spending money

Parents Forum
1

<p>I need some advice -- how much spending money should I consider giving my D, freshman-to-be at Northeastern ? I'm not looking to be generous - only reasonable... on the other hand, I'd also like to encourage her to explore as much of the city/state/northeast as possible since we live in the west. </p>

<p>Also - for those of whose kids were awarded work/study: did you require their earnings be used for books/fees, etc - or did your kid(s) use it for their own spending money?</p>

<p>Any other advice you can offer about budgeting, monthly spending, etc to this first-time-sending-a-kid-to-college family?</p>

2

<p>work study went for both books & personal expenses
we paid for room and board and medical</p>

3

<p>hi Katliamom,</p>

<p>there are a number of threads in the parent's forum on spending money.</p>

<p>I hope these help</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=3724767%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=3724767&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

4

<p>My parents paid for my tuition/books/room/board/most stuff for setting up my dorm room first semester. Second semester was the same except that I was responsible for books (roughly $150 because many of my professors don't use books). My dad deposited $300 into a local account and expected that I could get through first semester with that and my graduation money from various relatives. First semester I supplemented that by doing experiments in the psychology department (easy way to make $10-50 in an hour or three), and I got a job about 10 hours/week second semester to pay for incidentals and eating out and whatnot. I made it through the year without ever calling home in need of money, but I'm a fairly cheap person (eating out usually meant Panera, and Pittsburgh is a fairly cheap city anyways).</p>

5

<p>(Blush) Thank you sybbie. I should have searched before posting. (Blush again.)</p>

6

<p>KrazyKow, thanks much. I like how you/family dealt with finances during that tricky first year. I do like the idea of paying for most stuff first semester, then increasing the student's financial responsibility the second.</p>

7

<p>I have no idea how kids manage to put away all this money from summer jobs. I worked 40+ hrs a week for 14 total weeks this summer, and I will net less than $500 from the experience. I have to pay for my car insurance, my gas, the insurance deductible from my car being hit in a parking lot, and food, and I'm expected to contribute to the household since I'm living here rent-free. </p>

<p>So I guess if my parents paid for everything, I'd make enough spending money that way, but I don't, so...</p>

<p>My parents gave me $20 a week to cover laundry/late night meals off my dining plan, and then covered any school supplies and clothing I really needed. So that totalled about $350 or $400 a semester. I got by but it was hard when a lot of kids get unlimited cash from their parents. I have a 10/hr a week work study job which covered anything else I wanted, but wasn't enough to scrape out any savings.</p>

8

<p>Depending on area, kids may be able to save/make more
We live in an urban area, and some jobs pay quite well
My daughter also didn't have a car, and bikes/bused to her job
Some jobs even include bus passes to encourage taking public transportation
We also didn't expect her to pay for room or board to live at home, since she was still our dependent.</p>

9

<p>UVMLauren -
ouch about the car - that always takes a big chunk out of it. It is annoying being hard pressed for cash - but understanding how to be frugal when you have to is useful. The kids whose parents always doled out the cash will be in for an unpleasant suprise when they hit the work world and the funds dry up!</p>

10

<p>I'm trying very hard to be frugal, but I am from an insurance-controlled state, so I get charged an astronomical amount for that, so even with my parents helping out it takes a good $2400 out of my take, gas is $30 a week, and I contribute to the utilities and food for the house in exchange for living in my parent's lovely home rent free. It's more of a choice gesture than something they force me to do, and it's not a regular payment; more of a thanks for paying my $30k a year tuition and room mom and dad kind of thing.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, with graduation and the real world looming in the not too distant future, and the need to pay rent and support myself fully even closer, I'd love to be putting more money away. Maybe next summer.</p>

<p>I like the system my parents did for me- money for laundry and a few late night snacks, and then any school supplies I needed I'd tell them about and they'd reimburse me as needed for them. Monthly expenses for me broke down to approximately the following:</p>

<p>Laundry- $4.00 per load, at least one load a week = about $28 per month (I do laundry more often than most, though, as I love clean clothes.)</p>

<p>Late night snacks/meals- $30 a month ish. Depending on how many study groups or group projects I had to do.</p>

<p>clothing- no more than $50. This was usually to solve the vanishing clothing phenomenon that is the scourge of college campuses. This also accounted for weather related clothing if like last year there was a cold snap before I'd retrieved my real winter wear. Vermont can be tricky like that.</p>

<p>incidentals- this accounted for stuff like lab notebooks, file folders, pens, safety glasses, that extra piece of software you need to get your computer to run correctly, and any small treats that I really wanted like a new CD very occasionally. This is steeper in the first month while professors are still declaring their preferences and students are figuring out how to best organize themselves, but I think this cost me a maximum of $30 in one month.</p>

<p>My parents gave me $80 a month outright, and anything else we had to agree on and I had to have a reason for the money, not just that I wanted to buy things. Someone else posted that they give their child $200 a month and boy, do I wish! I might be able to save some money that way. I survived on this, but one of the best plans is to find out how much laundry costs at your child's school, budget for that, then add on a little for incidentals. </p>

<p>Between this and my work study money (last year $1k a semester) I was able to stay readily solvent and even get a few splurge items. My parents are talking about giving me a little more this semester since I helped out at home and won't be getting as much from work study. </p>

<p>Hope that helps the original poster.</p>

11

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<p>Thanks to Sybbie for posting the previous thread about this. It comes up every year...more than once. There are a lot of different perspectives on this issue of spending money. We do not give our kids a nickel of spending money. That is their responsibility to earn during the summer, vacations or having small jobs while at school. We find that they are much more cautious with their own earnings. We are paying for their tuition, room, board, and fees. We don't feel it's too much to ask them to pay for their entertainment, and any other things they want to spend money on that may be discretionary spending.</p>

12

<p>If i have a job during the summer I get 100 a week from the rents. if i don't have a job during the summer i get nothing - ironic huh?</p>

13

<p>not at all, its about the principal not the money.</p>

14

<p>exactly.
once i hit college, my parents always told me that if i wasn't working over the summers (or taking classes), then i was obviously not looking hard enough or being too picky, and that i shouldn't be given nice spending money if i'm hanging around doing nothing. on the other hand, even if i had a paying job, my parents would be far more generous with me.</p>

15

<p>I probably should say that I tried really hard to get a job during the summer before freshman year (applied 12+ places), but I only heard back from one, and the person who interviewed me got fired. I did find out that by rolling pennies from around the house, you can make about $4/hour. If I had gotten a real summer job, I would have kept most of the money because my parents pay for my car insurance and the car is paid off. </p>

<p>Off topic, but if you are sending your child 100+ miles away to college without a car, see if you can get a reduction on insurance. We had to switch companies, but I think my parents saved more than the 15% that Geico likes to advertise.</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
I probably should say that I tried really hard to get a job during the summer before freshman year (applied 12+ places), but I only heard back from one, and the person who interviewed me got fired.

[/quote]
12 isn't hard enough -- especially if you are in an urban or suburban area where there are many potential employers. The summer before senior year, when my d. was 17, she applied at at least 40 places. She didn't get a job during the summer, but one retailer called her back in October and she started working part time them. It was a terrible job and she hated it, but she stuck with it for awhile. When she was applying for work this summer, with the added advantage of being over 18, she found a job very quickly, and was told that she was hired over others because she had retail experience. </p>

<p>I'm not trying to be negative -- I just want you to know what it is that the kids who do have jobs do to get them. It's frustrating when you don't get work right away, but persistence pays off.</p>

17

<p>Well, what I found was when I turned in applications 2-3 weeks before school was out, places asked me why I was applying so early, and when I turned them in a week before school was out, they'd already done most of their summer hiring. Later in my job hunt, three places I went to were out of applications, if that indicates anything. I was also not yet 18, and not staying in the area, and I think that impacted my chances of getting a job since I live in the suburbs where there are tons of kids who can keep working during the year or can work until close. Many of my friends were looking for jobs, and I think the only ones who found them were older than me, already had experience, or were lifeguards. Luckily, this summer I have a research job that pays well and looks good on my resume. :) Odd that it's easier to get a 'better' job.</p>

18

<p>As to summer jobs, my son has not done very well. He put off an offer for a well paying factory job with flexible hours because he thought for sure he would get a fun job at a few other places he had applied to. They never called him for the fun jobs and the factory filled the position by the time he realized he needed it. He ended up going to a temp agency, worked one week at a quarry, weighing trucks and cleared close to $500 by working overtime. You do have to be 18 for most temp jobs. He's also been mowing one neighbors lawn and pet-sitting. He'll probably have earned about $800 for the summer plus has graduation money. My daughter, otoh, has been working 40 hours a week as a camp counselor and will probably clear just $1500. My daughter had locked in her job by early Spring. Son didn't want to bother looking then because it was "too early". </p>

<p>The key for finding a job to me seems to be either applying early and letting people know that you are looking. Around here, stores will have signs up when they are hiring but not bother putting something in the paper.</p>

<p>Son is supposed to do a 10 hour a week work-study job at college so I don't expect that he will need to touch his savings much. Hard working daughter will be student teaching for the first quarter so will be spending her money and not able to earn anything. For the first time, we may have to give her some spending money. This will also be the first time she will have a car at college so she will be spending money on gas and we'll have to pay more for insurance. We had gotten the reduced rate since her car did not travel with her before.</p>

19

<p>I've never had a problem finding a job. My first real job was working in a restaurant as a hostess. My next job was being an office assistant at a computer company. My third and current job is as an intern in a research and development sector of a billion-dollar company.</p>

<p>It's all about finding jobs in places you maybe wouldn't think would have them available, or really being persistent about the jobs you want. The job I have now was wrapped up in april. Prior to that, it was set by december of the year previous. </p>

<p>but, that said, since my parents insist that I work and I am responsible for payments related to my car (gas, insurance, repairs, etc, as well as the original cost of the car, which is paid off in full) I just don't net much. </p>

<p>I wish I netted more but until then, my parents only give me money for school related things- I don't get "spending money" to purchase whatever I want. If there's something big that I really want, I ask for it for a holiday, or I tell my parents not to buy me any big gifts and to put what they would have spent towards a big purchase that I need to make, like a new computer.</p>

20

<p>Lauren, I don't mean spending money for going to the mall or movies, I meant for food. Daughter will be in an apartment and responsible for cooking and making her own meals. She has never asked us for money at college (rising senior) and has always had a small job on campus besides summer and break time jobs. However, since her chosen profession is teaching, her summer jobs (camp counselor, day camp worker) have never been high paying.</p>