<p>I am wondering how other parents have handled the issue of spending money in college. </p>
<p>Do you give your child spending money for the year? Or do they have to earn it in the summer?</p>
<p>I know this is personal, but if I could get a range of amounts that you give your child that would be really helpful. </p>
<p>What do you do if your child spends all that you give them, or they earn, and now need more? </p>
<p>How have you tried to teach your child good money management skills?</p>
<p>D1 is a junior. She has always had to work in the summer and save her money for spending at school. She has never spent all of her savings. We do provide toiletries for her to take back to school, pay for books and school supplies but fun money is all from her account.</p>
<p>Our son earns money in the summer and is responsible for everything that is not included in the bill from the college (he is in a dorm with a meal plan). So this means books, spending money, additional food, and any travelling he chooses to do (e.g., spring break). We do pay to fly him home at holidays and his cell phone is part of our family plan. He will be in an off-campus apartment next year. We’ll work something out where we do not pay any more than we would if he were on campus.</p>
<p>Fortunately for him (and us) he has managed to obtain well-paying internships each summer and has a nice sum left even after paying living expenses for the summer.</p>
<p>This topic has been well discussed. Many kids earn their own spending money - summer and school year. There are parents that give allowance, myself included. What I have gathered is more people give monthly rather than yearly. I think most CC parents are pretty tough, they don’t give extra if money is gone. As I have stated before, we give 200/mon and our D works 10-15 hours a week, summers also. But she contributes part of her summer earning toward her tuition - it’s more symbolic.</p>
<p>I forgot to answer the “what do you do if they run out” question.</p>
<p>Absolutely, if our kid needed money for food when his food points ran out, I would be sending it. But it has never happened. The guy is careful and conscientious about his cash. Maybe too careful.</p>
<p>Like mafool, we provide the tuition, fees, health insurance fee to the school. We reimburse S1 for books each semester (actually from his parent-administered college savings account) and we provide plane tickets for Thanksgiving, winter break and Aug & May, should he choose to return home. This year he is living in a rented house off-campus and did not choose a meal plan; so we deposit, monthly, to his checking account the amount equivalent to the cost of room-and-board. Everything else is his responsibility, including travel, fraternity dues, entertainment, outfitting the house, etc. We do buy clothes, if he needs something when he’s at home, and last week when we visited, we purchased a week’s worth of groceries. His $$ came from his summer job and Christmas gift money; no on-campus job so far, but he is talking about getting something next year. That’s the only way he’ll be able to afford the car he keeps talking about (which we are not planning to provide).</p>
<p>I’ll answer the “what if they run out” question too.</p>
<p>He’ll starve, until the next monthly allotment. And likely be pounded by his roommates, if he doesn’t pay his share of rent and utilities on time. Doesn’t take much to learn budgeting.</p>
<p>Son earns his own spending money by working during the school year and summer. This includes his paying for his books, which he gets cheaply through on-line sites.</p>
<p>If he runs out of money, it’s his problem. </p>
<p>S is expected to pay for the things that I was responsible for when I was in college. It worked for me, and appears to be working well for S.</p>
<p>We are fairly generous w/ D. In addition to the college bill (tuition, room and board), we pay for her books, cell phone, bus trips home, hair care (an alarmingly expensive proposition for a black girl) and meds (asthma). We also supply her w/ sundries (toiletries, boxes of 100 calorie microwave popcorn, water bottles, etc.) whenever we drive to campus.</p>
<p>D uses the salary from her summer and work-study jobs for socializing (movies, pizza, zip car, vacation travel w/ friends), laundry and clothing. What do we do if she runs out of money - - nothing.</p>
<p>We have 2 sons in college. They both work full time during the summer and again during the long winter break. In our house, the deal is that they are responsible for buying their books, spending money, frat expenses (one joined this year), gas money (one has a car at school), and personal expenses. We pay for the cell phone bill (family plan with unlimited texts). We do send them back to school with some stuff–detergent, notebooks, printer paper, printer cartridges, and a first aid kit stocked with medicine. Once this stuff runs out, they buy their own. If a computer breaks or needs to be replaced, we’ll pay for it. We will not pay for any Spring break trips.</p>
<p>Second son will be living off campus next year. We’ll work out a plan with him where we will contribute the amount equal to the cost had he lived on campus. If he goes over that amount, he’ll have to pay for the extra. </p>
<p>I recommend having a discussion about finances with your child. Be upfront with what you will and will not pay for. We’ve also told our kids that they are responsible for their credit card bills and they must be paid in full. So far, they’ve done a very good job with this.</p>
<p>My son works in the summer. Most of what he earns goes towards his share of the family’s expected contribution to pay the college. What’s left, he carries over into the fall for spending money. He works part-time at the college (work study) and that is his only source of spending money. He lives in a dorm and is on the meal plan, so if he runs out of money he doesn’t starve or sleep on the sidewalk. We pay for his books, and two plane tickets (winter and summer breaks, but not spring break, thanksgiving, etc – too expensive!) His sports team had a winter training trip, and he worked an extra job to earn the money for that. He never buys clothes, but if he needs a new pair of shoes or the like (he can get about 2 years out of a pair of sneakers and a pair of jeans) we will buy them for him if it’s when he’s home for the summer. Haircuts, cell phone (he uses a cheapie pre-paid), going out for pizza… that’s all his responsibility.</p>
<p>We’re not so much trying to be tough. It’s just that we don’t have the money. He knows that. It was always like that for him growing up. It’s just what’s normal.</p>
<p>D is still in high school but she has a little part time job to pay for clothes, movies, dates, etc. It’ll be the same in college. We don’t have the $ to give her an allowance. She’s level headed so I don’t expect contant calls begging for $. If there is an emergency, we’ll give her more but an emergency only.</p>
<p>With our sons, we pay everything billed directly by the college (tuition & fees, health insurance, room & board, lab fees) and we reimburse them for money spent on text books (and art supplies for the design major) when they give us the receipts. We also provide three round trip air fares between our home in AZ and their schools in New England – for beginning/end of the school year, Christmas break, and spring break.</p>
<p>All other expenses are their responsibility: laundry, toiletries, clothing, movies, tickets for concerts and sports events, haircuts, etc. They pay for those from their summer earnings or from cash gifts received from their relatives for birthdays and Christmas.</p>
<p>When S1 decided he wanted to live off-campus in his senior year, we agreed to give him the equivalent of what we would have paid for room & board if he had stayed on-campus. He got an on-campus job to pay for the difference between what we gave him and the actual costs of renting an apartment. (His food costs are lower since he does his own cooking now, but the apartment costs more than a dorm room because he has to pay for utilities, cable, Internet.)</p>
<p>We pay for tuition, room & board, unversity fees, travel home,etc. S pays for books, spending $, extraneous travel & activities. Since we have a family cell phone plan, we pay his basic charges, but he reimburses us for any overage. He’s always been the kid who liked taking responsibility for himself, so he doesn’t complain about spending his own $ on those things.</p>
<p>We pay tuition fees, trips home, books and give him a sum of money equivalent to the cheapest meal plan. He pays for everything else. Though I admit we’ve paid for clothes, shoes and haircuts when he visits. He doesn’t have expensive tastes and only gets new things when the old ones are in rags.</p>
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<p>We view S’s athletic participation as his ‘job’ and his athletic and academic scholarships as his contribution to his education. We assume responsibility for the remainder of his cost of attendance expenses with an allocation of $30 per week for spending money (movies, going out to eat, concerts, etc.). When we visit, we bring any school supplies (printer paper, ink, etc.) and household items (soap, kleenex, t.p. etc.) that he may need. We will also pay for a reasonable amount of these types of items that he charges on his credit card. We will also pay for a reasonable amount of ‘needed’ new clothing each year. Anything construed as unreasonable or unnecessary is on ‘his nickel’.</p>
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<p>The full amount of spending money ($30/week) is deposited in his debit account at the beginning of the year and it is up to him to manage it. If he runs out, any additional funds have to come out of his savings account from monies earned during the summer or that he received as gifts at the holidays. Anything left carries over to the next year.</p>
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<p>Start talking to them about money when they are young and encourage them get a summer job as soon as they are old enough. Discuss interest rates on savings versus finance charges on spending. Discuss tax consequences on earnings, ie, discuss the concepts of pre-tax and after-tax dollars, discuss what goes into a family budget (food, real estate taxes, insurance, etc.) Specifically, give them an understanding of how fast money runs from the pocketbook.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the detailed answers! It is so helpful to hear how other parents deal with this issue.</p>
<p>My children were not able to make quite enough this summer to cover very much spending money for the year. One is very thrifty and has the opportunity to work up at school, the other is not and does not 
and we don’t really want to reward what, to some extent, seems like financial carelessness.</p>
<p>We can afford to give them a bit more money, but have believed that they should make their own spending money as that is what we both did in college. I know, however, that these are different times and that many of their friends at college are given an allowance each year, so it has been hard to tell if our expectations are appropriate or not.</p>
<p>In terms of summer earnings, we have told D that if she takes an unpaid career-related internship that prevents her from working, DH and I will give her $2000. So far, she has managed to squeeze internships into the first 6 weeks and to land a high paying job for the balance of the summer (earning more than $2K).</p>
<p>This is very helpful. We have told our now senior son that he will be responsible for his fun spending money while at school next year. We will pay for tuition, room, board, books, and travel to/from home. We will also take care of basic and reasonable amount of needed clothing and probably help with stocking up supplies (toiletries, printer ink) when visiting. His is fine with this and still has (a little) money left in his account from last summer’s job and hopes to work the same job again this summer, but it is uncertain whether that will work out. </p>
<p>My big worry is that, with the economy, finding a summer job, even part-time, may be very difficult! If he is unable - after a true good faith effort - to find a job that will allow him to earn enough for spending money, that is where I am stuck on what to do… I guess in that case, we will help out with a monthly allowance, but will keep it smallish so that he will have to do some real budgeting and make real choices. I suppose there is no point in worrying right now, just maintain our position and positive attitude and believe the job thing will work out.</p>
<p>Before DS started his senior year of HS, we sat down and put together a budget for his expenses during the school year. Gas, food, gym fees (he is an athlete), movies, clothes etc. Basically everything that goes into supporting him. We also put estimates for what those things would cost over a typical month.</p>
<p>We then divided those items into things we (the parents) would pay for and things he was expected to pay for. His allowance was set where he could cover the things on his list if he was careful and if he did a few odd jobs (as I recall $100 a month). We also got a credit card in his and my name and he was allowed to charge items on the card which fell into the “things mom and dad will pay for” category (e.g. college application fees).</p>
<p>Once he got ready for college, we moved even more items onto things he was responsible for - and increased his allowance somewhat. He did have to get a part-time job to supplement his allowance.</p>
<p>He gets his money twice a month by automatic transfer - one day after mom and dad’s paychecks auto deposit goes in. I am not a fan of the big lump sum at the beginning of the semester or once a month. If I get paid twice a month, so can he. It is easier on both of our cash flows.</p>