<p>How do you get your children to curb their spending while at college? At first, he just wasn't paying attention...it was so easy to go with a friend to Target and blow $50 without really realizing it. We'd check his account online and then call and ask "What did you buy?" Sometimes he could remember, sometimes he seemed kind of iffy about it. Then he stopped doing that, but we would still see an occasional itunes charge or something "because it's just a CD" or "I only bought a sweatshirt."</p>
<p>His latest error is parking tickets. Last week: $50 for a campus parking ticket, plus $60 because they had already called the tow truck, although it hadn't arrived yet, so he didn't actually get towed. Then today he calls me to let me know campus security was towing his car. "I was only there 10 minutes. It's like they're looking for my car now." AAAAAHHHHHH! Another $110 total.</p>
<p>We've starting letting his account stay practically empty so he has to call us anytime he really needs anything. Anyone else have some suggestions?</p>
<p>I give D spending money (she’s in an apartment, so it’s instead of the meal plan $)…it gets deposited into her account at the beginning of the month, and it is hers to manage. We gave her money freshman year, because we didn’t want to her work…wanted her to focus on classes. She’s working this year (related to her major), and enjoys the extra money to buy clothes, etc. </p>
<p>I don’t watch how she’s spending the money.</p>
<p>^Agreed. We just deposited $ in her account. Hard copy bank statements came to the house, just so we could make sure she had money. Never made any comment on her expenditures. Now that she is graduated and really on her own, no bank statements come to the house.</p>
<p>One thing to watch out for–if he has a credit card, he might be tempted to overuse it once he blasts through the money in his account. A person can get into SERIOUS trouble with a credit card.</p>
<p>My D works in the summer, so the money she is spending is her own. She has always been thrifty, though. Does he need the car on campus? With $220 in fines and fees, my first thought would be no more car, but that may not be practical for you. He needs to have some sort of budget to work from, and when the money is gone, that’s it.</p>
<p>A student can easily earn enough money with a summer job or part time on-campus or near-campus job for spending money for non-school related items. One way to handle it is to simply not pay for any of these non-school related items like iTunes, CDs, restaurants, sweatshirts, and especially parking tickets (there’s no way I’d ever pay for those). If he’s paying for these things himself he might think twice before purchasing the item or parking where he shouldn’t.</p>
<p>I would give him fixed $ amount every month, and not worry about it. If he wants to spend all of his money on parking tickets, so be it. I wouldn’t give him a credit card.</p>
<p>Plenty of students (mine included) find that their focus on school IMPROVES when they are working part time. As time becomes more precious, it is used more wisely. (that goes for money as well)</p>
<p>Don’t give them any money. Let them earn their own spending money from summer jobs and on-campus jobs during the school year. 79% of the students at my daughter’s college had campus jobs.</p>
<p>You know your child best…so let that determine whether you provide the supplemental funds up front, monthly basis, or none at all. D1 had part-time campus jobs the first three yrs and was a chem tutor to a local high school student in yr #4. In addition to 2 summer research internships, D1 also worked on her breaks. D2 will work again this summer before returning to CMU. With both, I deposited what I considered “reasonable” for the whole yr. They both have credit cards, but always phone after using it…Mom does check online. ;)</p>
<p>Our son loves making his own spending money. He manages the decisions on how he spends it and that makes it easy on us. Yes, it does look good on the resume. He realized that while applying for internships.</p>
<p>We do not fund ANY discretionary spending (e.g. entertainment, clothes, eating out, books, trips, etc). The student earns the money for those things. To be honest, when my kids spend their own money instead of MINE, they tend to be much more careful about what they spend.</p>
<p>Re: credit…my kid has a $500 limit. And that is that.</p>
<p>We will NOT pay these bills and the kids know it.</p>
<p>So…if they want to spend a fortune while at school…they need to EARN a fortune. I really don’t have any idea how much either of my kids spends because they earn this money to spend.</p>
<p>D lives in a dorm and has all meals paid for. We give her $100 allowance on the first day of the month, and that is it, other than for the cost of books, photocopies and laundry. She works in the summer for extra cash, and got a part-time job on campus for extra spending money. </p>
<p>I think if you make your kid ask for money before they spend it, they will spend a lot less.</p>
<p>Who’s paying for the car? I give my daughter an allowance – and my son also got one as an undergraduate – but neither of them ever had a car on campus.</p>
<p>With all due respect, as long as you’re financially covering for his mistakes, it’s Not. His. Error.</p>
<p>My suggestion might be to let your son know that he is absolutely expected to make mistakes in his life. And he is absolutely expected to pay for them as well. And the rest is up to him.</p>
<p>We would absolutely NOT pay for parking tickets (or speeding tickets or anything else like that). Those are AVOIDABLE costs…student should learn to avoid making those mistakes.</p>
<p>“So…if they want to spend a fortune while at school…they need to EARN a fortune. I really don’t have any idea how much either of my kids spends because they earn this money to spend.”</p>
<p>There are so many benefits to this:</p>
<ul>
<li>They have an incentive to get a good job if they want to be able to buy stuff</li>
<li>They understand the relationship between the work that they do in school and why it matters when they get into the work force</li>
<li>They are forced to make decisions more closely to how adults have to make decisions</li>
<li>They have a better though nowhere near perfect understanding of the effort that it took to raise them</li>
</ul>
<p>My son told me about something that happened in one of his social sciences classes yesterday. The professor asked a bunch of questions and he answered the first four or five of them. She then said that she knows that he knows the answers to them but he should give others a chance. So she asks the next question. Utter silence. He answers it about a half-minute later. He read the entire textbook before the course started but he reads the assigned readings before class. He said that all you have to do is the assigned reading and you’ll be able to answer the questions in class easily. Students are supposed to do the assigned reading and read a certain newspaper for current events related to the course. It appears that most students aren’t bothering to do the reading. They do write the papers, do the presentations, etc. as that’s a really visible part of the job. I can imagine how the professor feels with a class of students that’s just trying to skate on through. This is considered an easy course for the science and engineering students.</p>
<p>I spent a good amount of money freshman year when I was going through what I had saved up from graduation and from working during the summer. It worked well but it was hard to control at times, which could be dangerous financially–found that I went overdraft a bunch of times.</p>
<p>Now I have a part time job on campus and absolutely love it (I’m at work right now, waiting for my next student to get here). I tutor for our athletic department. It’s a pretty cushy job and I get to set my own schedule. I’d definitely encourage your kid to get a part time job that’s flexible for students. That way he can manage his own spending money and you can take care of the essentials you’re satisfied paying for. It works for my family.</p>
<p>I also find that I’ve gone overdraft far fewer times this year even though I actually had more money last year; I’m not sure why this is…perhaps I’m spending less (I’m a lot busier!) or maybe I’m just more prudent, but either way I definitely am a fan of part time jobs. </p>
<p>Another thing that worked for me for awhile was to just use cash. I have both an ATM card and a debit card, so I left my debit card in my car (for the most part, any “emergencies” that I would get in involved my car to some capacity) and used my ATM card to withdraw cash. That way I could budget for the week/2 weeks/month whatever and knew at a glance how much money I had left. It also made paying for meals out and stuff like that easier and I liked always knowing how much money was left in my checking account. Just a thought!</p>