<p>My parents cover books/room/board/tuition and helped me buy dorm stuff. I cover my spending money with stuff saved up from jobs and birthdays and graduation.</p>
<p>This thread has reminded me to discuss this with my parents before I move in in a week. They’ve always just given me money whenever I’ve asked, but I think it’s about time I started moving away from that much dependence.</p>
<p>They pay for tuition, room/board, books, dorm stuff. I guess I’ll pay for travel back and forth on breaks, social stuff and buying stuff from CVS or whatever when I need to replenish things like toothpaste. I have a debit card but my mom and I have a joint account so she can transfer money to me easily.</p>
<p>My parents expect me to get a job on campus and I’m more than willing to do this because I haven’t worked this past year AT ALL. 
I hope to get a good one soon too.</p>
<p>My mom also paid for my books (about $260), my new laptop ($400) and my sister has bought me some dorm things as well.</p>
<p>My perspective is influenced by the fact that I had to work 2 part-time jobs my last couple years as a full-time college student- one of which put me alone in a small office building from 11pm to 2 or 3am most weeknights. It was very difficult.</p>
<p>My D is extremely hard working in academics and ECs, and rarely spends money (hers or mine). When she goes to college next year, the expenses will be on me. She’ll probably work (for my company) part-time during college summers, and will want to contribute some of those earnings, which is fine, but I also want her to be saving most of her earnings for the future.</p>
<p>D will have a debit card linked to her checking account that I share. I deposited about 3K in it and expect that it will cover her incidental expenses for the school year.</p>
<p>I have a full scholarship that also gives a book allowance. My parents pay for my insurance, medication (when they can get it to me), and are going to reimburse me for my parking permit (the car actually was a gift for deciding to go to this school rather than JHU where I was all but full tuition). They make sure I go off well stocked with almost everything I’ll need. And will usually give me gas money to drive back down after a trip home. Other than that and the occasional twenty in the mail I’m on my own. I don’t have a job, and they discourage me from getting one during the school year. I was unable to get a job in my hometown this summer, so will be going with birthday money from a generous aunt, the remainder of my book stipend, and 200 dollars I made tutoring before HS ended last summer.</p>
<p>We’ve been different than majority of the people who responded. Our arrangement never included DD to work or contribute towards her education expenses. Still she has held paid internship all summers since Junior year of her high school. We’ve been depositing that into her saving account and she has a good cushion there.
She has a joint checking, and saving account with me since HS. During her freshman year in 2009/10, I started off depositing money into her checking account whenever it went below a certain amount. But then during the second semester, I started adding $500 per month to cover for monthly food(She get’s half off @ dinning rooms) and incidentals.
She has done research work during the semester and also worked on IT help desk adding to her saving accounts. But she is fond of good restaurant food and concerts and also shops so her expenditure are also on the higher side. She also pay for the sorority, the fee for which is $800 a semester(This is the only thing we don’t pay). But it has worked fine.
So I’ve been paying for flights/tuition/Dorm to college every semester along with $500/month when college is on and $200/month during the summer or winter break. The total came to $52000 from September 2009 to August 2010. Since the college tuition has gone up so it will be $55000 for the coming year.</p>
<p>Mine are just rising seniors, but I would expect that I would pay for books. To me, that’s as much of the educational experience as the tuition itself. And I expect that we will give them an allowance of some sort – the amount TBD. </p>
<p>I don’t particularly feel it necessary for them to work towards their own spending money, as I see their primary job as focusing on schoolwork. And I don’t care for the idea of full-pay students taking waitressing or other such jobs for pin money from students who really need that money to stay in school. It doesn’t sit right with me, having seen so many of my own friends work so hard to stay in school. </p>
<p>D has worked for the past year and a half and saved almost all of that money and frankly I would prefer her throw it into her long-term savings / mutual fund account and let it really work for her when she’s out of college and on her own, than piddle it away on pizza and incidentals when in college. I’d rather pay for the pizza and incidentals.</p>
<p>Having said that, there’s really no wrong answer and I don’t think others are necessarily wrong for doing it a different way.
I do have a friend who could afford full-pay but did require that her D pay x% as “skin in the game” (which personally I didn’t agree with, her D was already very motivated and serious) but unbeknownst to the D, she and her husband matched the x% the daughter paid and invested it, with the plan of presenting it to her when she graduates. I think that’s an interesting idea.</p>
<p>I like the post that started out “Here is how the poor people do it.”</p>
<p>We handle it in a similar way…Each of our kids were expected to turn over their summer earnings to contribute to their tuition. They started out their freshman year contributing about $2,400, and this number goes to $3,500 in the summer before senior year . They also contribute for their books. That means that they were all responsible for getting jobs during the year so that they had money in their pocket.
As parents we covered most of their tuition that financial aid did not cover. Our kids at the higher level schools received much better financial aid than our daughter did, but we made everything equal as far as what she needed to contribute to tuition. We pay for all toiletries, supplies, snacks and food that they keep in their room. The exception was our son at MIT who cooked his meals everyday…we sent enough money to cover his food. We pay for all clothes, shoes and coats and they pay for everything extra. It has worked out well for all of us in that they all have skin in their education. This past year one of our sons worked full time and he is paying down his loans while our other son has been reducing the ammount of loans that he would have needed this year. </p>
<p>Everyone does what works for them so there is no right or wrong way of doing it. I could say that even if we were able to pay for all four kids in college at the same time, we still would expect them to contribute. They do not receive any money from us during the year other than the money we leave behind when either we visit or they come home.</p>
<p>Allowance for non essentials: $250/mo during the school year. Nothing during the summer (he paid out of his own earnings from jobs/internships).</p>
<p>This year he is living off campus. We worked out an additional monthly fee for rent/utilities/food. I think its a bit on the high side (based of the food estimation he made) so we will revisit this in a few months.</p>
<p>We pay for tuition, fees, medical insurance, personal property/liability insurance, and transportation to and from school.</p>
<p>DS pays for R&B, books, cell phone, incidentals, etc. Sources of funding include merit scholarships, PT and FT Summer jobs.</p>
<p>DS and I did a budgeting exercise prior to freshman year and guessed incidentals would average $250 per month. Don’t know what he actually ended up spending, but he seems to be OK financially, when asked.</p>
<p>We’ve been advised by DS that we’re the only parents among his peers that have this arrangement. No doubt, and while we find this somewhat interesting, it is completely irrelevant. But he already knew that.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add that yes, it is helpful to our budget to have S contribute to his expenses.</p>
<p>But we are doing it primarily as another life lesson we don’t feel he’s leaned yet. Distinguishing wants from needs. Impulse spending. Being overgenerous with his friends.
He still has a degree of magical thinking about money. Having to earn it himself, we hope he’ll see how hard it is to earn, and how he needs to think about what he’s spending it on.</p>
<p>I started out by giving S $25 for school supplies and $40 every two weeks for allowance. If he wants more, he can find himself a job. His tuition, room and board is covered by grants, loans and a partial scholarship, supplemented by an account his grandparents have for him. My brother lives in the the town where he’s going to school, and plans to throw some cash his way via babysitting and yardwork, and his grandparents have his address so they can drop him an occasional card with some cash tucked in, like they did with my brother and me.</p>
<p>Whatever money parents feel they want to give, in my opinion it is better to give it as a set fixed amount. It would teach your kid to budget better. </p>
<p>D1 is living off campus now. We give her set amount of grocery money (equivalent to her school’s meal plan), and we pay directly to her landlord for the rent. We used to give D1 an allowance (up until this past year), but she had a good internship this summer and she she will have a job upon graduation, so we have decided not to give her an allowance her senior year. But other than allowance we are still paying for all her expenses, which will cease when she graduates.</p>
<p>For me, the question needs to asked first is “what is the spending money supposed to cover?” </p>
<p>The College budget we worked out has seven major categories: Tuition & Fees, Books, Housing, food, personal care (haircuts, clothing etc.), Travel, and Misc.</p>
<p>Tuition, Housing and basic food I pay directly to the school on a semester by semester basis. Travel I “pay” for since I travel on business a great deal and basically have more miles than time to use them.</p>
<p>Extra food, personal care, and Misc they pay for out of their checking account. I put money into that checking account on a twice a month basis - basically when I get paid so do they. In the case of DS who lives off campus, he gets more because he doesn’t have a meal plan. DD, who will be living on campus, will get less since she does have 14 meals a week paid for.</p>
<p>What should your spending money be? In my opinion, YOUR spending money should be what YOU can earn doing a part time job OR from your summer earnings. Folks ask me frequently how much my kids spent…to be honest, I have no real idea. They earned the money and they spent the money…it was their money…not mine.</p>
<p>Our kids’ spending money (which they earned) was for books, school supplies, all discretionary spending (entertainment etc). We paid tuition/room/board (when they lived off campus we gave them a SET amount for food, paid the rent directly to the landlord ourselves). </p>
<p>When our kids lived in the dorm…they didn’t get money from us for things like movies, dining out, travel, entertainment…or books/supplies. They earned that money.</p>
<p>NOW having said that…if your parents WANT to give you an allowance, that is a family decision you can make with them. I agree with Oldfort…if an allowance is given, it should be a fixed amount.</p>
<p>P.S. I find that the kids are MUCH more careful with money they have earned themselves in terms of budgeting and spending. They ONLY spend what they earn…or less.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how much money did your children have in their own personal checking accounts before starting college? I head off for freshman year later this week, and I have about $5500 atm, but im not going to be getting any help form my parents spending money wise, or for books. Im hoping this is considered good shape, since i dont think ill have much time for a job on campus.</p>
<p>As long as you budget, that’s more than enough. My roommate blew through 3k in the first few months of school, so apparently that is possible to do, but if you budget you shouldn’t have any problems.</p>
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<p>DD had over $4000 in her account when she left here. She had that same $4000 in her account when she graduated because she worked every term on campus and THAT is what she used for spending money in college. </p>
<p>To the OP…as you can see…you will find that the “amount” recommended here for spending money will range from $0 (like us…who expected our kids to earn it all), to others who seem to deposit a bottomless pit of money into their kiddos’ accounts. </p>
<p>Discuss this with your parents…and come up with a reasonable amount that works for YOUR family.</p>
<p>We’ll pay tuition, room and board, club crew fees and all travel espenses. S earned money this summer for spending money and books. He recieved quite a bit of money for graduation so he bought his Mac and still had a lot left over, he made over $3500 working as a nanny this summer and we opened an investment account and bought him some stocks as our graduation gift. In addition he had an account started by his grandparents with over $11,000 in it. We expect him to manage this money over the next 4 years supplemented with summer earnings. We know he’ll go abroad at least one summer so he won’t always be able to work. </p>
<p>We are fortunate that we can easily afford to give him an allowance, but I think it is important that he manages and earns some of his own money. It is a life skill, I also realize he is starting of in pretty good shape.</p>