<p>I am not kaysmom, but my D brought some of these nifty little things to her precollege program and they work really well! You just peel a backing off each side and affix them to the poster (or whatever) and then to the wall. They peel off easily when you are through. We got a whole big bunch of 'em for not much money at our local Walgreens, in the stationery area.</p>
<p>Has anyone mentioned throat lozenges, especially the vitamin C ones? I have heard that those are especially good for keeping your voice healthy.</p>
<p>OK, anyone care to touch this one? How much CASH does an MT student need to take to college? Not for essentials like books, clothes or equipment. Just what my parents used to call "knocking around money." A student living in a dorm with a full meal plan, no car. I realize this is EXTREMELY subjective, but I'm curious as to what the average might be. (We have a negotiation going on in our household alongside which the United Auto Workers contract talks would pale.)</p>
<p>If you do a search in the Parent Forum and in the Parent Cafe, this topic comes up a lot every year on CC. A MT student doesn't need a different amount than any college student. But there is a wide variation in the amount college kids have for spending money, whether their parents contribute to that or not, and there is also the variable of location of the school. A student going to college in NYC, for example, might find they need more spending money than a kid in Berea, OH, Ithaca, NY, or Santa Fe, NM. If YOU, as a parent are giving your child spending money in college and your child feels it is not enough, he/she can earn money in summers, or while in school (IF that fits in) to supplement it if he/she wants more. Again, if you do a search, you will find a wide variety of answers given the variations I just mentioned. Interesting discussions, however.</p>
<p>mdt48302,</p>
<p>We have settled our "negotiations" with our S, who is in the exact same situation as your child: on campus, full meal plan, no car. I was willing to give him $50 per week which seems to be more than enough considering how little time he'll have to spend it ($2000 for the school year), but he wanted $75 per week ($3000 for the school year), so we decided that he would have to contribute the extra $1000 he wanted. He worked this summer and used graduation money to reach his $1000 goal. </p>
<p>I'm glad that you raised this question, because I am very curious where other parents stand on this issue.</p>
<p>Great question! I will be interested in seeing what people have decided, even though my kid is only a rising HS senior. (Incidentally, I had the very same question about how much spending $$ most kids take to the CMU precollege program for 6 weeks and -- wow! -- did the answers vary. Some parents reported that their kids spent less than $300 in six weeks, whereas others' kids spent in excess of $600, and this was with a full meal plan and for only a six week period. I should note, however, that the responding parents had girl children who presumably enjoyed shopping in their spare time. :))</p>
<p>This has been on my mind quite a bit lately as my d will begin college this fall. She is working this summer and whatever she makes will be her spending money for the year. She is a hostess/singer at Macaroni Grill and she hasn't been able to get lot of shifts because she has been working around her production schedule. She also has to pay for her own clothes, entertainment and gas (driving back and forth to New Orleans for rehearsals/shows adds up fast). This has been hard for her and she hasn't been able to save as much money as she would like, but she has learned to organize carpools, pick up extra shifts (when she would rather be sleeping), shop at Wal Mart instead of American Eagle and cut out the Starbucks and Bubble Tea. All that said, and I haven't told her this yet, but I will probably help her out with her spending money for next year if she doesn't reach her goal of 2,000 for the year.</p>
<p>I've been giving this some thought too. My daughter will be going to UArts and living in center city Phila. There is no meal plan so she will be buying food to prepare her own meals (the dorms have kitchenettes in each room). I'm estimating $70 - $85/week for food shopping (7 breakfasts, 7 dinners and 2 lunches) and $50/week for food court lunches and snacks between classes. For fun and frolic, $40/week should cover a movie, student rush tickets to shows, a meal etc. Still thinking it through but my perspective is that to the extent I can afford it, I want her "job" to be that of a full time student, particularly given the demands of MT. The good thing about her staying in Phila is that she can keep her weekend job with an entertainment company as a dancer and vocalist. She normally gets booked for 4 jobs or so a month on Friday nights and Saturdays. She'll use her pay from those jobs for anything else.</p>
<p>We pay for the needs; tuition, room, board, books, fees, clothing and transportation for trips home at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break. Our girls pay for their "wants." Our D who will be a sophomore at U Maryland opened a bank account in college park and deposited $2000.00. She had $211.00 in the account at the end of the year. This year she has budgeted $2800.00 because she's planning to go on a spring break trip. (She did not join a sorority and neither will MT daughter.)
MT daughter will have $2200.00 in her account for this coming year. She's planning to make a couple of extra trips home to visit friends attending schools here in the Boston area and she will have a car at school because she plans to take additional dance classes off campus. (We'll pay for the classes, insurance and parking pass, she'll pay for gas and probably some tickets!)
D at Maryland said that most of her friends were very loose w/their money and called parents when they ran out. Her friends parents kept sending the money and her friends did not change their spending habits. We told our D not to call for extra money. We feel that part of the college experience is learning to budget your money and watch what you spend. We have advised our kids NOT to fall into the trap of credit cards, which get MANY college students into trouble. If our girls want designer boots/clothing that we were not willing to buy in the fall and in February, they can figure it out. If they feel that they need these items to fit in with a certain crowd, they need to get a new crowd.
As soozieVT says, if your child goes to school in a NYC or Chicago, they'll probably need more spending money. The last time I was in NYC I spent over $100.00 just to get around and grab a sandwich etc. in three days!</p>
<p>We are trying to do the same thing - put our daughter on a fixed monthly budget for necessities and limited social activities and anything over the budget is on her. The tricky part for us is getting a handle on reasonable food costs because there is no meal plan and she will be responsible for food shopping and preparing her meals. Need to find a balance between the costs of supermarket shopping and the reality that she will need to buy prepared foods for many meals (particularly lunches) due to class scheduling and the time commitments of other MT related activities. I suspect that it will be a learning curve for us the first couple of months. Fortunately, she will be able to keep her job which ought to give her an additional $400 month and will add a important dimension to her learning prioritization and money management skills (including having the discipline to save and invest her money and not just spend it on fun, frolic and shopping).</p>
<p>Yes, it is a learning experience. Our D did very well in her first year at Syracuse. She had saved several thousand from her summer job, and used that money for personal expenses -- movies, Starbucks, occasional dinners out. She also got a job ushering at the Equity theater on campus -- that was a great job because she was able to sit and study during the shows! For unexpected expenses, we allowed her to get a credit card, with strict instructions to pay her bill in full at the end of each month. We did find that by the end of the year she was running out of cash -- but on the whole, the system worked out very well, and she's really learning to budget her money.</p>
<p>You parents are all so nice! My parents don't pay for my tuition, room/board, or books, and they don't give me a weekly/monthly college allowance, either. They pay for my cell phone (family plan) and car insurance, but that's it. And they'll send me a small reward when I get good grades or something like that.</p>
<p>Try not to judge your parents in comparison to what other parents may do. Each person's circumstances are different. Most parents do what ever they can within their means for their kids. I have several friends whose kids are going to school on loans, grants and what the students can earn at work study or other jobs. Doesn't mean the parents love them any less or are any less proud of their kid's accomplishments. It's also an incredible testimonial to your maturity and dedication towards your education that you are successfully pursuing college without the financial support some others have. My son's girlfriend is in the same situation as you and I know how tough it is for her at times. Keep persevering; it will pay off for you in the end!</p>
<p>Be<em>a</em>star:</p>
<p>I will be in the same boat as you in about a year. My parents always made sure that I knew that I would be paying my own way through college. Sometimes I do feel jealous of kids who are getting most or all of their college tuition paid for them, but I think that because I know that I will have to do it myself, the fact that I'm on my own makes me work that much harder in school in hopes of getting scholarships upon graduation. Also, I get to go wherever I want because I'm not restricted by any set amount of money, and it's my money, my choice. And my dad always jokes with me that if I drop out of school, I will be wasting my money and not his. Lol, but I doubt that this will ever be the case!</p>
<p>Don't get discouraged! Even though it may not seem like it, this experience will probably benefit you more than you could imagine.</p>
<p>MichaelNKat, The budgeting issue does become more sticky when you have to consider groceries. Many of my older siblings have told me that when their kids moved out of the dorm and stopped using the meal plan, it got trickier, but in many cases it was cheaper. My sister said that they started out by giving their daughter a 1/4th of their monthly food budget. They have a family of four and have a moderate income. They ended up giving her an extra $20.00 week because she could not shop in bulk or freeze as easily as her parents. The budget was for groceries only.
music_darling08: If you are going to be paying 100% of your college bill, I hope that you are doing a lot of homework on the subject. Unfortunately, the amount of financial aid that you receive will be based on your parents combined income unless you are declared an independent, which means different things in different states. Believe it or not, merit scholarships are also often tied to your PARENTS ABILITY to pay, in other words, their tax return. They don't care what your parents DEBT is, only their income. Lending institutions don't give loans to 18 year olds without a co-signer. Again, it's all about your parent's income, not what their principles are. Oh, and by the way, withdraw all of your savings before you fill out your financial aid forms. The more money you have when you apply for financial aid, the less aid you'll get. We have our girls give us the money and then my we pay down our mortgage with it. We then turn around and give them the cash just before they go off to school. We repeat this again in the spring. Good luck! If you do your homework well, it can be done. You sound very sharp and have a strong desire to succeed and that's half the battle.</p>
<p>When my kids opt not to use a meal plan, we give them the equivalent amount of money the meal plan would have cost us each semester or month and let them use that for food. I'm just talking about this separately from other monies they are given or have.</p>
<p>Sarahsmom42:</p>
<p>Thank you for all the advice!</p>
<p>JUst read through this entire thread about needs particular to MT students.</p>
<p>ELECTRONIC PIANO: At home, we only had an upright piano. S's personal experience was that it was essential, even for a B.A. with some interest in music. When he left h.s., he thought he'd be a theater + possible law-related major, but ended up double majoring in theater and music instead. He wrote a musical drama as his senior theater project. He took a songwriting course within in music major. So in his case, it was not only useful but transforming. If he'd gone to school with no piano, maybe he wouldn't have had enough chances on other pianos to develop into a double major with music. It also was his #1 stressbuster, just played daily to relax with headphones.</p>
<p>His had a stand, and it was important that it be a sturdy one. Roommate turned out to have an alcoholism problem and his friends fell on the instrument; son dived for it and caught it before it hit ground; moved out a week later (exceptionally terrible roommate). </p>
<p>The instrument we bought him was about 25% too large, we realized once we saw the tripled double. BUt he just smiled and said it was part of his life and there were no apologies; the other 2 fit in their TWO beer fridges around it. I'm saying this so you get the idea that you have to stand up for what you think is most important to you, just as they believed they couldn't live without their fridges. </p>
<p>LOFTED BEDS - I think the rolling out of bed injuries at UBuffalo might have been alcohol related, or at least there was some conjecture that way. </p>
<p>SOOZIEVT, CONGRATS on D's arrival home! </p>
<p>We're also choking in boxes from the dorms. We found the "stuff" sure built up, even though they tried to cool it and bring home some at each vacation, especially in senior year. I guess that's a disadvantage of summer storage; they never "divest." D newly graduated has all hers in her room. S, by 2 years after graduation, finally organized it all nicely in basement storage fire/water protected except for treasures; so now we have the room for visiting guests, including him around 2 times yearly. It might have a future as rental space to local college students, not sure. All the shelves are lined with his stuff, but no more clothes in there. The closets are full with his stuff, but we took his underbed drawers away and gave them to younger brother who hit adolescence. It's a gradual process. It still feels like his room, not sterile, but the fact is mostly now it's occupied by family visiting guests who read his books. </p>
<p>But here there's the D, just graduated last Spring. Yesterday I stood in her bedroom with boxes, half now unpacked and half still boxed. I realized that was ALL she owned in the entire world, while I had a house of stuff surrounding her bedroom, and I realized it was still not much in this material world. It was amazing to have it all put back into one girlie bedroom after 4 years away. She won't stay long, just the summer, but still it made me sentimental. I realized how much her life had expanded for college, but now it's compressed again as a graduate, until her next move. Like an accordian.</p>
<p>Can anyone tell me where to find a Personal Steamer. I am having a hard time finding one and my D wants one to take with her to school. Thanks</p>
<p>Vicks Personal Steam Inhaler may be purchased at most pharmacies
i.e. CVS where we bought ours.
(Also saw them at the supermarket pharmacy dept.)</p>