<p>My dd will be at Parsons this fall. She is my first child to be going away to college - do not want her to work her first semester so she will need all her money from me. </p>
<p>Not sure if we should use a joint checking account with a checkcard. Do I give her meny weekly or monthly?? How much? I am pretty clueless how this should work. Help!!</p>
<p>She will be a dorm-suite with a kitchen so she will be able to store and prepare food pretty easily. Parsons cafeteria is not very convenient to where she will be living so the 225.00 meal card that comes with her dorm room is all we will be getting.</p>
<p>Money is defintely an issue with us and we want her to have her needs met but we are not in a position to give her credit cards. NYC is expensive - IO realize that. </p>
<p>Hopefully, there are some parents who can giveme suggestions and ideas.
Thank you!</p>
<p>You can open an acct for her and have it linked to your own checking acct. That way you’ll be able to transfer money into her acct whenever you want. You could also monitor her spend in the beginning to make sure she is not over spending. Her debit card could also be a credit card, but whatever she spends would come straight out of her bank acct. I would give her monthly allowance. It would allow her to budget her money.</p>
<p>NYC could actually be cheaper than other suburban places if she knows how to shop wisely. She could get a 30 day unlimited transit card for around $85. There are a lot of good soup/sandwich places where she could get a combo for $5-8.</p>
<p>If she is going to pay for her own food, on the conservative side I would give her $600 for food and spending money.</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but I am a student in NYC, so I hope I can offer a little perspective. In terms of food, I split grocery costs with my parents (I usually spend ~$30/wk on groceries). My parents also let me put $500/semester on my student account for on-campus dining locations. This system works well because I always have the choice of eating on campus if I don’t feel like preparing my own food, but I’m not restricted to a meal plan. For restaurants and take-out, I use my own money.</p>
<p>Since I do have my parents’ CC, they don’t give me a monthly allowance. I like to think that I’ve never abused the CC privilege, although it’s frightening how much just a few items can cost sometimes. I also have my own CC, but I still prefer paying in cash because it’s easier to control my spending that way.</p>
<p>I find that most of my money is spent on food and clothes. My occasional expenses include Metro cards, drugstore runs, entertainment (student rush tickets mostly, never movies), and…shoe repair.</p>
<p>If your daughter can’t have a CC, then I think a monthly allowance is the best way to go. That way she has more freedom in deciding how to spend that money. Some weeks will be more expensive than others (for example, when she needs to refill her Metro card), and it’s not always possible to plan in advance when to spend what. I think a weekly allowance might be appropriate if she has trouble budgeting her monthly allowance.</p>
<p>My D just graduated from Barnard and fed herself for her last two years. We gave her $250.00 a month for food. This was considerably less than the meal plan.</p>
<p>It’s not as difficult to eat in NYC as you might imagine. Her meals were often a bowl of soup with ramen noodles, or a small amount of sushi – very inexpensive options.</p>
<p>She did work on campus for other spending money.</p>
<p>See if you can find a bank that has branches in NY (close to Parsons would be ideal) as well as where you live. A debit card worked well for my daughter, but she does not want to continue with the monthly budget she had last year. </p>
<p>This will be her first year without a meal plan - should be interesting. Demeter and mythmom, are there any supermarkets that are known to be less expensive? There is a Trader Joe’s on Union Square…</p>
<p>My daughter attends school in NYC and she has a student Visa debit card which is linked to our checking account. We transfer money into her account regularly and we can also monitor her spending. I would just suggest finding a bank that is near her school, and open the account with that bank. We were getting socked with fees using ATM machines around her campus and dorm that were non Bank ATMs. We have remedied that problem by having her use it at Rite aid, CVS or grocery stores and get cash back with her purchases. There are no fees associated wth that.</p>
<p>OKay, thank you so much for the responses so far.
This may sound stupid, but what is a reasonable amunt of spending money. Like I said, we are not wealthy but we are willing to sacrifice so she does ot have to sit in the dorm room all weekend.
Oldfort suggested 600.00 monthly for food and spending. How does that sound? How would that break down - meaning how much of that is food, etc…</p>
<p>Sorry for all the questions, I am just trying to get my head around this. August 20th is coming up fast!</p>
<p>To me, that sounds like a lot, but I was cheap as an undergrad (and fortunate enough to go to a school that didn’t require a meal plan). I was in the Boston area, and as a frosh, a lump sum of $2000 when I left for college got me food + spending money + about half my textbooks for 15 months. This was 2003-2004, so there has been some inflation since then, but not a tremendous difference. I wouldn’t be surprised if NYC is more expensive than Boston, but $600/month still sounds high to me.</p>
<p>I came up with that amount - $85/mon for metro card, 300/mon for food (I think it is low, I am big on good food for young people), 215 for incidentals (which is also not a lot if she needs to buy toilettries, and going out).</p>
<p>NYU meal plan is 2000/semester, which is about 400/mon. People may say it is cheaper to cook than to eat at school’s cafeteria, because you are doing your own cooking (no labor charge). I don’t think that’s the case because it is cheaper to buy/cook bulk. By eating cheaper when you are cooking for yourself, you are just cutting back on quality of food.</p>
<p>I would say 500-600 monthly is enough if you’re not on a meal plan. I don’t really think you can save that much money on food. Just make sure not to spend too much money on nonessentials.</p>
<p>I gave D $250.00 in toto. Her grandmother gave her $100 and she earned $100, so that would be $450.00 including all her transportation and food costs.</p>
<p>As to an inexpensive supermarket, Morningside Heights is its own kingdom; would not be relevant to the rest of the city. There really weren’t too many chains; I believe D used bodegas.</p>
Check out the many discounts available for students, such as tdf.com for theater tickets
Goldstar.com offers discounts to many types of events (music, comedy, dance, etc)
Restaurant.com offeres cheap certificats for restaurants–she can search by neighborhood in NYC
Learn what the cheapest Metrocard option that works for her is–monthly pass, etc
Becaue it is such an expesnive city for the unwary, there are many books, etc on finding bargains in NYC. She is going to a great school in a great city–your sacrifice will be worth it!</p>
<p>The unlimited Metro card is convenient, but I think your daughter should wait to see how often she actually takes the subway, as yabeyabe2 suggested. The unlimited is only worth it if she’ll be taking the subway everyday (which may be the case if her dorm is far away, I guess). Most NYC college students I know don’t have unlimited Metro cards. My transportation costs work out to around $20/month, since I don’t get off campus much during the semester. </p>
<p>$600/month also sounds high to me. I think I spent about $2000 total during the past academic year (less freshman year because I had a meal plan), not including textbooks.</p>
<p>Wow you all are so generous. My daughter goes to NYU and I gave her roughly 300 per month and she seemed to survive on that. I will have to check in with her. That was just spending money. We bought any of her supplies.</p>
<p>600 was all inclusive - food, transportation, spending money, and all other supplies. 300/mon just for spending money is more than what I am suggesting.</p>
<p>My daughter spent her own money last year, about $250 a month. This was in addition to the meal plan. She said she was spending $ mostly on transportation (to/from community service, museums, some cheap travel to friends outside NY, etc), concert and movie tickets, some meals out and some clothes. I think she was feeling it wasn’t quite enough. We provided all textbooks, supplies, sundries, travel $ home.</p>
<p>My dd will not have a meal plan. I do not expect her to eat out all the time.
Not to be redundant, but how much is reasonable for her to spend on food in NYC without eating in restaurants all the time?</p>