<p>curioser:
Well maybe it will help you a little bit to know there are lots of parents out there who have shut down the gravy train - you certainly will never hear that from your daughter! I think a few refusals and they get the idea, plus, look on the bright side, you'd be doing all her friends a favor too. :)</p>
<p>wolfpiper:
My kid is on a (1/2) merit scholarship, and no, that doesn't make me anymore generous with spending money. That is money in my pocket - not his. He has never even thought as far as I know.</p>
<p>S has 3 scholarships paying his way. We've told him that if he keeps his grades up and keeps his scholarships all then way through then his college savings fund will be his upon graduation to help start out his adult life.
We do send him an allowance each month but he knows thats it. If he incurs expenses above and beyond, it will have to come from his college fund which means that much less $ for his bank acct. when he graduates. I'm pretty sure this is why he has chosen to work a part-time job during the school year to make his own money for extra expenses and keep his savings fund intact for post-grad. spending.</p>
<p>Wolfpiper,
Our S is also on 1/2 tuition merit scholarship. Because he was awarded that, it enabled us to consider the U that we would otherwise not been able to afford. He is still paying for all his own expenses out of his earnings/savings. As it is, paying for the rest of his tuition, room & board, etc. is stil a LOT of $$ from our assets.</p>
<p>I agree that we do our kids no favors by encouraging to live beyond their means and expect that all they have to do is wish & $$$ will magically appear through no efforts on their part. OK, off my soapbox now. :)</p>
<p>To paraphrase Ving Rhames character from Pulp Fiction - It may be time to go medieval on his @##.</p>
<p>Never give your student your ATM card. Never give your student your ATM card. Never give your student your ATM card. Never give your student your ATM card. Never give......</p>
<p>Yep....and the 50 or so atm withdrawls for $2 a pop................</p>
<p>This was the daughter. Granted she lived in the city at a college without a food plan, she was buying art supplies at the only store the univ. would allow and she needed books for the semester. BUT HOLY COW!!</p>
<p>I just asked my frugal son how he was on cash (he has a meal plan, lives in dorm, no car, rural campus, no credit card, no ATM card). He took $100 (his) with him. He told me he has spent: $5 for shuttle driver, $20 for CD from visiting musicians, $24 for college sweatshirt. He says he has $41 left. That ought to hold until X-mas. I want to know what happend to that unaccounted for $10!!!
(BTW, the college suggested about $200/semester as a typical amount for spending money).</p>
<p>My D is still in high school. She worked last summer as a camp counselor, and used her earnings to buy a laptop. She got a job at a local market, and is using the money she earns to pay for the trip her a capella group is taking to Orlando in the spring, for an ajudication ($1700 - she's already raised almost half from various fundraising activites, but she's paying the rest out of pocket). Since she's been working, she doesn't ask us for money anymore.</p>
<p>Before S left for college, I opened a credit card in my name with a $3000 limit & gave him a card with his name on it. I told him it was for internet purchases, books, airline tickets, & things he cleared with me or I would deny the charges & say they were fraudulent. So far, he's charged less than $400 on it--the student activity card & books.<br>
When we went off to college, our dad gave each of us a credit card as well, to be used for emergencies. Mine was never used & I don't believe any of my sibs used theirs either.
I suspect S is still using the cash he got for his years of birthdays (that he never spent) & hasn't even dipped into any other funds yet. He never speaks of $$$, doesn't ask us for any, so we never quiz him about it. He has a safe in his room & I suggested he keep his excess cash, credit card, passport, & other things he doesn't want disappearing in the safe.
While we & he know that he's pretty careful with our money, he's even more careful with his own money. If we want him to have things, we have to purchase it or risk that he'll decide to do without. That's why we said we'd buy the books & student activities card. We WANT him to enjoy the sports & school activities without doing a cost/benefit analysis; we feel it's part of the college experience. Similarly, we WANT him to have texts for college rather than weighing whether he can limp along without the books (tho he did shop around & find the best prices he could on the texts).</p>
<p>yep...momentary insanity. We had talked it out and I believed she had a complete understanding of the rules. The real problem was she was living on a campus with no dining plan so she had to eat in the city. She also needed immediate cash to buy art supplies when they were needed. There were also some book purchases at the beginning of the semester. So I figured this would work....I mean how much could it be...right. Wrong. I really didn't know what these things were going to cost either...of course I had a ballpark figure in mind. She was just at Shea stadium and I was on the little league field. Major error on my part and many errors or hers. She is now commuting:)</p>
<p>My son would think he had died and gone to heaven if he was in a big city and could eat on my $. His first stop would be Barnes & Noble to pick up the Michelin Restaurant guide. Ha. </p>
<p>Live and learn. Never a dull moment with these kids.</p>
<p>Oh My Goodness, Sax :eek: that must have been a rude awakening when you opened that statement of course if my D had done that, the debit attempts would have bounced :p</p>
<p>Wow! I can easily seeing books at $500, but wow! Maybe she can sell the art she created with all those supplies and reimburse you????</p>
<p>No, actually, I'm pretty much on the hook if my S decides to blow thru our joint credit card, like your kid decided to do with your ATM card. I think you showed you trusted your child & had confidence that she would follow the agreement that you mutually reached. Having apparently unlimited $$$ is a heady thing for kids & its tough to predict how they will handle it.</p>
<p>We had oldest son use his earned money from summer job for spending money at college this fall. It’s gone. Oh well.</p>
<p>I had a hard time talking my younger son into applying to private colleges (he still is lukewarm on the idea) because he’s attended private school for 5 years. Most, no all kids at his school get their own cars. This is a school where the parking lot is filled with late model luxury cars- BMW, Mercedes, you name it. Anyway, he thinks that private college will be like his private high school, where he is considered “poor”, or at least thinks he is (we are so far from poor it isn’t funny). I’m trying to convince him that it’s different in college. Or is it?</p>
<p>Himom The sad part is that I think she thought she was doing a pretty good job. Anyway I now have a much greater appreciation of the need for remedial financial counseling....and yes. I did get my head examined:) Good luck with your journey with your son. Makes you want to check your card balance, doesn't it?</p>
Not all the time. Not for every kid. Each college will be different. Look for a mix of kids. Rich is fine. Poor is fine. Middle class and proud of it is fine. Social ladder climbing wannabee's -not so fine. </p>
<p>My D's school has a bunch of prep kids but they are mixing with a bunch of scholarship kids on a very community service oriented campus. I think that helps. It's kind of hard to miss the SLK's and Z4's though.</p>