My son will be a freshman in the fall. Curious to know how much money parents providing for weekly allowance. I recognize that we all come from different means. When my son visited U of Miami, he commented on how many students were driving Bentleys and how the “poor” students were driving Lexus, and that many were cabbing to SoBe to go clubbing. I don’t plan to let my kid drop $100 every weekend. We are likely deciding between USC, Michigan, Tulane and Emory. Thank you.
We pay tuition and housing : our students paid for books and everything else in their life (that’s what summer and p/t jobs are for ). So our answer is $0
I did not set a budget for either of my kids, but they don’t spend much at all. They have a credit card that I pay each month. I pay for books and other relative necessities, and an occasional splurge. I take what I don’t want to pay for from their accounts. But one of mine is extremely frugal. chipotle once a month is a splurge for him. I do pay for an occasional sushi dinner, video game, concert ticket, etc. At this point I pay groceries and eating out for older son, but it’s way cheaper than his meal plan, always. So I guess I’ve been lucky. I know another person who “only goes out three times a week,” to dinner, clubs, etc., and mom’s charge card pays for it all. That would not be me.
My son worked summers and all breaks at the part time job he had since high school, and has an on campus job (not work study) 15 hours a week since 2nd semester soph. yr. He paid for his books, gas, entertainment, etc., with his money. Sometimes, if he was running low, I’d put $50-$100 in his checking account. Maybe did this 4 times in 4 years.
I give my daughter $0 directly but I do cover all of her personal care items, cleaning supplies, etc and I did top off her campus spending account with $20 when her “buckeye dollars” (part of the meal plan) ran out a few weeks before the end of first semester and she was worried about not being able to do laundry. For freshman year her part time job is only 8-10 hours a week. With that she was expected to cover all of her books (I had to buy one small book the entire year) and any spending money. I covered all of her other expenses. She lives on campus and has a meal plan that requires no supplement but I still send her food from home in her care packages.
She’s expected to work full time this summer, saving all of it to help pay direct expenses next year, and she already has an OA position for next year in her dorm building which will allow her to step up to working about 15 hours a week, giving her more money to cover books & spending. She could have saved more by choosing to move off campus but she likes the convenience of on campus living (and nothing beats working in the same building you live in) and we can afford it for now, so she’s chosen to stay on campus.
There are many threads on this topic. You get $0 to few hundred $ per month. I suspect people who give their kids $500+/mon are not posting for fear being judged.
If you are able give you son a set amount every month. I give D2 $250/mon and she works 10+ hrs/week on campus. Her roommate gets $800/mon. I pay for books/travel and all misc expenses associated with school, so $250 is her pocket money for gifts, coffee, dinner and drinks. I don’t give extra if she is low. When she is home, she pays for her own entertainment and transportation. We live in NYC, so she probably spends more money at home than when she is in school.
Right…tons of threads on this topic…and amounts have ranged from $0 to $1000 a month for spending money.
We paid all college costs…tuition, fees, room, board, cell phone, transportation home.
We asked our kids to earn their discretionary money, and to pay for books. Both worked about 10 hours a week and were able to pay their own discretionary expenses.
We did send things like cash gifts, gift cards, and the like to them often enough (there is a holiday in every month).
I give $200/month and my kids don’t spend that amount; if anything I tell them to go and use it and have some fun. My S probably spends more than my D does, as he has a girlfriend so he’s often treating for ice cream, movies, etc. but even so, he’s still not spending anywhere near the $200 as far as I can tell.
My kid uses about 200 a month. I put 20 dollars a month on her student ID for postage, vending machine and little things. D uses summer savings and income from her campus job to pay for books, supplies and fun. I usually throw in 20 bucks for holiday care packages.
There isn’t much for her to pay for on campus. The laundry is free. The events are almost always free or at least only a few bucks. They get a ridiculous amount of dining dollars to spend on non-dining hall establishments on campus. D still has hundreds to spend and only a few weeks left. It’s difficult to get off campus and so most kids don’t outside the weekly shuttle to a mini-mall with a Target and a hair cut place.
A lot depends on how good your kid is at budgeting. D says her wealthiest friends are actually the ones that blow through their money first. They always seem to run out of allowance a week before their “pay day” and then complain bitterly about being poor even though they started with twice/three times as much lol. Of course, that’s not a generalization… just the kids around her.
With regard to the food points…my kid was buying cases of water and treating her friends to pizza at the end of each academic year…with the extra food points she didn’t use. And she ate very well.
Her food points card also had a large number of restaurants near the college which accepted the card.
Technically, my S really doesn’t need much money at all at school. Maybe for toiletries. But he has a dining plan, we pay for books, what else is there? He has a (old, used) car and I pay for gas to come home on breaks. He pays for the occasionally pizza outings or fancy coffee, or movies. His hard drive crashed and we did pay for that, the school had some sort of service contract deal, but I didn’t think it was on him to pay.
I see he has bought some extra T shirts at the local Target and Walmart, even though I have offered on break to buy him a couple of things for his wardrobe. I cannot understand college kids getting to order stuff through places like Vineyard Vines and Lily Pulitzer (names we picked up once he started college) and charging it home to mom and dad. But it happens.
When my kids started college, I continued giving them an allowance of $200/month (which is what they received in high school). That was for extras (movies, concerts, clothes, gas, date dinners, etc). When my income increased last summer, I increased their allowance to $300/month. Both kids have had other income from paid summer internships and commissions.
Our son went to USC and we gave him $600 / month.
He was able to earn $5000 each summer from USC internships.
That was considered his $ .
Zero. That’s what work-study and summer earnings are for.
My freshman D comes home about once a month, and we take her to the grocery store to stock up on necessary items and snacks, and take her for a haircut. We usually give her a $20 whenever we see her, a little more if I know she has something special coming up. Otherwise she has plenty in her bank account from her graduation party and grandparents, so I know she’s got some spending money. Next year, I do expect her to start earning her own spending money, but I imagine we will still sneak her some cash now and then. She doesn’t have a car so that keeps expenses down.
Just wondering for all those who don’t provide an “allowance”, are you paying for their college, as in tuition and room & board?
Our DS has accepted work study at college, and I told him that will be for extra spending money and to cover books for spring semester. He also had to take out full loans.
So I plan on about $100/mo as allowance and will deposit about $1000 in the bank on campus for this and any emergencies.
My ds is on FA, which covers his tuition and R&B. We expect him to pay for books, travel to and from and spending money. Any other expenses above that we would pay, but his FA and WS have more than covered it and so we haven’t had to spend much out of pocket. We have a prepaid tuition plan that we haven’t had to touch for either boy, and we’ve told them that if we don’t touch it that when we cash it out that it’ll be theirs to do with what they want. Ds1 had minimal loans that he is able to pay out of his post-college salary. He’ll also get an education stipend from his AmeriCorps job that will more than pay off the balance. So far, ds2 has avoided loans, but he is really reducing his liquid assets so I might insist that he take our a small loan this coming year. Like his mother, he is debt-averse.
Zippo. That’s what a summer job and part-time school-year work are for.
(We did, and still do, cover plane flights home.)
I think I put that in my response. We paid tuition, fees, room, board, cell phone, transportation home. Kids were responsible for discretionary spending. We also slipped in a cash gift with each holiday card.
It depends on the kid. I did not give much to my son. He had jobs and was thrifty. Sometimes I asked if he needed money and he said no. I gave a lot more to my daughter because I was able to. Fortunately she will graduate and will start her job soon.