Assuming you fund your child’s college spending, what is the monthly average, including food & meal plans, your child spends? I’m trying to figure out if my kid is overspending before I cut off the lifeline!
If you are asking that question, your kid is probably over spending. LOL
We’ve had few discussions on this topic before. When my kids lived off campus, I gave them monthly allowance of room & board of what the school charged, plus a monthly allowance of $200-300 (started with 200 and ended at 300). I paid for their books, phone, travel, clothes, etc. My kids had my credit cards, but they had to tell me if they used it for anything. My kids also worked ~$10-15 hrs per week, so they got another 200-300/mon to spend.
@momo2x2018 is your child living on campus with a meal plan or off campus, little/no meal plan??
@oldfort LOL! Not sure yet if overspending We are just a little bit more than one month in, and we also pay for everything, which is fine I expect that and am not complaining. @abasket off campus but has a pay-as-you-go meal plan option I told him to get the meal plan but doesn’t like the food (spoiled) I don’t want to be too crazy, the kid’s gotta have some fun and to be fair, the individual costs are minimal $10-$15 per meal, but dining out is racking up.
If I’m reading this correctly, he’s living off campus. Maybe he should start cooking some of his meals at home and packing lunches.
My youngest gets $200/mo in spending $ once his scholarship cash runs out (so… basically one month a term.) I pay his rent, phone, airplane rides home, car expenses etc. The “etc” sometimes becomes a point of conversation if he buys too much on the credit card.
He also works about 10 hrs a week on campus.
He cooks food and packs snacks or lunches if needed (lives just off campus.) I can see his bank account spending out of his personal account and he does go out and spend $5-$25 now and then. But mostly he buys groceries and makes it work. He’ll cook a batch of chicken and roast some veggies and make couscous and eat that for meals for the week.
It also depends where your child goes to college. College students in major metropoliton areas will need more spending money than students in a small college town. Your student may also have new friends in a higher SES than he did in high school. That also contributes to more money spent on dining than you expected.
Once off campus we never did meal plans. It’s WAY too expensive and they are usually tired of the food after a couple of years.
Part of the responsibility of living off campus is learning to take care of yourself - and that includes some basic meal prep. Eating out all the time is doing no good for your pocketbook, his independence or his health.
My senior eats out maybe twice a week for casual dinner or brunch. I think that’s fine, she’s not racking up an expensive bill. Otherwise she goes to the grocery store and has learned the time and $$ value of cooking dinner that makes enough for lunch!
So male OR female, if they want to live on their own, they should learn to prepare some meals. No one is going to let themselves starve. 
I think some of it depends on what you are comfortable with and your expectations of your child.
When my kids were in college, I expected them to be thrifty. I was thrifty (heck I was putting 2 through college). My expectations were that they eat at home and make most of their own meals. It was pretty cheap so I got a very small meal plan for my son when he was off campus so it was easy to eat on those days he had classes all day.
Both kids had summer jobs so eating out and “entertainment” was on them. They both did go out with friends.
My sil on the other hand has a lot more discretionary income. Her kids shopped at Whole Foods, bought organic food and went out to expensive meals. They went to concerts and weekend trips that my kids never did. I don’t shop at Whole Foods, I buy my food at the supermarket.
My kids “budget” was much much less than their cousins.
OP - I would suggest for you to give your a kid a fixed budget that he/she could operate on, instead of just charging expenses to your credit card. It is a good way to teach your kid how to manage a budget. I have done that since they were in high school. I used to give them $200/mon as spending money. They used it to go out and buy birthday/holidays presents. I never gave them extra money outside of their allowance. We avoided a lot of “fights” about money. When my kids went to college, I told them they had to work part time in order for me to continue to give them an allowance.
Totally agree with @oldfort. Figure out what budget makes sense for you/the two of you and agree that your S can let you know if your estimates are off and you two can refigure if necessary. But one of the wonderful lessons to be learned at this time is how to budget.
Once my kids started driving, they no longer needed me to be with them when they bought most things, including clothing. So, about age 16, my kids started getting what we called a clothing allowance but it really included most expenses. We covered gas (school was far and oldest also had responsibility for driving sibs to various activities), phone, lessons, etc. But, from the age of 16, they received one amount for clothing, entertainment, gifts, etc.
When they went to college I gave them $200/month (went up to $300 over time) that included entertainment and clothing. That was on top of living in the dorms and a full meal plan which helped them really think through whether they wanted to spend money at restaurants. Once they moved off campus, I gave them the amount equal to what I would have paid for a full meal plan. They were allowed to use my credit card for books, school-related needs and travel home.
I will say that I always made sure that, when they left for school each fall, they were all set with a heavy jacket, fresh supplies of beauty/bath supplies, etc.
My kids have lots of friends who just used their parents credit cards throughout college. They often would remark about how friend x’s mom was angry with friend because she’d spent too much one month. At graduation, another of d’s friends told me how nervous she was to move to her new city and start her job because she wouldn’t be using her mom’s credit card any longer and wasn’t sure how much things cost and how it would all work out. College is a great time to start figuring these things out.
We tried the meal plan the first year off Campus and it’s a waste of money. He did use it once in awhile, ut it’s a hassle to go where you can eat. We give him $100 a week. He works hard in the summer and spends his own money going out on the weekends and what not. We gave him $85 a week when he had the meal plan.
Thanks for your perspectives; reading through all of the responses, maybe things are not so bad. As several of you noted, meal-plans are expensive; when I take that into account, it puts a new light on spending. My S is not a spendthrift (I cannot say the same for D), and all he’s spending on is food and one movie ticket (LOL!). DH said we have to let him be and not add to his stress; he does not take advantage and does not support a small nation with his spending! This is only the end of the first month(ish), let’s see how it goes… Thanks again for putting it all in perspective for me
Boys eat a lot. Hopefully your grocery bill is offsetting his spend.
When our kid moved off campus junior year, I put the amount of $ that a meal plan cost into the kid’s bank account to cover food for the school year, and left it up to the kid to figure out how to stay nourished.
My son and his friends used to like to eat out when he was a college student, but they looked for places that had specials. (Like Tuesday $5 burgers) they eventually got in a routine and his eating out was much cheaper than the meal plan on campus.
D18 spends about $200 a month on groceries at Trader Joe’s (she can cook in her apartment-style dorm) and about $100 on other food related items (smoothies, snacks, occasional meals out, etc) which doesn’t seem too bad: she has a less expensive meal plan which is about $1200 per semester cheaper than the unlimited plan, so I think that’s a wash.
My daughter is a freshman and has a meal plan, which she seems to take good advantage of. She has most of her necessities covered by us (personal stuff, cleaning supplies, school supplies, etc) and I would guess she spends around $50 or so a month on eating out with her friends. She is pretty frugal. We have three other kids at home so nobody is trying to go crazy spending money when it’s not necessary. She does not work during the school year so has no way to replenish her personal funds until next summer.
We cover tuition, room, board, books, fees, phone, car insurance, most clothing. When kids moved off campus,we gave them the COA for room/board to cover rent, utilities, food. All opted for a partial meal plan because they were athletes and needed to eat after morning/evening practices. They each had a credit card linked to mine to cover emergencies: mostly car and medical copyayments.
They covered their entertainment, gas, and personal supplies with summer earnings and 10 hr/week on campus job. When it was gone it was gone. Their problem. All 3 learned very quickly to budget funds.