<p>TheDad, I hear you. But our three oldest kids have all grown up on a poverty budget and they're very very attuned to costs (although the "baby" might turn into a problem). D has never had an allowance or stipend or whatever and blanches at the prospect of spending money on anything. I have to talk her through jeans purchases or she'll bolt like a startled gazelle. At the same time she's generous to a fault -- shares her meal ticket dollars with friends who look hungry (that's okay with me; these are all good kids who deserve to eat). She does babysit when she's home, and then she gets embarrassed because the parents "overpay" her (Waldorf parents love her because, as a Waldorf graduate, she understands about no electronics and rounded corners on the wet-on-wet paintings). Anyway, on a scale of 1 to 10, I guess exceeding the cell phone allowance is about a 2. But darn I was mad this morning!</p>
<p>How come all your kids get their cell phones and plans paid for? :(</p>
<p>Anyway, making her pay for excess minutes is pretty reasonable, particularly if you can keep track of minutes online. It's not that expensive, and it's something she can control. If she really doesn't like shelling out... then she'll cut back. Otherwise, she'll prioritize a little with her expenses and come up with the money.</p>
<p>I also told my kids they're responsible for paying any overages and extras (like text messaging). There's nothing like having to pay a hundred dollars or more for an overage to have them pay more attention the next month.</p>
<p>Celloguy:</p>
<p>It isn't any of my business, so you don't have to answer, but could please elaborate on the comment you made:</p>
<p>
[quote]
...shares her meal ticket dollars with friends who look hungry (that's okay with me; these are all good kids who deserve to eat)...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Whilst I don't oppose her sharing her ticket dollars, I was rather surprised to hear this. What college does she attend? Can not all students afford to eat? This seems terrible that a college could allow students to be unable to eat :(</p>
<p>I probably interpreted this comment incorrectly, but I would appreciate hearing from you about this. Thanks.</p>
<p>awaiting-college, no, you didn't interpret incorrectly. It's a very expensive LAC, but lots of kids are there on scholarship and live off-campus to save money (my oldest kid did the same 20 years ago). There's a longstanding tradition of scrounging in Commons (people leave their leftovers on the ledge and nothing is wasted); some of the scroungers could probably well afford to dine out and do this as a political statement, while others are hungry.</p>
<p>CG, living on a poverty budget--and having "learned" from that--can be as disabling as living in an all expenses paid budget. A lot of people find it harder to talk to their children about money than to to talk about sex. TheMom and I both had horrible examples growing up: mine was irresponsible and reckless, with assist from gambling & alcohol; hers was "money was never discussed," to the point she and her siblings were ignorant of both the family finances and how to handle financial affairs.</p>
<p>Don't know that we've been perfect but we've consciously done our damnedest to give our D a good feel for money and handling it responsibly. This at times has included discussing worries, problems, and mistakes in an appropriate (I hope) manner as well as how to approach making choices. But at some point it's all theory until they're handling money where they have to set and live within their own budgets. </p>
<p>Side note: I think that every kid growing up, regardless of circumstances, needs to hear "we can't afford that." In our case, living in the area we do, this was not a problem.</p>
<p>Celloguy- I am one who makes them pay for overuse. My oldest had a job in high school and she accumulated some savings. She also worked during her breaks. She rarely went over but had cash to cover it. She didn't like it but she learned from it.
My 2nd doesn't have a job. But he does get an allowance each week. Plus on occasion gets cash as gifts for birthdays. If he goes over on the cell phone he has to make some cuts in his spending. What that might mean is not eating lunch out with friends and taking a lunch from home. Or not going to a movie.
My son has a friend who is working every weekend at a movie theatre to pay back her Mom for text messaging charges. It had been a great learning experience plus painful to have to turn that paycheck each week over to her Mom. You can bet she has stopped her excessive texting.
I also find that my kids can easily find a few things to cut from their spending to save a few dollars each week. One visit less to Starbucks saves 4 bucks.
And a lesson to learn better at an early age then at a later is to not spend money they don't have. Or as my Mom always pointed out to me "Money doesn't grow on trees"</p>
<p>Myolder D didn't have a cellphone until spring of her year before senior year ( not junior year as she was taking a year off)although she did use friends cell phones, some had unlimited use plans.</p>
<p>She is getting up there in text messages- & I may be switching plans, as I like tmobiles plan for unlimited text messages for whole family for $20, as compared to verizons plan of 250 for $5. per number.
But D I think used IMs much more often than her cell phone
D ( who was at same college- which prides itself on its quirkiness-re scroungers et al) also shared her meal points, she always had some left over- although you can also use them to buy ingredients to take to your dorm and eat later.
Scroungers are an interesting phenomenon
I rather like that food isn't wasted, and it is interesting that no matter where you set your plate, it stays there, and the people on either side will share it, not much dominant behavior for more tasty treats.
I have also bought extra food with an eye to giving it to the scroungers, and I imagine others do that as well.
I think a lot is politics- board is part of living on campus, so everyone there would have points, if you are off board, and off campus, you may also be working to pay tuition and not really have money for food. The school is need based aid only, and if your parents can easily afford it, but aren't contributing, that would be a hefty chunk for students to come up with on their own. (heck its a chunk for parents to come up with), but some try anyway.</p>
<p>Senior year she lived in the Birchwoods, and while she had the minimum board plan which she shared with her roommate , and this allowed them to have some meals on campus ( usually lunch) and have the rest at home.
There are a few grocery stores within walking distance, which can be cheaper and tastier than eating in commons everyday ( although I think their food isnt bad compared to some- it is fairly expensive)</p>
<p>We paid the bulk of the EFC- although she contributed all her summer earnings to that.
We also covered medical expenses, although she contributed what she could as well, and we included her in the family cell phone plan.
Everything else was paid for by her workstudy job, books, personal expenses, travel expenses.</p>
<p>my older sister pulled the same stuff, and my parents decided to give her two times: once, a warning, and a second because often the bill is recieved halfway through the next billing cycle...this gives her time to readjust, and gives a clean slate for the third cycle...that bill will be here in a few days =P
but my parents bought 100 texts for my younger brother and i, and are letting my sister (shes 22, just moved out, but my parents have a 2-year contract still in effect, so they're helping her out) foot the extra cost for more minutes/texts...however, she in the last two months has not only gone through all the minutes (so we've had to pay extra), but also our rollover miutes (we have Cingular), so they've agreed that they're not only going to make her pay the overage minutes, but the cost of her part of the plan...
now, i have a ton of minutes too (close to using my 5th of the minutes), but mine are all mostly after 9/to other cingular customers, so i've used barely any
so, maybe say "you've got the rest of this billing period to learn to shapen up, then if the next bill comes in bad, you pay" and remind her of the fine details (when calling is free, texting costs you when its both recieved and sent, ect)</p>
<p>"Okay, many parents say "make her pay." I don't understand. She's in college. I pay her bills. I buy her clothes, her meals, her New Yorker subscription. She doesn't have an income"</p>
<p>Many parents expect their kids to work fulltime or more during summers and at least 10 hours a week during the school year to contribute toward their college epxenses including things like paying for their clothes, entertainment and perhaps their textbooks.</p>
<p>Had a conversation with D that bears on this issue. She receives text messages, which she has to pay for on a per-message basis. Had option of the 250 for $5/month and turned it down. She just doesn't reply to text messages via text message. "If you do that, people will text message you back." So, as much as possible, she breaks the text message cycle.</p>
<p>I think I've had two in four years.</p>
<p>If she is talking that much on the phone, she isn't just accidently going over the limit a little bit. She is not respecting your money or requests. You need to make her take some responsibility for her actions, and I think the best way to do that is to have her pay the difference for going over or pay the difference for a plan that allows her more minutes. I am a college student (female), and I have no sympathy for her. I have a low-medium plan for my phone, and I have never gone over or really been all that close. In terms of talking to friends at college on the phone, most conversations should be a minute long and consist of working out when and where to meet to hang out, have dinner, or whatever. You can easily get a plan where you can talk to her for free, which you may have already. After a month or two of shelling out money, she will probably have found easy ways to cut down on the time she's using.</p>
<p>I don't understand your reluctance to have her pay. Does she have no money of her own? A college student can easily make a few thousand in the summer, considerably more if she works hard. I don't work during the school year, but if I make $XXXX each summer and only spend a portion of that during the year, I can keep some in a checking account and put the rest in a CD or invest it. That leaves me plenty for the living costs my parents don't provide for, entertainment money, and a nice cushion if I want to spend a summer in a non-paid internship or something like that. I work very hard during the summers (and always have), I'm careful with my money, and because of that I'm very comfortable with my own, independent finances.</p>
<p>
I had to smile this week when my d. mentioned that she had started to think of her textbook purchases in terms of the work-hours required to pay for them.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with celloguy that "making her pay" doesn't work well with a student, even one who works full time summers and part time during the year. To my mind, those funds, regardless of who earned them, are part of the "family funds". It's just in another pocket in the same pair of pants. That income is not the student's; it is a way of increasing the entire family's income by giving another income stream to the family unit. </p>
<p>That's why I advocate a month or so without a cell phone, or with a limited, locked phone for emergency use only. That way the impact on the family finances is limited and the kid will learn her lesson.</p>
<p>Chedva, I agree about the 'family funds', however, we were able to come up with a way for tham to pay for some of the cell services. I do not want my kids without communication, for safety reasons.
Our students are given a monthly allowance which they have to manage--rent, gas, food, personal products, entertainment, etc. as appropriate. We pay for basic 'family share' minutes. Cell phone downloads, overages, texts reduce the allowance. In fact, my youngest was the first to ask for the text package, 'just give me less allowance to cover it, Mom. Then we won't have to be figuring it out every month'.
Apparantly, texting is a top priority for her!</p>
<p>When I started reading this thread at first I thought, just make her pay, like most of the posters but then realized that I had never told my kids that they would have to pay if they went over their minutes, but I think they assumed they would have to. At the beginning of the school year I sent an e-mail to both kids telling them that we only have 500 minutes between our three phones and that going over was not an option. I found out the current minutes used for each phone and told them how they could find out that information. I told them it was their responsiblity to keep track of their minutes. My son immediately went to his friends and found out they were all verizon customers. My daughter limits her phone calls to after nine pm. Both kids used their cells as their primary phones last fall and we never went over our minutes (and they never asked for more) so I know it's possible. For some reason neither they nor their friends do much text messaging.</p>
<p>I think what you need to do is forward a copy of your recent cell bill to your daughter celloguy, so she can see how much the bill is. Just let her know that she is way over her limit and it can't continue. She sounds like a reasonable girl - maybe you just need to let her know that it really isn't okay to take advantage of your good nature and deep pockets.</p>
<p>One thing that occured to me is that if you have verizon, and the phone is in a different region then your home phone, it needs to be updated in the current new area by hitting *228 and choosing option 1. My daughter (and her cell) are on central time so that was important for her to update so her after 9pm minutes would be on her time.</p>
<p>There is another option. visit jajah.com (a new Voice over IP start up) If you and the people you are calling to are jajah members (membership is free, no monthly dues, no headsets or gizmos to buy), land line to land line calls are free (in US, most of Europe, China, Japan, Singapore etc). Land line to land line calls with non jajah members are at 2.5 cent/min.</p>
<p>You may want to try it out....they give 63 cents for free.</p>
<p>They have have very cheap international rates as well for calling non jajah members.</p>
<p>from their web site</p>
<p>"JAJAH Free Global Calling applies to land line and mobile calls to and within the United States, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore; and it applies to landline calls to and within Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, UK, Germany, France, Italy and most other European nations. It applies when both call participants are registered JAJAH users. In countries where free phone calls are not available, or if someone is calling a non-JAJAH member, calls are simply subject to JAJAH’s ultra-low rates."</p>
<p>Thank you everybody for your thoughtful advice. Chedva, you are particularly astute in understanding that it's just "another pocket in the family pair of pants." We've never seen it any other way, although the kids when they were very young would say "I'll pay for it myself" -- not realizing we're a unit.</p>
<p>After having time to discuss our problem, I'm convinced it was truly a misunderstanding. At one point our Verizon plan did include unlimited IN calling, and then at the last update (adding North America plan), it morphed into 1,000 minutes of IN calling. If you've ever tried to decipher a Verizon phone bill, with its arcane codes and abbreviations, you won't be surprised that someone could miss that.</p>
<p>So we're chalking the whole thing up to an error. I take responsibility for not remembering and conveying the change to my family ("senior moments" plague me more and more these days). I still think thousands of minutes of talk time is an unbalanced use of time and technology, but it wasn't irresponsible under the circumstances.</p>
<p>I can certainly understand how this overage happened. Sounds like your daughter is a very responsible young woman, and I'm sure she'll be careful not to let this happen again now that you both understand the new plan.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How come all your kids get their cell phones and plans paid for?
[/quote]
Because I can. I pay for my mom's too.</p>