<p>Our daughter is on the family plan for her cell phone, so that is not included in the $300/ month that we give her. It is her only phone, so it’s not really an extra.</p>
<p>Our D ‘junior’ at HS is also on AT&T family plan with us and Inter Cell Phone calls (with in the plan) are free coast to coast. We keep in touch thru cell phones only when outside. The calls to 50 states are included in the plan minutes. The plan include the unlimited data plan so she can email from the iphone too. We are planning to keep her on the plan when she goes to college next year.</p>
<p>My kids budget on about $250 a month not counting books, tuition, R&B. If they choose to live off campus, we fund the same amount as if they lived on campus, they can choose how to make it work. In Berkeley, though, with stupid expensive dorms, we used Greek housing as the guideline.</p>
<p>They pay their own cell bills from this, they had dorm food in the dorms and the dorm budget covered groceries when they were off campus. If one of them wanted a car at school it would be something they would need to work out from that budget.</p>
<p>One DD is a spender, one is a miser- the spender never had enough money; now in grad school she is on her own and she is making her choices, paying her rent and she does treat that money differently than ours.</p>
<p>Miser D on the same budget is managing to squirrel away money towards a student travel adventure. I think the spending/saving is largely personality driven.</p>
<p>Dear posters,</p>
<p>Thanks for all the great ideas. </p>
<p>S is working part time this summer and will earn $600-800 which will be his spending money for the whole year. Told him I expect there to be some left. Will not have a car. We’ll take care of travel home, books, necessary clothes, and all his musical supplies, music, repairs, etc. He’s on our cell phone plan. </p>
<p>S once complained in HS that friend’s mother bought him expensive clothes/designer jeans and S’s clothes all came from Target/Wal-Mart. I pointed out that he had designer instruments (several) and we paid for $80-100 / wk in music lessons. A typical order for reeds is $250. If said I’d be glad to switch and buy better clothes if he wanted to forego the rest…needless to say, S dropped that subject. </p>
<p>S has had own cc since his first away summer band camp after soph yr. It is useful because I can see whether he’s spending for “unauthorized” items, tho I can’t get him to save receipts (*like H). </p>
<p>What about having a local checking acct in the college town or one at home. We just opened one at home. For one-time $15 fee, the ATM-debit card can be used anywhere in the US for no extra bank fee (by our bank). The ATM may still charge a fee, but there won’t be 2 charges. We figured he would mostly be able to pay with cc or debit and would not need to write many checks locally. Has this been your experience?</p>
<p>Our credit union will cover 6 or 8 foreign ATM transactions per month. The terms and conditions of local banks can sometimes be a pain when it comes to minimum balances and fees making banking expensive without a hefty balance.</p>