Hi! My son is going to a big school, big city. He has full meal plan. What’s a good monthly budget for him? Also, he’s going to be using money earned in the summer towards that budget. Is it better to put the whole amount in the debit account (like $2500) or doll it out from his savings every month so he doesn’t blow it?
If it’s his money, I would let him decide. My daughter prefers to have me move over a little money every month. My son likes to have all of it at once.
Thanks! What’s a good benchmark for spending per month on personals/fun?
Our kids earned their own discretionary spending money. We had absolutely no say in how much they spent or in doling it out. That was their earned money and they needed to manage it.
Because the money was earned…and spent…by our kids, we also have no idea what they spent and on what. Their money…their business.
It’s a good time and way to learn to live within your means.
I think your son needs to set his own budget. You can SUGGEST ways he can look at it. “You have $3600 total. If you spend $200/month, after 9 months you’ll have $1800 left. If you spend $400/month, you’ll have NOTHING left. So plan wisely!”
We did as @thumper1 did with our kids’ own money. We did dole out room and board money in increments when they first moved off campus. I think we ended up just giving them the full amount in a lump after a while. The results were not always good. You might want to monitor at first.
Thanks everyone ! Good advice. I told him if money starts going out faster than he wants it means time to get a job during school. It’s hard to know whether to go in with a job in a very competitive school or to see how first term goes and get acclimated. I worked all through, husband did not. So different opinions in the house!
My son blew through a lot of his money the first semester. Thank goodness I didn’t give him an emergency credit card. I can envision looking at my statement and seeing “late night emergency” runs to Cook Out or charges for the all so necessary Insomnia Cookies. He used his Christmas money to float himself until Spring Break, and then we helped him a bit. He knows that won’t be happening his sophomore year (beyond $100/month to supplement his meal plan). so he is working his tail off this summer to load his bank account for sophomore year.
Our kids had enough in the bank for spending money for a full year. We suggested to both that they not work first term. Both got jobs…6-10 hours a week, and we’re fine.
I’m with @thumper1 [#3] : D covered her fun money [most of her clothes too, to be honest] with her own earnings. Not something we required; her choice.
Our deal is that I pay for tuition, room&board, and books. Fun money is on them. S16 has a work study and refs and does other assorted stuff. S19 will likely do the same.
Help them set up a Roth IRA then agree to match a certain percent of what they save in it.
Fun money is earned by them, in the summers, for their outings.
We budgeted money for them for shared internet, cell bills, lab fees, school-associated fees from $100 to $200 per month depending on what bills they sent to us via I’M’d pix.
I have to laugh at that emergency credit card use. We let son have access to our credit card when he was doing grad school applications (the only way we knew where he had applied was through the credit card charges, btw). One month he apologized for using it at a Subway- he apparently had no other funds on him. Son frugal, a nonspender- even now.
I like the idea of limiting funds initially so the student realizes how they are spending their discretionary funds. I understand how two parents can have very different visions of college life and spending based on backgrounds. Our son “inherited” our middle class spending habits, despite our earned wealth. I always will wonder about those teens used to spending their parents’ money when they come of age and don’t have the earnings yet.
Depends on Uber needs etc. don’t forget CVS for prescriptions and sundries can add up too.
It’s summer savings plus 200 per month for us. Plus credit card for prescriptions and Uber to my debit card. Which we understand has limits too.
I like it because as a young woman in a big city and having a bit of hard time making friends at first, I like to see the rides out that she’s not sitting in her room on Friday nights and back to school safely. It lets me sleep better and nighttime public transit isn’t my preferred option for her. But that’s a personal decision.
Has your son ever lived on a budget? Does he understand that if he spends $20 at the movies he may not be able to afford a pizza afterward. My daughter didn’t really understand how much $10 was until she had to earn it, and OMG, it takes an hour of working to pay for two coffees!
My kids got $100/mo while they were in high school because I was so tired of them asking for movie money, snack money, coffee money, money for this or that at school, etc. that I just gave them that money every month. One was good at saving, the other blew through hers every month. College was similar, with one saving a lot and the other spending it all. In the end, the saver tended to buy bigger things like concert tickets, nice clothes, electronics while the spendthrift still bought a lot of coffees and sweatshirts and ate out a lot.
They had money in their savings accounts and moved it to their checking accounts as needed.
Debit card numbers can be stolen. So I would not have all of the money in the account at once.
My kids had their work earnings in savings account and I would transfer money into the checking account for them periodically.
Like others here, fun money is on them. My kids have been working part time since just after their freshman year of high school… a lot of that money found its way into their bank accounts. That’s their spending money in college.
Our daughter just got a checking account to go with her savings and CD accounts; our credit union did not allow her to get the checking account until she turned 18. Then we helped her sign up for a secured credit card through the credit union, too.
Instead of giving her money weekly, now we deposit $100 a month into the checking account so she gets used to her debit card. If the balance in checking becomes high (over $300), we deposit into savings instead.
More than likely we will need to set up another bank account local to her college because it looks like her credit union transactions will incur fees in New York. Also, it’s likely we will increase the amount; this will depend on whether she continues to spend relatively little and what her summer and work study earnings look like.
It’s time to help the kid out with budgeting before he goes off to college if he hasn’t had those basics. Mine did not in high school because they tended to go with the flow, didn’t spend a lot, and had summer and odd job earnings throughout that time. We covered a lot of the school related and EC stuff. They did not have to worry about how to pay for that theater trip the school had, or for going to science fair at the state Capitol or sporting venues. We paid.
This pretty much continued through college until they went off campus. That’s when they had to learn to budget. I should have done more in working with them and giving them some systems. I did not do so. My kids were pretty much full pay, so we just gave them what the college figures showed for average R&B but we did dole it out monthly. They had a stash of summer earnings and most of them worked a few hours a week so no one had money issues.
Until they left school. That’s when their lack of planning and use of budgets hit. Some are still having a hard time in that area