This is all new (and sudden) for us. We have made a decision for D20 to move to an off-campus apartment next month. All along, when I thought she would be headed to dorm life, I operated under the assumption that I would pay the R&B at the beginning of the semester and she would use her savings from her summer job to fund the fun stuff. But now it feels a little less neatly parsed. There are groceries to consider, and…considering she’s never cooked for herself before, I’m assuming some of the eating out she’s going to be doing will feel (at least to her) like a necessity rather than entertainment. She will have utilities to contribute toward, as well. Her apartment if in a much-less central location than her school, so there will be transportation costs.
For those of you with students living on their own off-campus…how do you manage/fund other expenses outside of rent? Do they get a monthly allowance? Do you just replenish funds as needed? Do they do a decent job of managing their money?
D has been off campus since the start of sophomore year. Her sorority has a meal plan with 3 meals a day M-F, which we pay for. She mainly eats lunch there as it’s on campus and one or two dinners. The rest we agreed a budget on and I pay this money monthly. Within that she can do what she likes: cook, take out, restaurants, but I won’t pay more without a conversation! Fortunately, she loves cooking and finds it grounding and calming to do big batch cooking at the weekend for meal prep and use that, and the sorority house meals to get through. She will of course sometimes get delivery or take out sometimes. She has her own money for ‘entertainment’ eating. She does not have a car, but 2 of her room mates do, and they also do bulk grocery shopping and meal planning/ cooking together - and enjoy having a couple of friends round for dinner and wine on weekend evenings.
You could pay for a limited meal plan or swipes or however the college does it, so you know your D can grab a meal at the dining hall when on campus?
You might consider teaching your D some basic meals and have her practice at home before she goes? It’s not just budget, but living on ‘eat out’ food is not always great healthwise.
I also taught mine how to meal plan for the week, look at menus/ ingredients, make a shopping list… and then go to the grocery store. Helps with budgeting and avoiding food waste.
Mine is good at managing her money and has a job for extra cash anyway. If she was struggling I would help, but I would not be funding eating out all the time. That’s just me though.
For my 3 it was always cheaper to “board” off campus. I hope you experience the same savings!
If I were you I would help her adjust with still having some expectations:
Start off with a monthly food budget. Is her cooking/take out only for herself? How much seems reasonable for one person - $100 a week? More or less?
I would stress that a food budget includes when she decides to get take out. I would REALLY stress that take out isn’t going to be ok money wise or health wise if she over does that option. Maybe give her some guidance like “no more than 3 total take out times per week” - or just say “when the $100 food budget is done, it’s done - you’re on your own for food purchases”.
For the first month or two reevaluate whatever $ you are targeting weekly/monthly.
Make sure she has mental and physical equipment to do a little meal prep. Simple recipes, simple basic equipment.
Outside of food what other $ items does she have? Rent? Utilities? Cable/phone? Transportation?
We told D we would give her what we paid for R&B on campus when she was living in a double. Anything beyond that is up to her.
Originally she found a very pricey studio but once she figured out how much she was going to need to supplement, she suddenly found a 4 bedroom further off campus with friends for 1/2 the price.
We will probably venmo $ once/month and then she’ll need to budget for herself.
Note, she lived alone all of last summer while on co-op so has some experience cooking, marketing, budgeting, etc…
Well, DD’19 is paying for most of rent, groceries, eating out, personal supplies, etc. from her own funds. She does have a credit card of ours on which she is a signer, so if there is something we have agreed to pay for she can use that. That could be an option if you can agree to what is allowed and she is capable to sticking to it.
Otherwise I would probably lean toward providing a certain amount each month and she can learn to use it wisely or fall short. Additional funds given if appropriate in your judgment.
We found that it was quite a bit less expensive when D lived off campus. Her rent wasn’t cheap, but the dorms were more expensive. We put money in her bank account to cover her rent and expected utilities. We talked with her about a realistic food budget, and we funded that. We also put a little on the school’s a la carte meal card, so she could get lunch in case she got stuck on campus for some unexpected reason. D has always been excellent with money, and she truly appreciated the financial help we provided. As a result, she had no issues staying within budget. We did not give her any type of entertainment budget (that was on her), so any meals out needed to be managed within her budget.
I’ve always been very open about our finances, and both S’s are budget conscious. Older S could only live off campus senior year. He found a very cheap apartment that wasn’t terrible. Younger S moved off this year (sophomore year). I am amazed how cheap his rent is for such a nice place. I was bracing for much more.
For food. Both kids have/had a small meal plan. 5 meals/week. Older S could also eat at his frat house. He definitely took advantage of that. Younger S has a credit card tied to mine. He is allowed to use it for anything I seem reimbursable - groceries, misc school expenses. I generally don’t pay for eating out or fun stuff. That’s on him. I do give him $50/month most months, but it’s not a given. Older S wasn’t tied to my credit card, but I gave him my login/password for the Walmart app and he bought his groceries there. He also got $50/month.
As far as paying for rent, it depends on the set-up. Older S’ place they paid in one check. I transferred him the $$$ each month to Venmo his roommate. Younger S is in a big complex, so everything is more professional. It’s an auto draft from my checking.
As far as cooking at home, I found it takes time and practice. I put together a PDF of easy meal ideas for lunches/dinners. The first summer S was on his own, he was gung ho for about 2-3 weeks before switching to frozen stuff and $5 subway sandwiches. Next time, he was great for almost the whole summer for lunches and some dinners, but spent several nights out a week with friends. Senior year he did even better. Now, the kid loves to cook. He’s always whipping up new and interesting things. I can’t believe it. He’s far better than me at 22! Younger S did well for a few weeks, but then got sick of it he said. He eats more frozen stuff I believe. Lol. I told him no worries, reset next semester and try a few new ideas.
We too made the last minute decision for our son to move to off campus housing (which is much pricier than the original housing) at the beginning of this school year. We did it because of Covid concerns in his shared housing situation.
We have auto pay set up for his rent so it comes out of our current monthly expenses. The extra expense does pinch but only 6 more months till graduation!!! Yay!
We have added him as an authorized user on our credit card that he uses for monthly groceries, which is around $100-120 for him with some basic cooking and a lot of sandwiches. His choice.
We also let him use that card for travel expenses that are parentally sanctioned.
He pays for meals from outside, fun activities and the utilities for his apartment. He is working 20 hours a week so can easily pay his portion. But we are prepared to replenish his funds if/when necessary to cover utilities and a meal out per week.
Both of my kids lived off campus after freshman year. I just gave them the full room & board (3 full meals) costs of their school. D1 was very crafty with her money. She would sublet from people who studied abroad and get great deals.
When mine went off campus, we gave them the cost of a shared dorm room and the full meal plan. But rather than paying the school all at once upfront, we doled it out to the student in monthly increments. That was much better for our cashflow. There were times when one or another needed rescuing, but that improved with age/maturity.
We are finding that living off-campus is going to be a significant money-saver. I’m sorry my D is not getting the on-campus experience for her freshman year, but this is certainly a silver lining (for my wallet).
Her school is going to be entirely online, with campus closed. So, no partial meal plan to buy into. I’m leaning toward setting a budget and funding that amount each month.
She does know how to make a very few basic things (scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, pasta…), but I’m going to put together a packet of recipes for her to try (in fact, I think I’m going to crowd-source it on another thread ).
While I know some parents will choose to just pass on the amount they would have paid for R and B in a dorm/campus to their off campus student, we did not do that and honestly if there was a savings in money to happen we wanted to benefit from that as well!
We wanted them to be comfortable with their living arrangements and food and such but also they were all trustworthy. But if H and I can save a some cash too - heck yeah!!!
@abasket Yes, this is my feeling. as well. Perhaps I’d feel differently if R&B at her school wasn’t $8k per semester. I had been assuming the rents in Boston were going to be comparable, but I guess with COVID and lots of schools being remote, it is a bit of a renter’s market for now.
This is the first year my DD has been entirely off board. The prior 2 years she did a commuter meal plan and supplemented with groceries. She’s doing a lot of take out this year so she’s at about $300-$400 per month for food.
I did a big beginning of semester shop with D when she lived off campus including a big box store run for paper goods etc, then set a weekly maintenance allowance. We also included a modest amount for on-campus meals for occasional lunches and long days when it made more sense to just use points in the student center food court. This was a while back so the numbers won’t make sense now, but I will say that she lived close enough that I could drop in for a lunch at a restaurant every few weeks and would manage to order enough extra food that she could go home with a big bag of leftovers.
One option would be debit card, where you add a set amount monthy into the account. You could adjust the amount over time after reviewing together how the money gets spent.
Funny story…When son spent semester in Singapore (where room/board was MUCH cheaper), he used a combo of cash and credit card and noted the expenses in a shared spreadsheet. At monthly intervals we pushed the total logged expenses into his account. It was on the honor system, no receipts needed. We still joke that perhaps “sunblock” was code for “beer”. But his story (which I do believe because he burns very easily) is that sunblock was pricey and in the humidity he had to reapply often.
Thank you for this question! I’m starting to think about this as well, but for the Fall for my twins who will each be living in apartments. Last year they each lived in dorms w/meal plans and had a monthly allowance for incidentals, eating out, uber, travel to/from airport, clubs, formals, etc. This year they each live in their sorority and one had to get a raise in her allowance but the other has been pretty much able to stay within although the food in her sorority is horrendous. The sorority even with meal plans are way less than last year for both which is nice.
They both however, go to school in expensive college towns and even in 4 and 5BR apartments, they are each paying about $1200 in rent next year. I have no idea what to give them for allowance to cover utilities, groceries plus the extras to cover above. I actually like the idea from the poster to give them the equivalent of the meal plan from the dorm which might work for one of them and then give her the same allowance but the other one it wasn’t broken up previously so I can try the same amount. Neither cook and their idea of cooking is literally to make avocado toast for breakfast and a bagel for lunch and maybe some pasta for dinner, if that. Very picky. One of them might be able to get meals at her sorority next year if covid is better and that would be phenomenal because her food is great.
Additionally, I’ve also told them they each need to have skin in the game since their rent is so expensive and it’s likely we’ll need to be paying rent for the summer months when they’re home. I don’t want them to break the bank with their summer earnings as that is their money to spend for the summer so does anyone have thoughts on what they have their kids contribute while letting them also keep some of their money?
I gave both of my girls an allowance while they were in school. The stipulation was they had to have a part time job while in school. The reason I did that was to make sure they had work experience on their resumes.
Again, I just gave them what I would have paid their school for room and board. D1 lived at some pretty luxurious places because she was very good at getting sublets (at first I was like, “Am I paying for this?”). My kids really learned how to manage their money. They figured out how to save for special spends (sorority events, gifts, eating out, etc).
I transferred money to their accounts monthly. Their allowances were also deposited at the same time. I started giving them similar allowances when they were in high school. The allowances covered entertainment, gifts, and various other incidentals. The amount may seem like quite a bit back then to some people, but some of my friends said they probably gave more to their kids with $20 here or there. My kids learned how to budget and save and we avoided a lot of arguments at home about how to spend money. If they ran out of money middle of the month, it was on them. They knew I wouldn’t give them another dime, no matter what.
This may be a good place to mention our student credit card experience (now 10 years old).
When our son went to college in Boston, we got a JetBlue credit card since those flights worked best. That way he could book his own flights and get extra points. He also charged a few “parent pre-approved” purchases.
The account was in my name, but our family had 4 cards (me - used mainly for JB flights, son, husband and daughter - she rarely used hers). A few years later when our daughter was graduated and getting her first apartment she actually had a decent credit rating based mainly on that one Jetblue credit card. Phew - good thing I made timely payments!
Both daughters live off campus and are on our credit cards. They use the cards for groceries, household expenses, school expenses, and gas for the cars. I give them the $$ for rent and utilities. They are on their own for meals out and non-essentials.
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I had been assuming the rents in Boston were going to be comparable, but I guess with COVID and lots of schools being remote, it is a bit of a renter’s market for now.