<p>MiamiDap, that is what I was thinking too. Where do you get the credit cards with the preset limits by parents for 18 year olds?</p>
<p>I did what many parents here did. My boys opened bank account with the same bank where we do our business. They got a decent student package and no fees for things since they were put under our family umbrella. That way in the event of a true emergency, I could transfer money from my account to theirs on line or in person with cash for immediate access. Yet, the money is not sitting there tempting them into stupidities they cannot afford. </p>
<p>They also opened student accounts at their colleges with whatever good deals offered and put their money into those accounts. That is what they used. The only time the other account would come into play was for an emergency. Though they did have some crises, we never did need to do any emergency transfers. All of them were ok in staying within their budgets at school and had some back up money in the form of a credit line and credit card. Until they were out of college, they did not have any problems with money.</p>
<p>But that is not always the case. So it is not wise to have a lump of emergency cash or credit sitting there for them to use when it is not an emergency. If it is their own money, fine. But if you don’t want your money to be spent on things without knowing the reasons and you want to be consulted before paying, I recommend you maintain some control to the accessibility to those funds. Many a kid gets into financial hot water, often just from plain old overspending and not keeping careful enough track of their accounts. My first two did this big time within a year after they left school when they started using their ATM cards like their Campus Dollars card.</p>
<p>Depends on the kid. For oldest she had a student package from Wells Fargo that included checking/savings/debit card and a low limit credit card. That worked for her. I don’t bank at Wells Fargo but there is one in our city so I could make a deposit if necessary. She moved to a location with no Wells fargos. She has a Wachovia Visa Buxx. I can add money online via my credit card. What works great about this is I don’t have to go to the bank and funds are available immediately. There is a weeky limit as to how much you can put on. Otherwise she has her own money.
For my son he has a checking account with a debit card. I can deposit money at the local branch. He does not have a credit card. He is going to be a senior and has not needed one. Freshman year we got cash to him by sending him a check that he cashed at the school. His school bookstore allows him to put bookstore charges on his student account so he doesn’t need a credit card for textbooks. He lives in a school owned apartment and has kept a meal plan so he really uses very little money. No car at school.</p>
<p>We added our son to our checking account a few years ago so he has full debit card and checkwriting access to our family checking account. I’m thinking of adding our daughter too. He has never taken any money out of the account using a debit card but he has written checks for housing in the past. He has a part-time job during the school year and has had internships during the summers that cover his expenses. He deposits his summer earnings into the attached savings account. The account typically has about $25K in it which is more than he’d ever need for college expenses.</p>
<p>It gets more complicated when the student is attending an OOS school. The only bank on campus is a regional bank. We will have to open an account with them and I will deposit a large amount in the checking account. Once he goes through that - he will have to use his own money.</p>
<p>S has the debit card from Wells Fargo and we transfer funds as needed. For those kids that don’t call much this is one way to moniter that they are still alive when you see charges for smoothies etc…In addition we got him one of those lock boxes for his room where he keeps his valuables. We usually give him a few hundred dollars when we see him so he has a cash stash for emergencies. He basically only used this when paying someone back for things like concert tickets or when someone brought him to the airport. We told him to use the debit card for everything else. This year he will be getting a credit card that will have a low limit since he will be taking his car back to school and will need it when traveling and emergencies.</p>
<p>Like Mom60, my kids had few needs for money while in school. The room and board was paid up front, and we did pay for a pretty generous board and some extra dining dollars. They also had the COA allowance that the college defined for books and supplies, and none of them went over that. They had their own money as a buffer and seemed quite loath to use a dime of those funds. I always bought their plane tickets. They don’ t like to shop nor did any of them have cars at college. Any health related expenses were billed to us.<br>
We did not need the contigency plans and could have just done nothing and used Western Union as the back up plan, since it never happened. Sometimes the contingency money causes more problems than being of help. Though BCEagle’s son has been very responsible and reliable with his access to family accounts, some terrific kids have succumbed to temptations in such situations, and that can be an expensive lesson to learn. You just never know. Given my kids’ spending records, you would have been pretty sure that they would handle money fine once out of school. Didn’t happen that way with either of them.</p>
<p>Friends of ours had issues with their otherwise reliable, trustworthy, wonderful D with emergency funds and credit lines just sitting there. You don’t want to find out that the money is gone when an emergency does occur, so there should be a way for you to get money quickly to them. Western Union is always available, so find out where some places are to send and get the money. It does no good to lecture the kid when there is a crisis brewing and questioning where the heck that extra money went and why the credit line is at its limit. It’s like trying to teach a drowning victim to swim while he is going down. So whatever money you have at hand at their disposal, you should still have a way to quickly get money to them if a problem arises.</p>
<p>We are signers on her account at a credit union. There is a weekly direct deposit of a little spending money which she can access at campus ATMs. If she wants to avoid fees, she can use the debit at a store & then get cash back.
Even though she’s OOS, the CU has agreements w/other CUs to use their ATMs w/o incurring fees. The closest CU is about 3 miles from campus. </p>
<p>We got her a card on our Visa when she was on an overseas trip 3 years ago. This is supposed to be for emergencies and/or pre-approved expenses (books, occasional celebratory dinner, drugstore).</p>
<p>She has a declining balance on her R&B card that she can use at the on-campus store. After seeing what they have available for purchase, she’ll be using that a lot more next year as opposed to Safeway (which we invariably end up paying for…hmmm.)</p>
<p>D1 has her own Wells Fargo checking/savings/ATM-debit card linked to our accounts. We can transfer funds to her accounts electronically, either by scheduled automatic transfers or online as needed. There’s no Wells Fargo near her college, but there is a Wachovia which Wells Fargo recently bought. The two are not yet fully integrated, so she won’t be able to make deposits to her account locally, but she can make fee-free ATM withdrawals at Wachovia. If she picks up a campus job she may be able to arrange for direct deposit of her paychecks; otherwise she may need to make deposits by mail, but that’s not a big problem.</p>
<p>From my experience, online banking with your parents makes everything so easy! That way every week you can send your kid a certain amount of money on their checking or savings account via the internet. </p>
<p>Credit cards are also very convenient as well as some kind of college dollars, however that means you are limited to food and items that the school provides (often more costly, not as good)</p>
<p>I’m a cosigner of S’s checking account and have a standard monthly transfer set up. I can also transfer money into it instantly in an emergency. He has a debit card for it that he uses to get extra cash at the grocery store (since there is no local ATM at school). The debit card also has a Master Card logo, so he uses it like a Master Card for online and stores, even through it takes the money out right away like a debit card.</p>
<p>The account is with a credit union. No fees for anything. On the odd occasion that he needs to deposit a check he can do that online using a scanner.</p>
<p>About credit cards. I have a beautiful and brilliant daughter who is a bit scattered. She has lost her phone twice, her wallet twice, and left her purse in a store after buying shoes–this past year. Four out of five losses were returned intact. [And I would like to publicly thank the very honest people of Pittsburgh.] The one loss was her wallet, so everything had to be replaced. No one tried to use anything in her wallet, so we don’t really know what happened to it. Anyway. She does not have a tradtional credit card. Her debit can be used as a credit card, but she has not done that. </p>
<p>The debit card is on a bank that has branches in both our town and Pittsburgh, so it is easy for me to “feed” it when necessary, which reminds me, I promised that I would do that soon.</p>
<p>With my son, we were overseas when he went to school. We had USAA and we gave him a pre-paid card that we could add money to whenever we wanted. He still has it now and that was how we gave him money for bus transportation and school meals. I could also transfer money into his savings account for which he had a debit card. That was where he put his paychecks. My d who will be going away in 2011 has a pre-paid card and a checking account. I can add money to either. I haven’t had any problems using USAA which is based in Texas anywhere in the country or to use their debit cards anywhere in the world.</p>
<p>USAA isn’t available to everyone, however.</p>
<p>USAA banking services are available to anyone. I believe that only their insurance is restricted to those who serve/have served in the military.</p>
<p>I also recommend USAA. We are getting S a USAA college student credit card when he turns 18 as well as savings/checking/debit card. The credit card starts off with a very low limit ($300) which gets incrementally higher as they get older and demonstrate good credit. If they lose control a bit with the credit card at first at least they won’t cause too much damage, and this card enables them to establish a credit history.</p>
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<p>MdMom, your D and any of my 3 older sons would be a match made in an insane asylum. I can’t even imagine the fallout if that should happen.</p>
<p>D has a student package at Wells that includes a credit card, all in her name. There is a full-service Wells Branch in the student union on campus. If we need to, we deposit cash in her checking account. She also opened a checking and savings account with the credit union on campus- since she works for them now. She moves money between the accounts on campus. Wells is her spending money and credit union is her savings money. The system works for her.</p>
<p>My initial plan was to send son across the country with his existing debit card (which also has a checking accout, rarely used). We have a handy plan where I reimburse him for parent-paid expenses via Transfer/online banking. </p>
<p>On another thread parents were encouraging a credit card instead of debit card in order to start building a credit rating. How important is it to start now? He is only 18. and regardless of which method we use the money payments will mostly be via parent funds.</p>