<p>If you have up until now given your daughter an allowance, or otherwise given her spending money, and now wish to have her use her own money for those expenses, that’s great. If you still want to be able to help her with college costs two years from now, that is great two. The</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>I would tell my D to spend all her money on things that I normally pay for…clothes, gas, car insurance, school field trips, etc. Then, each month I’d put money into my savings for about the same amount (or more). THAT IS TOTALLY legal. </p>
<p>“The money that she is earning at her job is hers, and should be in her name.”</p>
<p>Says who? I have money that I earn, and I regularly put money into my kids’ accts for them. </p>
<p>While I do think that large amounts of money that kids have (thru inheritance, college funds, etc) should be used for college, it is a crazy idea that kids can’t have a small bit of money saved for emergencies that FAFSA leaves alone. </p>
<p>I know that very low income kids will have their assets ignored, but there are a lot of kids who are in the gray area of family income, and those students need to have a few thousand saved (untouched by EFC) in order to cover those emergencies that many families can’t afford…a phone replacement, a laptop replacement, a car repair, etc. </p>
<p>Because the FAFSA formula won’t allow students (beyond the very low income) to have any assets ignored, then a family can get around that by having the child spend all his money on day to day expenses, which then frees the parent to put an amount into their savings.</p>