents? I understand why you asked your original question because I’ve been wondering myself, but I’ve been thinking experience will provide the answer.</p>
<p>To Guitars101–I think $200 a month will be plenty for Harvard. Almost all the social activities are on campus, in the freshman dorms or upperclassman Houses. There are plenty of ECs and academics to occupy the students. He may want to buy the occasional ticket to student concerts, parties, or formals but these are reasonably priced ($7-15.) Only at intercession, Thanksgiving, & Spring Break will there be much time to travel.</p>
<p>^^ Agree with post #50. We gave my S $200 per month and he had money left over fairly regularly. However, he had no travel costs and we paid for his books as well as his clothes and shoes (just as well since he would never think of buying them himself and wears everything until it falls apart). Apart from the occasional concert, most of the money went into eating out with friends and late night snacks. There’s tons of free stuff to do on campus and lots of inexpensive restaurants both in Cambridge and Boston.
The following year, he got a job and bought a few big tickets items as well as his own books.</p>
<p>You really have to know the campus and your child. The above son sounds familiar regarding clothes (except for running shoes once in a great while and college logo stuff). One of these years he’ll wear out those HS clothes. At son’s campus (UW) parents put money into a dorm food account for those living in Res Halls (a la carte food there, including pizza/sub delivery) and campus cash (on campus/campus sponsered events and including some off campus places such as at the bookstore) so the actual cash used has been minimal. I also think he tried out various eateries fall of freshman year, partly with the newness of opportunities. It will be interesting to see what happens with the apt next fall- in theory he can save money, but I wonder how many dorm food meals he’ll eat for convenience before he realizes it costs a lot more when you don’t have the dorm food account discounted prices. They also get a free city bus pass, although except for the malls and some other shopping most things are within walking distance of campus. Of course, any leftover money we put into his accounts eventually gets refunded - to him (sort of like paying the estimated taxes for investments in his name and he gets the tax refund). We have a low maintenance child.</p>
<p>My son is a student in Nashville–so, it is urban but not Boston or NYC urban. Since he has a very good merit award, we put 2K in his student account (card can be used at many local venues) and in his checking account (i.e. 2K total) at the beginning of the school year to cover the type of expenses you are asking about. We were under the impression he would not be working, but second semester, he decided to work as a tutor anyway so he could earn at least some of his own spending money.</p>
<p>I just discovered that $1200 of the original 2K is still in the accounts. So, it appears he spent a maximum of $200 per month from late August until the end of the first semester. I believe it was probably less than that, since he indicated that he occasionally used some of the account money second semester as well.</p>
<p>However, this is a guy who could not care less about clothes, who is generally pretty cheap (although he does like to eat out with friends), and who did not have his car with him freshman year. Next year he will, and that will raise expenses, including a parking permit and of course, gas. He goes to some concerts, but nothing that costs hundreds of dollars.</p>
<p>My conclusion then is that 200 per month should be enough for a frugal student in an average urban environment, if s/he attends a school that offers a lot of on-campus activities.</p>
<p>This fall most students are going to get $200/mo for spending money, and they are going to wonder how their parents came up with the magic number.:)</p>
<p>I just asked our S how much he spends and he estimated $12/week or $50 per month. I guess that would establish the low end. He has no car, uses the full dining (and likes it), lives in a dorm, and is obviously frugal. There is free transportation around town. Not in a frat. All the sporting events on campus are free. The outdoor club charges $30 per year dues, but all the outings are completely free and he does lots of those–heading out the door right now for a week of camping at the beach–food and transportation all covered by the club.</p>
<p>I have 2 boys in expensive zip codes and they each budget $200-$250/month. Both have said it has been more than enough and they rarely spend it all. Neither one is into clothes shopping, however, I think their monthly expenses went up after they turned 21!</p>
<p>My youngest will be attending in a more inexpensive area and we advised him that he should be fine budgeting $150-$200.</p>
<p>My son is a sophomore at William and Mary and tries to get by on $75/month. Because we are paying OOS tuition, we told him he is on his own for spending money (okay, we often take him shopping when we visit and foot the bill, we also pay for transportation costs) so he is being very frugal trying to make his savings and summer earnings last as long as possible. He started out freshman year on $150/month but pretty quickly cut it back to $75. He is on a meal plan of, I think, 14 or 15 meals per week, which we pay for. We also pay for books. </p>
<p>He is a double major in English and anthropology so he has massive amounts of reading and he spends a great deal of time on the student newspaper, so studying/reading and newspaper take up any time he would have for a part-time job and we see the newspaper as an important experience for his career aspirations (journalism). Also, he hopes to get summer journalism internships, which are usually unpaid, so he might not be able to earn much in the coming summers. About a third of the time, though, the $75 runs short and he has to move extra from savings to checking to get through the month.</p>
<p>My sister and her family live in Williamsburg so he also gets invited to dinner or out to dinner every couple of weeks. Next year, he will be taking a car to school with him and we will pay the expenses for that. It is well worth it as he will now be able to travel home on his own and we won’t have to go down and get him or pay for train tickets (although with the cost of gas . . .). We already have the car so not much increase in insurance and probably not too much in maintenance. He lives on campus and will have to park it at a fairly remote area pretty far across campus so it is likely the car will be used pretty sparingly – trips home and weekend trips to the store or his aunt’s house. </p>
<p>Funny story in this vein from when I was a student at W&M (Class of '83): I knew one guy whose parents were from a South American country but the family had been in the U.S. his whole life as his father was some sort of a diplomat at the U.N. Anyway, when he was a freshman, his mother asked the RA what he recommended for spending money, and the RA said that $1500 would be very comfortable. So Mom thanked him and put $1500 in her son’s checking account. The next month on the first of the month, she put another $1500 in, and the next and the next. He finally did tell his parents at Christmas break that the RA had meant $1500 for the whole year. And, of course, $1500 was extremely generous in 1979 - more than $150/month - and is still doable today as my son has demonstrated.</p>
<p>My son is on his own for spending money - we pay for books and a meal plan that has more food than he wants given that he eats breakfast in his room. I had the same experience a previous poster had that working about 10 hours a week, caused me to work more efficiently and my grades went up. However I do think it’s a good idea if you can afford it to let your freshman not work for at least the first semester. Many freshmen find college a bit of an adjustment. I doubt my son spends even $50 a month, but he doesn’t really like partying or movies and his idea of a good meal out is pizza. I know he had to replace a couple of computer mice and he bought a couple of new computer games and some books for pleasure.</p>
<p>I have noticed that a lot of the posts are from parents with sons. Do any of you who have two or more kids who are, or have been, at college recently have some insight on whether or not these expenses tend to be similar across the sexes or not?</p>