<p>Money management is an issue on which my S has "declared independence"...he wants to choose his own bank, and get his own credit card (he currently has his own account at my bank, his own cash card thru my credit union, and a credit card w/his name on it, but it's my account). He says, w/respect to the credit card, that my account (w/his name on the card) won't build him a credit history. True. My reaction: You're 18, DS, and you can do it if you want to w/out my permission. I'm personally opposed to credit cards for people w/no income source (and at the moment I am his only income source and I refuse to be listed as an "employer"), but if you can find a bank to give you a credit card when you have no income, I can't/won't stop you. (And of course, the credit card companies being what they are, someone will offer him a credit card, I'm sure). </p>
<p>I told him I fully expect him to get in trouble with it. Just about everyone does. (I did, too, with my first credit cards. Thankfully, never bad enough to affect my credit rating...but bad enough where I had zero money beyond what was needed to pay my minimum payments). I will not bail him out of a big credit card balance problem. If he wants to take the risk, he can--it'll be a good learning experience for him, and who knows, maybe he'll be among the tiny minority who doesn't run up uncomfortably big balances.</p>
<p>As for checking/debit: If he wants to use a local bank, again, he can. But I am not going to make it inconvenient for me to give him money. Right now it's very convenient for me to transfer money into both his cash card account and his checking account. I can do the transfers online, for free. I will not go to a separate bank just because he wants the feeling of independence that being at a bank separate from mine gives him...by the way: I do not and never have monitored his accounts. For me, that's a privacy issue and until/unless he messes up in a way that affects my credit (unlikely), his account info is his to see, not mine. So, I told him he can do as he chooses...but to keep in mind that if chooses a separate bank, money from me will take 10 days to two weeks to go from a request for money to available funds...I'll write him a check and mail it; he'll deposit it and his bank will make him wait for the check to clear. If that's what he wants to do, on the "altar" of his own independence, that's his choice. But I'll be switched if I will agree to regular trips to a different bank just so he can feel more independence!</p>
<p>I think the end result is that he'll use 3 accounts...the cash/debit card account thru the credit union; a check account in my bank, and an account in a local bank, and then he will be able to move funds around as is most convenient for him. As for the credit card, I don't know what he'll do. I suspect he'll get a card in his own name, and will run up uncomfortable balances, and will experience the "pain" almost all of us experience as we learn about how very easy it is to spend more than we should w/a credit card, and then have to "pay the piper" when the bills come due!</p>