Our kids have our credit card - and we pay it monthly. We hope they live responsibly. We feel it’s the right thing to do (for us).
My son is in an apartment so he grocery shops - and he’s learning. Once he bought an eighth of a watermelon - it was like $16. Never again. Now he looks for the $1.50 yogurts on sale for $1.
My daughter was in a dorm / dining hall situation last year. This year she’s off campus - but her apartment is close to the dining hall and we got her a meal plan. She claims she won’t use it - but we don’t trust her to cook (no time) and she won’t have a car to get to the grocery
store. She’s always - I’m hungry - this way she can dip in and get food. If she doesn’t use it - well we wasted some money for a semester.
The answer is - depends on the kid - my kid gets a lot of smoothies (they have a place at the U so that’s $12 right there)…eats out once in a while or weekends, if they’re Greek that’s more. They have ubers to the beach and then some.
She can spend a few hundred a month or a thousand a month - depends on your kid and the limits you give- but Coral Gables is uber pricey - and she’ll likely feel less included socially if she’s not participating - beach trips, trips to clubs, etc. especially with that student body.
I agree with @neela - whether she buys booze or others do, make sure she is getting it from the source herself (unopened bottle, etc.) and that it’s always covered.
In addition to vaping and marijuana, cocaine is prevalent on campus - at least that my daughter and her boyfriend tell me (Charleston and Denver) - would assume it’s similar elsewhere. We’ve also all read the stories about kids OD’ing - so we all hope it’s not ours - and if you raised her right, it won’t be.
Hopefully your daughter makes good and safe decisions - and there won’t be an issue. We have to let them grow up - of course. But the reality is - there will be cases of sexual assault around her - and taking the proper steps gives her the best odds of staying safe.
Regarding being diligent about beverages/open containers, I bought this product for my daughter. I mentioned to some other moms at her school and they did the same. So there was a bunch of kids using these and the name made it funny for them. Obviously there are other brands available.
There’s not a definitive answer for your question. You won’t know how much until your child gets there and starts living.
Is your child a girl? The U is in a large, very social city. If she wants to go out to bars & clubs, then you’ll need to decide who provides the money for those activities. If she’s living on campus with a meal plan, she’ll probably need less than when she lives off campus.
I would play it by ear and start off with a minimum amount and see how that falls. Set expectations on what the money should be used for and discuss how “extras” like eating out, entertainment, clothing, hair, etc. will be paid for.
We gave our kids no spending money for college. They had to earn it in the summers.
I would guess that my daughter spent maybe $100-150 a month. My son probably spends $200+ a month because of gym membership and frat dues.
They also had no access to our credit card. They have their own debit cards, which can be used as credit cards. If there was something they needed to buy on their debit card that cost more than what they had in the account, we would have deposited money in their accounts to cover it. That hasn’t happened so far.
D20 has been working summers for the last few years; she’s made anywhere from $3-5k/summer. We don’t give her spending money, but she said she spends about $50/week on gas (she has a car at school but doesn’t use it a lot), Starbucks, occasional eating out and any off campus activities like movies (maybe once/month). Activities on campus are included in her tuition and fees. That amount could probably be cut in half if she cut out Starbucks
I’m also in the camp that doesn’t give sending money for incidentals. D had a job in HS and knew she needed to save for the college extras. Since college she’s been making great money with no housing costs because the company pays for that so she makes her own budget. She does have our credit card for emergencies but there has been only one time in 4 years that she needed it and she called first to let us know. IMO, there are some good life skills for kids managing their own $.
I think there are probably also gender diffferences in spending. Clothes expense is close to zero for my college son and many of his friends. They mostly wear tshirts (swag) from companies that come to campus and sweatpants. Mom has to push him hard to take him shopping when he comes home
The money question is so dependent on the college location and personal factors. I held off answering that because my D’s rural LAC couldn’t be farther from the UMiami experience the OP is asking about!
So just to add in our personal experience but at a very different school… we did not give our D an allowance freshman year as she had almost $10k saved from graduation gifts and her babysitting/camp counselor positions during high school. She was responsible for her discretionary spending. She was on a meal plan, but if she choose to eat out at a restaurant that was on her. We covered the necessary expenses (medical, car maintenance but not gas, insurance, etc) plus Greek life and she paid anything else from her funds. She loves to thrift so also buys a lot of her clothing.
She had one of our credit cards for emergencies. She recently got her first credit card to start building credit (the student Discover someone on CC mentioned).
She has an unpaid internship this summer so we may give her an allowance next school year. She’s pretty frugal so as of now she says she’s fine. She’ll have a research position that pays $1000 per semester so thinks that will be enough.
ETA: She did not spend $10k freshman year! I don’t want it to sound like that. Haha. She has more than half still in savings, even after a study abroad where obviously her discretionary spending was much more than when on campus.
We do not give our S spending money, he works at school and during the summer and he uses that money to spend as he wishes. I do buy all his toiletries and send him groceries from time to time, since he dislikes most of the food at the dining hall.
No spending money here, plus my kids pay for rent and food. My daughter just started her very intense graduate program in Boston and just got a bartending job that she expects will earn her about $500 a night that she can fit in once a week to pay for her apartment. Needs to get some pepper spray since the walk home at 4 am is 15 minutes.
There seems to be a difference in what I consider to be spending money. I consider books, travel expenses to/from college, parking stickers, and school club fees to not be spending money. I consider that to be part of the college cost. I also pay for car maintenance and toiletries, as they are/were my dependents. (I have one college kid, and one that is grown and independent, so my tenses are all mixed up)
I consider spending money to be dinners/meals/snacks out, movie/entertainment tickets, and clothes to a certain point. I do buy him some clothes, usually at Xmas/bdays. He is my dependent. He can have one freebie pair of shoes/year…
That being said, spending money is mostly on their own. When I feel generous, I give him $50/month during the school year, which is more often than not. And they thank(ed) me for it every time.
Credit cards, I’ve done it both ways. I made older S do it all on his own. I would reimburse him for items described above. I am on one of his checking/savings accounts, so it was an easy transfer. Younger S went to school when credit card companies were stingier with giving students credit. He has his own Discover card, but I also added him one of my cards. He uses that for reimbursable expenses. It is definitely easier this way.
Ours have a credit/debit card in case of an emergency but have to fund any non-meal plan food or other entertainment from their own earnings. We encouraged them all to seek campus jobs right away. We did a dorm room shop with them at move-in, pay for their books or required class supplies, travel to/from our place, room and board plans on campus and tuition.
D20 is the same; the only clothing she bought this year were 2 T’s, one Moon Night T and one at the Def Leppard et. all concert last night @Scg123 D20 doesn’t fit the female stereotype, so this is probably very different for young women that have to buy clothing for sorority functions. I don’t have any personal experience with that, but I’ve heard it can get very expensive. That would definitely need to be figured into a personal expense budget.
I treated my S as an adult when he was in college (and actually started a couple of years prior) in every way except financially. He had my credit card (and he also obtained his own credit card during his freshman year). I actually preferred that he used my card for purchases so I track his spending. I also had access to his bank account (the only thing that belongs to him that I had access to), so I could top up his account balance if it fell below certain threshold. In reality, since his earnings from internships and working as a TA also went into that account, I rarely had to top it up. I’ve never set any limit on how much he could spend each month. As far as I could tell, he had used his bank account and the credit cards very responsibly (and frugally). I feel that kids need to learn about financial responsibility at some point and the time in college is as good as any.
We plan to monitor expenses the first semester and then decide on a budget. Our '22 is working two jobs this Summer so will have spending money but wants to use it for travel and fun stuff.
I don’t mind paying for food that is cooked outside of the meal plan, but I don’t want to pay for $16/acai bowls or Starbucks coffees. I think $300/month is going to be about right.
Books, school supplies and things like shoes and other necessities we’ll cover separately. Not $240 jeans and other paraphernalia.
Overall, our kid spends wisely. Got a little bit off track with last years Summers earnings and now has a smaller savings account. But it was a better lesson at 17, than 27, IMO.
We’re pretty frugal except when it comes to food and travel. We all love to cook and think nothing of spending money on exotic ingredients and cookware. Food is really expensive so we might need to adjust.
Our accounts are all connected. I never look @the kids accounts but I can. And I probably will just to get things on track early.
