<p>I haven’t read through all the replies yet, so I don’t know if this point has been made. Maybe the more relevant question is not whether you are indulging the kid, but instilling good values ? I think if your kid appears to take care of his money responsibly and have a good work ethic, than you are doing the right thing. It’s not bad to be able to indulge the kids if it does not spoil them.</p>
<p>We paid for everything for our son’s first year. We also bought him a laptop. We had bought him one the summer before but his sister swiped it. He’s a CS major and needed something to run Unix on. I had purchased a cheap desktop for him but then bought him a high-end notebook and took the desktop home for my wife. I picked up a high-end notebook shortly thereafter. If his notebook fails, I’d just give him mine while I got his repaired (it would probably take a week to repair and he can’t really be without a system for that long). I have two backup laptops if he needs to take mine.</p>
<p>Son is joint on us in our checking account used for small expenses. There’s typically five figures in it and he could drain the whole thing if he wanted to. He’s never touched the account. He has a job this year so he pays for a lot of stuff this year that we paid for last year.</p>
<p>Do I think that you are indulging your son? No. But I would hope that he understands where the money comes from, your household budget and what to expect when he graduates. As in: average salaries are this, you’d have to spend this, this and this and you’d have this leftover.</p>
<p>I used to work in a corporate support group and asked my manager how she managed our phone bills as there was an employee in the group that made a lot of personal long distance calls. She told me that she didn’t have a problem as long as the monthly bill was under a certain amount (I think that it was $5K).</p>
<p>So maybe an accounting of the $300/month and it’s up to you on the trip.</p>
<p>I think that it is a good idea to start weaning them from you as they get older and farther along in college so that by the time they are out and working, it isn’t such a shock. If you want to indulge this year, do so, but let him know that the money is going to be waning, and then slowly start pulling back. You know that kids on fin aid are expected to pay a larger share of the costs each year.</p>
<p>^ I agree with cpt. Though it was never spelled out, in my family kids take on more financial responsibility throughout the college years.</p>
<p>I think it is very natural for parents to be more indulgent that first year. It is often the first time the kid away from home for an extended time period and it is a significant break, milestone. So, of course, we want to give them as much as we can. Even families that are hard pressed for funds tend to go overboard that first year. As time goes by, other things take the financial spotlight and the college kid’s needs start becoming less urgent. The feelings that the OP is now feeling in twinges start getting stronger, and a natural separation process begins. My son is now 25 and just this year he finally went off of our family cell plan. It just made sense for him to stay on it as the cost was better. He is now out of our house which means he is covering a lot of things that we covered when he was living here with us. It was very difficult not indulging and not helping when he was right under our noses. Big difference now that he is hours away. It isn’t really just a matter of indulgence. And as corranged says, it was never spelled out. It just happened.</p>
<p>I am going to sound like a bigger meanie than I am:</p>
<p>Our daughter pays for her own cell phone usage through the pay as you go system. She is expected to buy her own books and provide her own spending money. She is on a food plan. I think some kids, maybe mine too, don’t learn how to tell the difference between a “need” and a “want” until it comes out of their own pocket. She has a math and science heavy work load, a sport, and works 7 hours a week. She rarely heads into town and socializes on campus. I think she is depositing most of her paychecks.</p>
<p>We pay for flights home, full freight tuition/room and board. If she wants to do spring break with us, I’ll pay. But no way am I going to pay for her to traipse around. I might throw a couple hundred in if she wants to backpack in the mountains.</p>
<p>Lots of travel seems like it “would be a good experience”. She has traveled with us a lot. I don’t figure any of these experiences are a last chance. She can go places in the future, either on study abroad or with family or on her money. Lack of these good experiences would hardly make her deprived. Sometimes a good experience is to not keep up with the Jones. WE have money but we didn’t always. We aren’t doing her any favors if she thinks she will be stepping into our lifestyle at age 23. And our lifestyle is really pretty cheap: Kids don’t have cars, expensive clothes, and my husband primarily wears t shirts he got for free at conventions. </p>
<p>Help your son find the grocery store in his town. He can buy a lot of bread, fruit, juice and deli meats for $300 dollars. That plus his meal plan points should be plenty. Dining out constantly is an expensive habit to break. </p>
<p>What do the middle class and poor athletes do about getting enough food?</p>
<p>Good luck thinking through your system with him. It’s hard to think this through ahead of time because these things can’t be anticipated.</p>
<p>I tend to think working either volunteer or for pay should be required for all students.
It is a good way to meet people on campus, it helps you structure your time and not only could you earn money to contribute to your own expenses, but you can also make contacts that will be helpful for future internships/jobs.</p>
<p>in the case of the cell phone- has he tried looking on ebay for a replacement?
Taking responsibility for some of his own needs- while he has most of them covered by others, is a lot easier to handle than trying to juggle work, paying bills, managing ins/health care, food and housing without much experience doing so.</p>
<p>I’m sure many of his college friends also have parents who don’t realize the harm they are doing to their kids, by supplying their wants unquestioned.
But are all their parents really that well off, that they can do so, or are they just in a group where to admit you can’t afford to do something, means you are out of the group.</p>
<p>If Dartmouth is a declining balance dining account, I would encourage your son to purchase some bulk bags of cereal/oatmeal and milk and eat a very cheap breakfast each day. Leave the big money for lunch and dinner! Cereal and milk is cheap and packs enough calories if eaten in enough quantity.<br>
I’m part of the the frugal crowd and my kids knew from the get-go that the bank of Mom and Dad would pay for tuition,fees, basic R&B, and basic cell-phone (only because it’s a family plan.) DD is now graduated and living abroad on a travel grant she earned, using a 5+ year-old apple i-book. DS got an ibook for high-school graduation, and I will not be purchasing any more computers for him. If it dies, he can buy a new one or use one of the HUNDREDS of computers available for general use all over campus. He worked this summer to pay for his summer earning contribution (he gave me the amount his university said was his contribution minus the amount they budget for books, since he buys those himself) and he works work-study during the school year to pay for his other expenses. I am PROUD of how my DS who, as a little kid, would spend every penny as soon as he got it, has learned through the years to live cheaply. If I had a ton-load of money I would still do the same thing. It is important for kids to understand how to enjoy life on little money!
My daughter is the queen of free travel, having found numerous opportunities to visit/work/study in such places as China, Armenia, Turkey, Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile (well, we paid our usual EFC for that one - but it didn’t cost us a cent more than her attending her college.) Would she have looked for or found these opportunities if we had handed her $ to go wherever she liked? I really don’t think so. A little deprivation is GOOD for kids, and gives them motivation and a better sense of how really privileged and lucky they are in this world, and a sense of gratitude for all they have already received :)</p>
<p>We pay for tuition, room & board. That’s it. Working in the summer and during the school year should provide sufficient funds for books and entertainment.</p>
<p>I don’t think the $300/month is excessive especially if it’s for food. I also pay for cell phone and new laptop for my daughter. I spefically told D not to work the first year until she shows to me that she can handle herself academically. However, I would not pay for Spring break vacation. Hey, I need to draw the line somewhere. I also made it clear that the economy is bad and we need to economize whenever we can, not because we have to but because we want to.</p>
<p>$300 a month is a lot of extra spending money! </p>
<p>“Mafool bring up another point. He will most probably be doing unpaid internships/service projects/foreign study most summers/off terms.” - why are they unpaid??</p>
<p>
Research shows that a small amount of work (10-15 hours) is actually linked with better academic performance. Sort of helps kids plan their time better.
Agreed! 
I think 0$ is a better amount…</p>
<p>My kid has worked all three years in school while also having paid research grants. Working is an excellent way of learning how to budget your time and achieve academically.</p>
<p>There are a lot of individual differences between kids. The same parental policy can have a completely different impact on different kids, even within the same family. Also, kids have had a lifetime of watching their parents spend and save money and they have also practiced on their own while growing up. Learning about money doesn’t start all of a sudden when it’s time to pay for college; it’s been going on all along.</p>
<p>I think you can follow your instincts in thinking about what your own child needs to learn next, and go from there. Maybe he could be earning more, and you can talk to him about that. Or maybe the next issue is learning to deal with peer pressure around spending. Or maybe he’s doing just fine.</p>
<p>We pay for most of the same things as you for our own college freshman. We do ask her to work in the summer and use her summer earnings for school - this year, a laptop, and next year, it will replace the allowance we’re giving her. Even though the money she’s spending is mostly ours, she’s very careful with money and tries to save us every penny she can. She decided not to buy the textbooks for one of her courses and checked them out from the library instead. She is required to spend spring break doing training with her sports team at an extra cost of about $800, but she’s already earned about $250 of that by doing jobs organized by the coach and she thinks she can earn most of the rest. </p>
<p>I think sometimes being generous to kids can teach them to be generous to others, including their parents!</p>
<p>I think that it has become much more expensive to feed the big eaters at college. The old cafeteria systems have broken down with so many other choices so they cannot offer the deals that they used to offer in our day. I have seen this problem with all three of my boys who are big eaters, and athletes. It’s much fairer to those who have smaller eaters who can do fine on a bowl of cereal or a yogurt or a muffin for breakfast, a sandwich at lunch and a small dinner and some snacks because they are not subsidizing those who go to down at the all you can eat cafeterias, but when you have kids who are used to having their three squares plus some, it can get very expensive. My oldest was a swimmer, and he burned up calories. Never had enough to eat when he was in training twice a day. The second one lives in the Performing Arts Center with hours that do not mesh well with cafeteria meals and the cafeteria is far from where he is. As a result, he needs to either pack a heck of a lot of food every day or buy from a cafe that serves skimpy servings and is expensive. The third one is an athlete who is at a school with more of the old type of cafeteria setup and we bought the most complete plan. He has been perfectly fine with it but wants to cut down on the meals next term so he has more flexibility on where he eats, which means trading prix fix meals, all he can eat, to a la carte off campus. We’ll see how he fares when he has to pay for what he eats on a dollar basis. Right now he doesn’t have to think about cost in the cafeteria. Even though it is not as cheap as it would be if everyone ate there all of the time, I think in our situation with our son, it is the best deal.</p>
<p>We pay for DS’s tuition, room, meal plan and a cell phone (since his phone is part of our family plan) and that is it! We can’t afford anything else. Books, laptops, movies, meals out, clothing, spring trips, auto costs, laundry, toothpaste, etc are on his dime. As a result, he knows he has to get a paying job during the summer and he is very frugal during the academic year. I feel tremendously guilty that we can’t afford to give him an allowance but we are struggling financially at home.</p>
<p>All of your answers really helped clarify the issues. We went through expenditures and focused on the fact that much of the spending is due to his college’s seemingly unusual meal plan. Because the school requires a plan, even if you live off campus (!!) we will need to supplement the food budget all 4 years.</p>
<p>After that it seems to come down to philosophy. We consider travel a part of his education and want to support the opportunities having a diverse peer group brings to him. We’re thinking if his grades are good he can work 10 or so hours per week next year and after to help pay for these junkets.</p>
<p>We also think allowing him to take unpaid internships will pay off in later jobs and don’t want to force him to take jobs because they pay. One of the key reasons he chose Dartmouth was for the unique schedule which allows more internship opportunities. We realize this is a major privilege for him and it’s an investment we want to make.</p>
<p>In the end, as long as the attitude doesn’t become an entitled one, hopefully he’ll maintain a solid work ethic.</p>
<p>I think the internships are a good investment. They are becoming a necessity for many jobs now, it seems. Things start getting into the gray area when you have kids wanting vacation subsidies and more expensive stuff that are more wants than needs. But if you can afford to be indulgent and have been indulgent through his life, cutting it off suddenly is not a good way to teach anything unless you have to do so. I think as time goes on, you’ll naturally be weaning him from financial dependence.</p>
<p>Don’t rule out paid internships. S was paid $20/hr last summer for serious work (i.e., not fetching coffee and doing photocopying, washing instruments, etc…).
He should start looking soon.</p>
<p>I agree that internships are a good investment in the future. If they are unpaid, that is just the way things are in that field. </p>
<p>I also agree that part of the educational experience is travel - including things like semesters abroad. I personally lived for 4 years in Europe and 3 in Asia as a child and consider that a huge part of who I am. While my kids were not as lucky as I was, I am encouraging them to take full advantage of that type of experience while in college. With the world becoming much more interrelated, understanding other cultures will be a critical part of becoming successful in the next few decades (if it isn’t already).</p>
<p>Best of luck to your son - and to you - it seems like things are off to a great start!!!</p>