<p>There was an interesting thread about how much students weekly/monthly budget would be. It seemed to be students in NY so I thought for anywhere else it would be very high...some had a budget of $100 or more a week.
What is the amount you are offering your student as pocket money to cover anything like meals out...supplies...etc. I am thinking of $40 a week. Does that sound reasonable...? D will be in SC....</p>
<p>Sue,
It really depends on what is included in this number.
Does the mid-day latte come from meal plan points or cash?
Is there local public transportation which requires fares to get around the city?
Does the meal plan have restrictive hours? Are there cooking facilities for inconvenient meal times?
Will they come home, or you visit, to make Costco or Target runs?</p>
<p>Though the amount varied with each of our three, we did dole out the money monthly by automatic transfer on the date of their birthday.
It seemed to work out easier when they moved off campus; we calculated the dorm and meal plan costs at the highest option and divided by 10. That was our contribution for them to manage along with any summer earnings. This covered rent, food, toiletries and household supplies. Books and travel to home were reimbursed separately.</p>
<p>There are umpteen threads about college expenses. I don’t know how to link you to those, but you can do a search.</p>
<p>Here is my answer (posted on all those other threads). I have NO IDEA how much my kids spent for “pocket money”. I didn’t give them a nickel. They earned it all…and spent whatever. We paid room/board/tuition and travel home. Kids were responsible for earning whatever discretionary money they wanted to spend…including money for clothes, books, fun travel, entertainment, eating out, etc. To be honest, they are much more careful how they spend money THEY earn than money WE give them. Having them earn discretionary money put the responsibility on them. It’s not unreasonable for a student to work 5-10 hours a week. </p>
<p>Of course, this is a family decision and others do give their kids an “allowance” as college students. We didn’t and don’t.</p>
<p>^^ Same approach as thumper - room, board, tuition, travel home (at breaks, not in-between) - although we do pay for textbooks. And we bought each of the older two a new winter coat recently. Everything else comes out of their pockets. </p>
<p>I certainly agree that it’s a family decision, and I’d also note my kids are not at a school where genuine transportation needs (during school) might factor in.</p>
<p>It is school/kid specific. Some need more than others. We do give ours an allowance.
He has been in summer sch. all summer and all job possibilities in his college town have hit a dead end. On campus jobs dried up due to budget cuts this summer. Keeping fingers crossed for more jobs in Fall sem.</p>
<p>He lives off campus so the allowance has to cover everything that entails…food,gas, toiletries,lightbulbs,paper towels, washing powder…everything it takes to live in a house. He’s a big guy (former football lineman) who likes to eat. He is not close to home so no big Target trips where I buy all his stuff.</p>
<p>We give him $300/month which is less than what we were paying for his meal plan when he lived on campus. He budgets it pretty well,knowing that there will not be more if he spends it carelessly. Also he goes to a very reasonably priced instate public( just got Fall tuition bill $2,238.00). Things might be different if he were at a pricier school.</p>
<p>We DO pay for food for our kids. Just not “pocket money” which I thought meant more discretionary spending (you know…eating out, entertainment, spring break trips, trips to the mall, Starbucks, etc). I thought the OP was inquiring about pocket money, not money for room or board (food).</p>
<p>Right. “Board” = food expenses, and “Room” covers dorm in our case, but as PackMom says, it’s basically “everything it takes to live in a house,” since lightbulbs, toilet paper, hand soap, etc. are certainly factored into what a school charges for dorm living.</p>
<p>We only pay for what the school bills (tuition/fees/room/board), D1 takes care of books and her discretionary spending. Last year, as a freshman, she spent less than $1000/semester on those things. Considering books were about $400-$500 of that, she didn’t spend much on extras.</p>
<p>S was on a fixed meal plan. We paid for tuition, room and board (no choice!), textbooks and clothing (otherwise he would not have any), at least for the first year, and gave him $100 per month allowance which he said was plenty. It was used for late runs to the pizza place, occasional movies or restaurant outings. There was plenty of entertainment on campus that was either free or cost less than $10.
Beginning in the second year, he earned money, so he paid for his own textbooks, outings, entertainment and other incidentals (I still had to buy clothes and shoes otherwise he would not have any).</p>
<p>We told our daughter that tuition, room, board and transportation to/from school was our contribution. The rest is on her; we plan to give her no ‘pocket money’ at all.</p>
<p>If all she has is $500 to spend for the year, then that’s all she has. If she works and saves more, she’ll have more. </p>
<p>If she has to decline a late-night pizza run because she has no $$, she’s learning that better budgeting might have made it possible…or that she needs to work more next summer so she’ll have a bigger budget.</p>
<p>We gave our son $100/month for “pocket” money (Cal Poly SLO) the first year. That worked out perfect. BUT we told him that after the first year, HE pays for his “pocket” money and gas (taking his car up this year-sophmore yr). Will be interesting as his job has cut back his hours dramatically this summer. He plans to get a job on campus for 8-10 hours a week next year.</p>
<p>We go the Thumper Method: pay the school bills and then divide up the comparable dorm room & board cost monthly to deposit into his account for off-campus housing expenses. Everything else is on his nickel. This summer S1 took an entrepreneurial approach to employment and subsequently has just about zero for spending money this coming year. He has an on-campus job for this next school year and is also taking out an unsubsidized Stafford loan (first one, rising junior) to cover his expenses for the year. At least he has a plan to pay the interest as he goes. And hopefully next summer he will have a more successful plan for earning $$$.</p>
<p>This is a stuggle we are having as well. Our D is going into first year in Sept in the USA and being from Canada means that by law she cannot work off campus so she has to count on campus work if possible. She has known she was headed State side for the past 2 years so she has been working every summer since and has put all of her money in the bank. We had an agreement that as long as she was living at home we would pay her expenses. Because of the high cost of US tuitions we now agree that we are paying College expenses but she is responsible for all other costs. She does own a car only because it is a 2 hour car ride home ($30) versus a 20 hour bus ride ($210) and we have agreed that we will pay for the gas when coming home for breaks or emergencies. Any other car expenses are hers. We know she is very frugal and my biggest concern now though is that she will not take part in some of the social sides of College life because she is afraid of the money part. We really hope she can get some part time job on Campus.</p>
<p>percussiondad:</p>
<p>Have you factored in car insurance for your D? In our state, insurance for under 25 is very high, higher than $210 bus fare. Then there is parking, maintenance, etc…</p>
<p>Marite
She has her car through a Canadian insurance company since technically her permanent address is still in Canada. Already verified all of that with the State DMV and troopers to make sure. Her car insurance costs are about $600 a year with full coverage. That is a good point though because we had to calculate the number of times she would be coming home and the cost if we went to get her or if she took the bus and was it worth the expense of car insurance. Either way it works out that she will need to be careful with money</p>
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<p>Also, are you the kind who would send your kid off with enough shampoo (etc) for the year, or expect the kid to go buy shampoo and other personal toiletries throughout? Personally, I’m the kind that would rather send my kid off with enough personal toiletries to last the year because I can look for sales where I am and buy in bulk, versus having them run to a drug store and pay higher prices.</p>
<p>My kids bought their own toiletries…primarily because my daughter preferred “salon” hair products (and a lot of them) which I was NOT willing to finance. And I would have purchased bar soap, not body wash.</p>
<p>Our son has a part-time job tutoring during the school year. We pay for tuition, housing and textbooks. He is welcome to take any food from home and my wife will cook him stuff if he asks for it. He is generally able to pay his own way with the money from his part-time job. He does have a debit card to our checking account and has a checkbook so he has access to our cash if he needs it. He’s going to make $4,000 this summer so we may need to give him his own checking account so that we don’t lose track of what is his.</p>
<p>I usually recommend that first-semester freshman not work the first semester because of the adjustment period but after that, I think that an on-campus part-time job teaches them a lot about money management that can’t be taught with an allowance.</p>
<p>In addition to money management…a part time job also forces the student to do some TIME management. My kids both had better grades during terms when they worked, and they both remarked that they didn’t find themselves wasting as much time when they had a job.</p>
<p>I’m really glad I found this thread. It makes me feel much better about being in the “pay for tuition/room/board/books/transportation” group.</p>
<p>It seems that all the people I know around here give there kids so much spending money! Call me crazy, but I really do think I’m better serving my kids by NOT paying for extra meals off campus, manicures (for the daughter), off-campus entertainment, or any other little thing they want to purchase. I try to send them off with a decent amount of items to fill the “everyday” needs, and I’ll buy them more if they remember to ask when they are home. I think they can manage to pick-up a bottle of shampoo if they run out. Clothes are sort of handled on a case by case basis…sometimes I pay, sometimes they pay.</p>
<p>The funny thing is, neither of my kids have had any real long-term paying jobs. They have, however, managed to put together bank accounts from money gifts they received all these years from friends and family. When they were little (and had no choice) I put all of the cash in accounts for them. Once they were older (and wiser?), I convinced them that at least part of the money they got as gifts should be saved…they both have pretty decent accounts now, and they both use those accounts for discretionary spending. (The sophomore daughter now has a job on campus this year, and the freshman son is hopefully getting a work-study job at his school - hopefully the save some/spend some philosophy will carry over.)</p>
<p>I am definitely in the minority about not supplying an allowance or any spending money for my college age kids though - Most people I know seem to have no problem paying for all sorts of what I consider more “luxury” items (meals not on the food plan, movies, concert tickets, etc.) Maybe they just have a lot more discretionary income than I do! Usually in talking to them I feel like the mean, cheap parent who won’t spring for the extra stuff for my kids - I’m happy to see so many people here are on the same page!! (Sometimes we all need a little reassurance, know what I mean?) Any I’m definitely NOT saying it’s bad if you do give your college kids an allowance or pay for extra stuff - It’s just definitely not what’s right for us. To each his own.</p>