<p>OP stated:
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<p>So the shopping at Trader Joes, Whole Foods, etc. is probably not happening much.</p>
<p>^I would hope not! S and chums had meal plans, too. Occasionally, they would go shopping for food. Despite being close to TJ and WF, they seemed to be willing to walk half an hour to get to a cheaper supermarket.
H and I don’t shop at TJ and WF on a regular basis. I don’t see why students on a budget should, either. I think $200 a month for fun stuff is very generous.</p>
<p>This is how my parents give me my allowance: <a href=“http://i48.■■■■■■■.com/210m2a1.jpg[/url]”>http://i48.■■■■■■■.com/210m2a1.jpg</a></p>
![http://i48.■■■■■■■.com/210m2a1.jpg[/url]](http://i48.tinypic.com/210m2a1.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>So helpful to read all the various ways that college spending money is handled in different families.</p>
<p>Here is where we are at as of now:</p>
<p>DD still gets $50 a week allowance - it was not increased. 
This is pocket money - just for fun. A couple latte’s a week, and dinner and a movie one night. That is about all it will bring her. On her urban campus, I really feel this is fair.</p>
<p>If DD wants to spend more than the $50, she dips into her meager savings. She only has what was given to her as gifts - she was busy the last few summers with activities that were not income producing. She has done this once (for a second night of dinner and a movie - her money, her choice).</p>
<p>She is not going to work at all her first year in college (she wanted to - this was a parental requirement). She can work part-time her second year.</p>
<p>DD is on a meal plan (with the fewest meals/week that the school would allow, plus spending bucks built in for campus eating establishments). We pay for all of her clothes (reasonable, moderately priced clothes - $180 jeans are not reasonable in our household for a teenager). If she needs something at school, she can pick it out online and send me the link. She hasn’t yet done this, but if it is a reasonable request I will purchase and ship it to her (or she can buy it on break back at home). </p>
<p>The Whole Foods thing is a big part of our lives. Our family is rife with food allergies, and that store has been a godsend. Her campus cafeteria does not do a great job of providing alternatives for people with food allergies, so she does have the ability to order groceries (also shampoo, etc.) online once a week as a supplement (not WF in this case but another store which has what she needs). They are delivered to her dorm, and I pay for it online (and can see everything she is ordering - so that she is really getting stuff that is a necessary and not just “preferred”). It ends up being about $70 more a week. Hard to believe, but true. And the list is really small!</p>
<p>Our kids attend school in LA (very urban). We haven’t given either of them “spending money.” Both are spending funds they earned over time or got as gift from bdays (accummulated in an account since they were born). </p>
<p>D got a job 1st thing this fall when she got to campus (sophomore/junior), so she can earn money for spending. She works about 10 hours/week for a job on campus and is learning things useful for her major as part of the job; these funds are more than enough to handle all her spending wants and needs. S also works on campus (just started as a junior), researching. He uses that to pay for his AAA, gas, auto insurance and everything else he needs. His 1st 2 years, he just spent from savings, summer earnings and gifts. We gave him funding in 1st 3 years for tuition, housing & board (equivalent of lowest coast meal plan). This year, we just gave him tuition (minus merit award) & he’s paid all the rest through summer earnings & part-time jobs.</p>
<p>We do pay for the family cell phone plan; both kids are part of it. We also give them gifts and care packages for occasions and buy most of their plane tickets.</p>
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<p>We had kids at urban schools and my husband and I decided our rule would be when in doubt please take a cab, and just send us a bill at the end of the month. Fortunately for us, this never became a huge issue… but I wanted those kids to believe I was happy to pay for a cab after clubbing. I still offer cab expenses for grad student kids! Sometimes they still take me up on it.</p>
<p>So far, this has not come up with our kids. I guess it’s something we should discuss. When in HI, I always told them we’d come & pick them up 24/7, no questions asked. Neither ever came home in a cab and I don’t know that they would have been comfortable calling one. </p>
<p>I think they mainly go to places within walking distance of their campus & D is under age for clubs at this point.</p>
<p>I think much depends on the circle of friends. My D had an unusual freshman year. Due to Katrina she ended up at a different school. She was placed in an apartment with other displaced students. All the students seemed to have quite a large amount of spending money. They rarely ate in the cafeteria. They were always going out. My D had her own spending money from savings but found even if she only went out half the time she spent too much. The bummer was due to the location of their apartments they did not have a chance to meet other freshmen. Her choice was going to the dining hall alone or going out with her fellow apartment dwellers.
My son on the other hand spends very little. He rarely goes anywhere off campus. This year he had a smaller mealplan as he is in an apartment. We thought he would cook or eat off campus but he found due to his class schedule he took most of his meals on campus. He went through his meal plan in 2 months. This semester we upped his meal plan and we won’t supplement his food budget. He has savings from work. He will on occasion head to the mountains for snowboarding. Luckily he owns his own equipment and seems to have numerous friends who have vacation homes. They tend to cook meals and snowboard 1 day. This can get expensive but since he doesn’t spend any other money it doesn’t add up.
My friend has a son at NYU. He has little money. His circle of friends seem to be loaded. One of them having an apartment in addition to his dorm room. There is no way he can afford to keep up with them but they like his company. She isn’t thrilled but there is not much she can do about it. So for those of you who don’t give your kids much money there is sometimes someone else footing the bill.
Also I think every family should do what they comfortable with.</p>
<p>Yes, at many campuses, there are wildly different resources students have available to them, from private planes and apartments and cars to bare subsistence & everything in between. It’s important to figure out the balance that works for the kid & family. It is true that sometimes others do foot the bill, but everyone has to figure out their comfort zone.</p>
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<p>Why didn’t my parents get the memo? lol I get $50 less than that every month.</p>
<p>^Yeah, my parents didn’t get the memo either. Actually, they just couldn’t afford it. I was responsible for earning all of my spending money - they paid for just room and board. </p>
<p>It was tough. I had to buy all my clothes and take care of all my spending money. I went to a school which would not allow me to work on campus because my parents did not qualify for that (they made too much money for aid, too little to truly be able to foot the bill). I did not have a car, so I could not get to anywhere else that I could work (well, not easily, anyway). It was pretty stressful. </p>
<p>At one point senior year (I was living off campus, and didn’t have the meal plan - wanted to save the folks some money) I literally ran out of funds. No money for food! Then the group of us in the house ran out of money to pay the oil man. So no heat! College was fun, but the money trouble I experienced is not a great memory.</p>
<p>My D & her room mates are “scared” of their heater, that it is unsanitary & refuse to turn it on, so they’ve been bundling up and not using it all winter (tho it’s LA, it DOES get nippy). D was amazed she was able to get a campus job, since she’s the only one they hired who is NOT on work study. SHe feels very fortunate in her job & gets along very well with everyone there. I think they had to scrounge for money to hire & keep her, but so far all is well.</p>
<p>Money troubles tend to be significantly bad memories, especially when it starts impinging on essentials–food, heat, and others necessities.</p>
<p>I was sitting in front of our electric oven to stay warm with my roomies…Funny now. Sort of funny then. Funny, yet disturbing.</p>
<p>Yea, my D has stocked up on all the blankets she can lay her hands on (including borrowing from her brother), plus the bedroom slippers I sent her & her flannel PJ bottomw. She’s looking forward to warmer weather & moving next year to a new place with a non-suspect heating system.</p>
<p>Yes, it is disturbing to think of some of the tradeoffs and improvising we need to do to make things work. Somehow it does work, fortunately.</p>
<p>I cannot contribute much here. Both of my kids attend(ed) colleges in major metro areas. Neither got their discretionary spending money from us. They had jobs. To be honest, they were much more careful about how they spent money THEY earned, than money we just “gave them”. Both work(ed) about 10 hours a week. It helped them better budget their time and gave them control over their discretionary money and spending.</p>
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<p>Landlords in CA by law have to provide heat. If your daughter and her roommates are unsure, they should call the gas company to come out to see if there’s a gas leak.It’s a free service. The gas company will also light the pilot light if there is one. If the furnace is deemed faulty, the landlord is obligated to replace it.</p>
<p>Actually, it’s more that they’re concerned about possible pests & maybe vermin housed in the heating unit and just don’t want to deal with it. It is an old apartment (under the university’s control), but I don’t want to make waves. All of the girls want to just leave it off. Next year, they’ll be living in a brand new apartment building and assume things will be just fine.</p>