Do you provide your child with spending money at college if so how much per week and how do you rationalize the budget?
From earlier threads, it seems that if everything else is taken care of then $100-250 depending upon your budget and your child’s spending habits.
Whaaat? $100-$250 a week? That’s crazy-town 
My D and her friends live easily on less than $50/week. Her first semester she spent $400 over 15 weeks ($27/week). They all have the unlimited meal plan so there’s that of course and when we visited mid-Fall (and now for spring break) she stocked up on hygiene items and a few snack foods for her room which I paid for. So that “budgeted” $50 easily pays for lunch or dinner out over the weekend, a movie, any entertainment on campus, etc. D makes $105/week on work study so there’s plenty left over for travel expenses, school supplies, and incidentals, but in the end, her spending averaged $35-40/week so far since the Christmas break ended late January. She did say that out of that amount she usually spends about $10/week in the Starbucks or other café for grab foods rather than going to the dining hall.
When I lived on campus, I usually spent about $50 a week or so between gas, grabbing food, paying for prints (this can be expensive!! My university gives us 25 free pages a semester and its $.10/page after that), and other various things. I probably could have lived off less if I didn’t drive home/places as much and if I had just stuck to my meal plan, but it’s nice to be able to get REAL food every now and then.
I think it’s best to have the student see how it goes the first few weeks and then adjust the limit from there. And honestly, students should really earn their own spending money at this point because they’re otherwise living independently. Earning and spending money is another factor of being independent, so it’s useful for students to start learning this.
We made our kids responsible for their own spending money and books. They had savings accounts from some grandparent birthday gifts, saved allowances in the past, their graduation present money from friends and family, and we insisted that they get paying jobs the summer before college. One worked as a teacher at the Breakthrough Collaborative, and one night-stocked at Walmart. So they had some money going in.
One worked in college at the Writing Center after freshman year. She taught again for the next couple of summers, too. The other was too busy keeping her nose above water academically to work during the year, but has had paid summer research positions on campus every summer.
I think it is good for kids to not get an allowance in college. Gives them a taste of working for money and the value of the money they earn.
My son had a campus job and took home about $300 a month. He took a break from the job his second semester (his grades needed more attention). I agreed to give him $150 every two weeks. I’m sure he could have survived on less.
D isn’t going in with a prearranged job but I suspect she will find something. She’s a saver by nature and will probably start out with enough cash on hand to get through the semester.
$100-250 per month not per week unless you are seriously wealthy.
How much they spend is heavily influenced by the quality of food on campus. Bad food, they spend a lot. Good food, they don’t.
There are TONS of threads about college spending money on CC. Do a search.
There is huge variation on this answer…and it is really up,to each family.
Here is the thumper family plan…
We paid for tuition, fees, room, board, cell phone, travel home.
We expected our kids to work…and pay for all discretionary spending and all books. Both had summer jibs, and both worked about 10 hours during the school year.
So,our kids funded…books, any social evenings out, any meals at restaurants, all entertainment, etc.
We did generously give little amounts of extra cash for holidays and birthdays.
We’re pretty much like thumper1- we pay for tuition, fees, room,board,phone and gas. Eating out, social activites, and anything to do with the fraternity, are not paid for by us. Savings from HS jobs and summer jobs are expected to cover this, and if the money runs out they’ll learn to budget or save better in the future.
My kids’ spending is influenced by their bank balance. If they have money, they spend it. If they have no money, the campus dining room looks pretty good and borrowing a dress from a friend seems reasonable. If they’ve just been paid, the pizza on campus is awful and they NEED to go out for a decent pie.
We paid for all school-related expenses and also gave $200/month, most of which was never spent. It was more than sufficient for the occasional pizza, ice cream or casual dinner w friends, or the occasional tube of toothpaste or bottle of Tylenol or some such. I had no problem with it and would do it again in a heartbeat. We also did pay for S’s fraternity.
I try to give my kids gift cards for holidays for restaurants and stores near campus that they frequent (D2 just dropped a hint that she would like one from a cheese store near campus, who knew?). But other than that, it is their cash.
These all seem reasonable. Because the OP asked about a weekly budget I naturally assumed WorryHurry411 was talking weekly and, although it seems obvious, nearly everything on CC is inflated so…LOL
We pay for books, all of D’s meals are covered on the meal plan, and we had been giving D $20/week. I wondered if that was too low, so I talked to her about raising it a bit, but she insisted that she just needed $10/week! I know she’s frugal, but to actually say she wanted less was funny to me! We lowered it to $10/week, but we sometimes slip in more and send care packages.
We followed the “thumper family plan!”
We provide $25 per week, and while I don’t track it as once it is deposited into her account she is free to spend it as she wishes. From what she says, she rarely spends that much per week. We also were sending funds to cover her private music lessons each week. However, at winter break she received a late award of a local scholarship that she thought had gone to someone else, and when she deposited it into her account she said she would use the scholarship to pay for her private music lessons at the college for the next year.
Next year she will live in an apartment type dorm and wants to prepare most of her own food. We will buy a small commuter meal plan. We have yet to figure out how much to add for food each week next year, but will do some experimenting with that over the summer.
We follow the thumper plan as well, except we pay for books. D2 doesnt have a meal plan this year, so she gets 50/week for groceries, anything else she covers.
A lot depends on the campus, too. A kid at a more rural campus or in a small town will spend less. A kid in DC or New York will spend more.
There are numerous threads on CC about this topic. Sadly the search function is poor.
I am always confused by the answer that the parents contribute nothing because the grandparents supply the money. I think the OP is asking about a reasonable amount of spending money whether it is from parents, grandparents, or work.
But the answer isn’t the same for a student at Oberlin vs. NYU.