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Not if they’re never given advice, support and guidance. Do you have a long history of advising your daughter about financial responsibility for her to draw upon?</p>
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<p>Why is it silly? The budgeting for a student is actually easy because they can see what their friends living on and finding what might be good enough for them.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’ve been teaching her finances from her elementary school and she has saved a lot for her college with her high schools internships and work. I want her to now learn to budget because I think she won’t grow or mature financially unless she does understand this on her own.</p>
<p>But it seems the consensus is that I’m wrong here.</p>
<p>The issue is once she is out on her own, although I’m not sure she’ll ever truly experience that, is it won’t be what she wants to live on but what her take home pay allows her to live on. Sure, I would be happy living with a larger budget but I know how to work with what I have A student that isn’t given a set amount and doesn’t have to learn how to use that amount and that amount alone isn’t being helped much financially. And if $750 a month is only for food and entertainment she is learning to live at a level she may not have the luxury of once she graduates and gets her own place/job/etc - an MIT degree does ot guarantee instant wealth. If though she will always be able to supplement her living expenses through you, well, carry on.</p>
<p>I just saw that she has saved money herself - the best lesson you can give her is a modest (not $750) supplement in addition to her spending her own earned money. She will likely be more attached to her own earned money and that is the best learning lesson towards the future - how to spend what you earned. You learn to be frugal in some areas so you can splurge in others but that isn’t really possible when you offer her a decent monthly amount as well.</p>
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<p>OH this is poppycock. What possible difference does it make what OTHER students are living on when determining what a specific student CAN live on.</p>
<p>My undergrad roommate was a millionnaire…seriously. She was mighty unpretentious and honestly, I had no idea what her net worth was until nearly ten years after we graduated from college. Even so…what SHE was able to spend and what <em>I</em> was able to spend were lightyears apart. Her “allowance” was significantly higher than mine…actually she HAD an allowance and I earned ALL of my own spending money. The notion that I could have looked at what she (or anyone else for that matter) spent to determine what was “enough” for me…was…well…IMPOSSIBLE. </p>
<p>I have friends as an adult who are far wealthier than I am. Do I spend the way they do…NO NO NO. I spend within MY means…meaning the money I have…not what I see others spending.</p>
<p>POIH…you started a thread asking if $750 was a good amount of allowance for your daughter. When folks started giving you reasons why this might be a bit on the HIGH side, you immediately said it was fine…and defended this amount.</p>
<p>This is YOUR decision. Do whatever you want. BUT please…do not do it under the pretense that you are “teaching” money management.</p>
<p>POIH, I can’t speak for anyone else, but from where I sit it seems as if you’re being very disrespectful of your daughter. Believing that she should develop an important life skill but refusing to communicate with her honestly and openly is just a terrible way to have a relationship with someone that you love. I just don’t get why you would be unwilling to speak with her and I think that’s something you should give some serious thought to.</p>
<p>Why not just ask her how much she thinks she needs a month for the next year, and then give it to her? If she’s say $750, then $750 it is. She can figure out what to do with it. You don’t have to sit down and talk about how she should budget it if you don’t want to. If she decides she wants to save up for grad school or very cool boots with any extra, she can do that.</p>
<p>No, it won’t teach her any life skills of living within her means, but I suspect between her generous parents and the MIT education, that’s a life skill that won’t ever be needed. And, I suspect, she’s bright enough to figure it out if push ever came to shove.</p>
<p>It seems I’m way out of line with my believes to not to talk to DD about budgeting. I’ll try to have a conversation about it during the spring break. I do personally think $750 is fine but will let her come up with an amount.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for their comments/suggestions.</p>
<p>Reading between the lines, it seems that you would feel awful if D felt that the amount wasn’t enough and you fear she might get mad at you. Are you a soft touch when it comes to your D in general? It’s ok, I am with mine :-).</p>
<p>If you say $750/month and she says that’s not enough, how will you resolve it? Will you just have her name her figure and give that, or will you ask to see what assumptions she used?</p>
<p>What’s wrong with saying “my assumptions are based on x, y and z”?</p>
<p>wait a minute- you post this:
“I’m posting it a second time as need to talk to DD over the break about Expenses!!”
and them procede to post this???
“my believes to not to talk to DD about budgeting.”
Unless you intend to give your D an unlimited amount of money, she will need to learn to budget how she spends money! And what her friends or roommates spend is totally irrelevant, unless you are going to support and enable a “keeping up with the Jones” fiscal mentality for the rest of her life, so she never goes without.</p>
<p>My S’s blockmates ranged from affluent to very modest. Some got money from their parents, others were on work-study. They did take into account what their friends had for spending money–both the rich and the not-rich.They would go out for meals as a group occasionally (the dining hall food not being one of Harvard’s glories) but S said that a meal costing more than $10 would generally be considered too much for a student budget. Once or twice a year, they splurged in the North End or in a steak house (one of the blockmates was a foodie).
Now S is on his own and I am amazed how frugal he is. The label “starving grad student” may apply to him, but only because he does not seem to spend enough on food.</p>
<p>Whatever we do with our kids have impact on them later on. No matter how well off someone is, there is always a budget. For some people it maybe a bigger budget than others, but there is always a finite number for most people. By not setting a limit or teach our kids to operate within that limit you are doing a disservice to your kids.</p>
<p>With our kids, they get a fixed amount from us since they were little. We give the allowance to them every week, now once a month with D1. They do not have to worry about being in our good grace or kiss up to us in order to get the money. It is theirs, but that’s all they get. Some parents use the “topping off” method, but that is not setting a limit. It is a human nature to always want more when there is no limit. It is a learned behavior, and a necessary behavior. Earlier they are taught, better off they will be in the future.</p>
<p>Sorry, my kids’ books and spending money will come from their own pockets. S1 earns $250/mo. and thinks he’s living high on the hog because he can buy the occasional xkcd t-shirt and other small enjoyments. If either of my kids move off campus, they’ll have to show us a budget for how they intend to keep rent, utilities and food to the same amount we pay for on-campus (or how they would make up the difference without sacrificing schoolwork and activities).</p>
<p>BTW, POIH – there is a shuttle at MIT that take students to various grocery stores in the nearby Boston area. There is also a Trader Joe’s about 3/4 mile from Ashdown Hall (where S lived last summer).</p>
<p>POIH wants his daughter to learn to deal with her money situation. She’s a bright girl, and she has learned how to deal with her money situation-- spend as much as she wants, because her parents will give her more. From her point of view, she has no incentive to learn anything more, as what she is doing now is working just splendidly. Why on earth would she want to change things?</p>
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I’m sorry, but this just sounds perverted to me. Basically you are giving me $1000. Hoping I’ll only spend $100, but instead of telling me that you are going to hint around. I see so much room for misunderstandings. </p>
<p>Personally I think it’s easiest to just say you’ve got this much money from us. Spend it how you like, if you don’t think it’s enough get a job. I think it’s also fine to sit down with your daughter and get a general idea of what her wants and needs are. She’ll say: I need my Starbucks twice a day, this many dinners at the campus restaurants, this many dinners out etc. And you’ll come to some sort of an agreement at what seems like a reasonable spending plan. If you’d like to have a cushion in the bank account that’s okay, but you’ve got to be clear about what the rules are.</p>
<p>So I think this post will be lost on the original poster, but maybe some other parent can benefit from it.</p>
<p>One of the key things to saving money is to pay yourself first. We all will find a way to pay for life essentials (food, housing, cell phone, etc) because that is how we are programmed. Saving money is not an “essential” in most people’s mind, so if we wait until the end of the month, there might not be money left over.</p>
<p>So, the best way to save money is to set up an automatic transfer of a certain amount of money from your checking account to a long term savings account. Say $100 a month in this case. Then that would leave $650 a month left over for extras, like meals, clothes, entertainment, etc. Or maybe $200 a month which would leave $550 a month left over. </p>
<p>You will find a way to make however much you have left stretch over the rest of the month and then start saving money. Over time, it will add up.</p>
<p>I’ve done this and it works well for me. I transfer money at the beginning of each month to probably five different savings accounts (each one has unique benefits) and it leaves me with very little. I hunt around for overtime at work so I can scrape by a little spending money. Even though I try not to spend very much during the month, I don’t have much left over so it gives me an incentive to waste the little amount that I have.</p>
<p>I do sacrifce some of my social life because of it and don’t do all the fun things that I could. However, I’m saving for the future and know that I’m doing the right thing.</p>
<p>“My feeling is people who learn to use money responsibly when they have access to larger amount do better with finances than those who learn to budget because of money constraints.”</p>
<p>Are you serious about this statement? If so, I now have a better understanding of why your daughter spends the way she does. </p>
<p>You’ve previously stated that you don’t plan on putting a limit on her spending. She knows this and sees you as her own money tree. When she needs more money, she picks it freely from her own personal money tree–free from any consequences of her action.</p>
<p>In the end, it’s your decision to spend or give away your money as you see fit. While I don’t agree with your philosophy of not setting up clear and firm limits, it’s your decision to make.</p>
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<p>Actually I think you are watching out for her future, as we (the parents) am watching out for our future. If the kid screws it up, then it is the parents who will suffer. </p>
<p>We set up a College UGMA, when DS was born. We told him that we would manage the money for his benefit, if he would concentrate on his studies. We periodically showed him his account balances, net worth, assets and liabilities (Stafford and PLUS). Monetarily, it was a very tense 4 years, 2002-2006, and at the end of his undergrad, he ends up with a small +net worth. 
. We were 100% fafsa because of the UGMA.</p>