<p>This is new for us and we're thinking ahead to what budget to set for DD and wondering how some of you have handled it. She will be in San Diego so there will be plenty to do. (H and I attended in upper MI--there was beer drinking and a movie theater. Yup, that's it.) She'll have some earned money of her own, as well as what we may possibly provide above and beyond the necessities. </p>
<p>How do you suggest going about it? Do you tell them their budget for all four years, one year at a time, each semester? And how have you made it available to yours? Do you (parents) pay tuition, etc., directly or put it in their account and let them?</p>
<p>She's fairly responsible (I say now). :) She requested a clothing budget back in middle school that made life so much easier and she has a monthly budget while on exchange this year, albeit rather stretched the last few months. So she has learned to make choices. </p>
<p>And what's a reasonable amount for monthly extras? We're not the extravagant type. Even if she uses her own money, I'd like some idea of whether she's just blowing through it.</p>
<p>We pay tuition, dorm, meal plan, computer, and books. (Actually, they buy the books and we send them the money when we know how much it was.) They had a big shopping day for clothes before heading out to school and we made a rather big dent at BB&B to set up his room. They pay for their extra expenses, just like they would if they were home.</p>
<p>We pay the school directly, one semester at a time, for tuition and room/board – minus D’s work/study. For that piece of it, she gets paid twice a month and is then expected to trot her paycheck down to Student Accounts. </p>
<p>For books, students can have an account at the bookstore, pre-paid. So at the beginning of each semester, I call the bookstore for the balance and then give them my credit card to bring the balance up to about $500. D understands that this is for books and school supplies only. Actually, though, she’s been good about finding cut-rate books at amazon, so I may reduce the bookstore account to $300 next semester.</p>
<p>For the rest, she has an allowance of $150/month. This pays for personal expenses like toothpaste etc, for snacks, anything else that I consider discretionary. I just recently started giving her the whole thing on the first of the month; previously I’d been splitting it semi-monthly. She’s in a far-away state but her bank is nation-wide, so I just deposit a check into her account at my local branch.</p>
<p>We pay tuition, room and board directly to the school.</p>
<p>D has a credit card on our account (but with her name on it) that she can use for books, airplane tickets, and other things we want to pay for.</p>
<p>In her first year, we set a monthly allowance but paid it to her in two installments, at the beginning of each semester. We wrote a check for her to deposit in her local account, and it was up to her to decide how to spread it out over the semester. She is careful, so this was easy for her. After the first year, she had an on-campus job so she didn’t need any spending money from us.</p>
<p>$200 per month deposited into her checking account to pay for clothes, incidentals, beauty supplies, entertainment, non dorm food, etc. If she wants to, she can save it all and spend it on a big entertainment item.</p>
<p>When I was in college my dad paid for tuition/room&board/books/Travel home and I paid for everything else. My childhood savings account was my start and then after that I refilled my account from my summer job.</p>
<p>My S is a senior in HS but what I was thinking was that we would get him a card on one of our credit card accounts and allow him to use that for textbooks and any other expenses that we agree to cover (that way he can easily use it on Amazon.com or wherever he ends up getting the books). I think that his money in the bank plus his small summer job income will end up being his spending money. Depending where he goes to school and if he has access to work study, that might be allowed to at least partially go toward his miscellaneous expenses. If we want to give him extra toward his living expenses on top of that, I would deposit it monthly into his bank account.</p>
<p>This question comes up a lot and it usually gets split into the: “we don’t want our precious babies to work, we want them to focus on their education” group versus the “I walked uphill in the snow both ways and durn it, my kids will do it too unlike your lazy, pampered children” group. </p>
<p>Almost every parent I know pays the school directly for tuition and room and board. As for extras, I think the best approach is really to use your own judgement. She’ll need to do laundry, occasionally go out to eat, go to the movies, some shopping for special occasions or school supplies and so on. It’s up to you whether you think it’s a good idea to pay for your kids’ books or not (I think most do, but some do not). You may feel comfortable giving a small amount month to month and then kicking in a little extra if she needs it for a big expense like a trip, an interview, anything out of the ordinary. </p>
<p>If they’re going to be flying to and from school, I strongly recommend giving them a credit card of their own or putting them on your credit card. If their Christmas break flight gets cancelled due to snow, they will be grateful to have a credit card to get a hotel room, cab, etc.</p>
<p>We pay for everything,excluding discretionary funds…we asked her for her atm/ debit card,and opened another account,which we move funds into,on a as needed basis…prevents her from blowing thru her money…</p>
<p>We pay our kids enough for them to pay their rent plus as much as the lowest meal plan (it’s not included as they live in apartments). They can use it as they will and tend to have extra money at the end of the term, as they are able to eat quite well on less than that amount. They also use the money to do whatever else they want. If they want more, they have money in their savings accounts (which neither have touched–S graduated from college and D is a junior).</p>
<p>We will follow a routine similar to ellemenope. It is our plan at this point to deposit about $200-$250 a month into D’s checking account to misc expenses. She has earned a good bit of Merit Aid Scholarships, so in our minds it’s a bargain. We do expect her to commit at least 8 hours of her week to volunteering, hopefully in a field she enjoys and will help in her future post graduate studies.</p>
<p>^I think that’s a really interesting approach. I’ve never heard of parents essentially paying their kids to volunteer in lieu of having another job. I think that’s great. </p>
<p>I did think of one other way to help get a sense of budget. On most college websites, there’s a student job listings section, and it should say how much each job pays. Assuming kids work 8-10 hours a week, times four weeks a month, that gives you a sense of how much they’d be getting if they had an on campus job or workstudy. It can kind of give you a benchmark of how much the school seems to think is reasonable to pay, and then whether you want to match that, or do less, or do more, is up to your own judgement. And of course, it’s completely up to your judgement whether you give your kids anything at all.</p>
<p>If you’ve read through past threads on this topic, you wouldn’t consider $200 so generous! There are some seriously generous parents out there. LOL</p>
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<p>Maybe we should…she is much more expensive in person. </p>
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<p>We wish! But my brother and my sister have been known to drop a nice chunk of money on them on occasion…they don’t have kids. May everyone have such generous relatives!</p>
<p>We had the same system for both her and her sister. Both have turned out to be good stewards of their own money. What with her on campus and summer jobs, her sister actually left college with a nice cushion in her bank account to start her after college life. It works for us.</p>
<p>Our sons currently have money coming in each fall from a whole series of savings bonds that their g-grandmother had. That covers a lot of their misc expenses. But, starting next year, since DH and I will likely be out of the country, I will probably start putting about $200 into their accounts each month. </p>
<p>At this point, I don’t want DS#1 to work. Between his classes and the major time commitment for the band - he’s maxed out. DS#2 (currently a HS senior) wants to get a job at college, but I don’t want him to do it his first year.</p>
<p>I agree with SmithieandProud that these threads show two different mindsets when it comes to this question–give kids a monthly stipend or letting kids be in charge of making their own money with jobs and savings. You choose–there is no one way that all adhere to…</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your comments and specifically for sharing budgets and approaches to determining them. It helps to hear from people that have “been there, done that” in both camps. My divorced parents were not able to help me at all so in addition to FA and loans, I worked school year and summers and went through every penny I earned out of necessity. Ate a lot of potatoes sr. yr. as the money was running out. And as I said, there weren’t many options to spend money on anyway. I would not be opposed to D doing the same (minus the potatoes). However, in our case, the money is there. We’re just trying to consider how to balance our generosity with her responsibility.</p>
<p>Smithie: We do want our precious baby to walk uphill in the snow both ways but, dad gummit, it don’t snow in San Diego. :)</p>
<p>And ellemenope, I agree, they’re cheaper away from home! At least some daughters. She has definitely cost less out of the country. Bonus: we save on car insurance.</p>
<p>D already has our credit card for emergencies but, thankfully, hasn’t had to use it. So I believe she’ll respect defined uses like books or the occasional special event. We hope she’ll have her old job back for the summer when she returns. She was surprised that we expect her to work but it was more out of ignorance than a sense of entitlement. Between catching up and preparing to leave again, I’m sure she thought there’d be no time to work.
Thanks again. Additional thoughts and comments appreciated.</p>
<p>We gave D1 $200 per month on top of paying for everything related to her schooling, as long as she worked minimum 10 hours per week. It was important for her work while in school in order to get summer internships and a permanent job later on. I wanted to make sure she had something to put on her resume.</p>
<p>D1 moved off campus after freshman year. We paid for the same amount for room and board as she would have lived on campus.</p>
<p>My D (a freshman) had a summer job last summer that provided all of her spending money for the year. She has to budget carefully, and grandma sends her an occasional cash gifts, but I think it’s been a great learning experience. I think she has budgeted about $200 a month. She also has a credit card (our account in her name) to use for emergencies.</p>
<p>$8.50/hour (the average wage at my college) * 8 hours/week = $68/week or $272/month.</p>
<p>My parents pay for tuition, room, board, and books (and travel, but I live 40 minutes away, so that’s negligible and probably cheaper now that I’m not going 30 minutes each way to music lessons every week). I currently work 9 hours a week on campus–7 hours of which I can do my homework–and have more than enough money for personal expenses. Admittedly my college has a pretty cheap social life, since all on-campus events are free and the surrounding town is lackluster; going into the city is expensive but also hassling.</p>