<p>@almostgrad, I can understand you helping him out if he were 18 and just starting out. If he only has one more semester left, that doesn’t bode well for his future employability. If he can’t stand on his own two feet now, he will be living with you through his twenties and on up. If you are worried about him, don’t give him cash. Send him a few gift cards for the supermarket, gas, and so on. Only for the necessities. And absolutely no more money. Unless of course it’s a medical emergency or something like that, but that goes without saying.
It sounds like he has been making poor choices, and to support him in that lifestyle is only rewarding his bad habits and immaturity. Like having a car, for instance. That’s a luxury, not a necessity. Doesn’t he work on campus or have some sort of job? This situation is not helping him grow up. College is about learning maturity, in addition to the good old liberal arts education. By being tied to your pocketbook, he isn’t learning how to be a man.</p>
<p>Does he have checking and savings accounts? If so, does he know how to use them? I can’t tell you how many Ivy League college students do not know how to fill in the blanks on a check (or how to account for it in a register). </p>
<p>Did you ever sit him down and teach him how to use bank accounts or how to read and pay bills? If he has never had to have a budget, he likely doesn’t know how to set one up. So far, he’s only spending on entertainment. Christmas break would be a good time to start educating him on what things cost, well before he is on his own in the Spring. I had my kids pay bills with me from a very young age - they had no idea how much things like electricity and phones and mortgages cost. Not to mention groceries.</p>
<p>Give him the money along with a Suze Orman DVD. Then make sure you sit him down. Oh, and unless he bought that car himself, bring it home. If he has no job, it’s only enabling the “going out”.</p>
<p>Son deposited money into Money Market Savings account. I am able to transfer $ to his college account, he can’t. He only sees what is in his college account.
I should add that he accepted me doing this all this time, knowing that I was saving him from himself (and me). It’s only when he is short that he get’s annoyed! I’m thinking its time he got annoyed with himself.</p>
<p>OP, I’m sure most of us have facilitated finances for our kids. I certainly have. I think people are reacting to you still being so involved as he approaches graduation. The transferring money into his college account makes perfect sense for a freshman, but now he should have access to his own money market account and making the decisions about how much to put where.</p>
<p>I’m still on my college senior’s checking and money market account, but that’s so I can transfer money from his account into mine to pay me back for what are “his” expenses made on my credit card. He’s super-conservative about money. In fact this week he called me to tell me he’s getting a flu shot and how he’s paying for it. Why he felt compelled to tell me that, I don’t know. He’s always been good about money – in reality, he’s too cheap.</p>
<p>It will serve a better long run lesson.</p>
<p>If you are currently able to allocate his money, keep doing it. It sounds like he needs it.</p>
<p>My kids have control of their own earnings, but I see all of their purchases on bank statements and credit card receipts and I could warn them if I think they are getting into trouble. I have full control of their housing and tuition payments.</p>
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No - that’d be holding his money ransom until he does what ‘you’ want. It’s his money - it belongs to him - to spend it as he wishes and sink or swim with it.</p>
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In this case it’s a slam dunk decision - if his funds went to $0 it’d be fine since it only impacts his extracurriculars. I can guarantee I’d never front a penny for my kid to buy beer with in the first place. He can make peanut butter sandwiches for a while if he runs out of money for the restaurants, etc. That’ll help promote good budgeting/spending habits. It’s a good feedback loop.
Good. It’s worth having an earnest discussion with him that along with full ready access to his money comes full financial responsibility in the area of what that money’s used for and that he needs to live with his decisions of how he spends it and not come to you for more beer money when he runs out.</p>
<p>And - if he’s running out of money why doesn’t he have a job now while in school? Apparently he has enough time to go to restaurants, drink beer, and go on excursions, so he has enough time for a part time job, preferably an on-campus one. This will not only provide him with more spending money, it’ll fill some of the time where he’s currently spending with time spent earning and he’ll spend less. It’ll also help beef up his resume for when he applies for a job after grad if that’s his plan. It doesn’t take every minute of extra time all year long to look for a job after grad - he s/b able to do it all. </p>
<p>My kids both had jobs in college and earned all of their ‘spending money’. They never asked me for any and I didn’t give them any. I also didn’t monitor their accounts or see what they were spending it on, I considered that none of my business, and my kids not only handled it well, but I think it’s served them well fiscally after they graduated. These are times they learn lifelong habits.</p>
<p>There is something about being in charge of your finances that makes you grow up a little faster. Even though we pay our daughter’s credit card bill (her work this summer was unpaid), she is remarkably frugal because she still thinks of it as “her” money and she doesn’t want to waste it. When it comes to book buying, she just googles the ISBN numbers and shops for the best bargain that way.</p>
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<p>I think you’re right :)</p>
<p>An alternative to pre paying a years worth of rent and utilities is to write a years worth of checkbook checks, designated for that recipient only, dated ahead for the first of each month. That way they can’t be used in advance or for another purpose. Although we paid for housing, utilities and groceries. ( off campus apartment) he handled the transaction and became accustomed to having those monthly bills to be paid on time. For food we asked him to estimate a weekly amount, added a small bit to it because he was being too conservative there, then post dated a weekly check to “cash” dogeared for “food” on the checkht memo just to remind. If he wanted to buy something silly his slush fund was that grocery check but that was his business. It was our money (for those functions) but he became accustomed to paying a rent, utility and grocery bill every month. We thought that a shade better than us mailing a check directly to his landlord each month.</p>
<p>Eta: this only pertains to the items you are still covering, such as housing and an agreed/upon food budget. It doesn’t relate to the money he earned, unless you are requiring him to contribute some of that for these big items. It will make him more aware of those type of bills, so less shocking upon graduation.</p>
<p>Let him fall flat on his face in college. He will have a roof over his head no matter what, and he can get a job to pay for he grocery bills. If he’s driving everyone around, they can chip in for gas. </p>
<p>Is is so much better to fall flat on your face in college than “in the real world.”</p>
<p>You asked for advice here. My opinion is that it’s time to loosen the controls and let him have his own money as he is now 21/22 years old and a senior in college.</p>
<p>I would agree that you go ahead and deposit teh money that is HIS since /from his summer jobs. You can continue to pay room/board as you are doing, or dole that out monthly. It seems like as a senior with only a semester to go is agreat time to “sever” those bonds of allocating the monthly allowance unless you want to continue that pattern after he has his post-college job. </p>
<p>No, I would NOT suggest you require he get a JOB first since he is still in college. But you can explain emphatically that other than the room/board or monthly allocation that you are providing … THERE IS NOT MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM. And explain that you are simply entrusting himn with HIS money that he earned through a job and if he wants/needs "more like that … where that came from " then he will need to create it … by working !!!</p>
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<p>I received my first credit card when I was 19 with no other established credit and only a summer job, nothing during the school year. They didn’t require proof of steady income, I just marked a number on a box (an honest number, too). And from what I’ve seen from other current college students, it’s getting easier to get a credit card from certain banks. If he’s a server in a good restaurant, he could be making a good summer salary on tips. The credit limit might not be much, though, less than $1,000 which isn’t as difficult to dig yourself out of. But he would still need to come up with a minimum monthly payment.</p>
<p>The cord needs to be cut now, while he still has you paying his necessities. It will be much worse for him to learn “the hard way” when he has his first real job, living out on his own and budgeting ALL of his expenses. Continue to give him advice, and make it clear you will not give him extra spending money. Either he listens and all is well, or he doesn’t and therefore has no more parties, movies, restaurant bills, etc. for the remainder of the year. Or…he decides to pick up a part-time job to make up the difference.</p>
<p>Nova, when was that? I ask because cc companies have become much more strict since 09.</p>
<p>ETA: There are also some exceptions through like credit unions/banks associated with your U.
And I did say generally… obviously there are always exceptions.</p>
<p>My 19 year old also got $1000.00 credit line this summer with no lies on the application. Summer job. Credit card. Easy. Good luck!</p>
<p>FYI - I don’t know what bank but it was not school related. Probably something he found online as he did it himself and came back from the mailbox gloating. He would never let me anywhere near his money!</p>
<p>Oh, my! your son is an adult in his 20s! Cut the umbilical cord already. If he goes broke, he goes broke. As long as he has food, fair game.</p>
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<p>NovaLynnx, they changed the rules from when we were in college. I was also able to get THREE credit cards with virtually no income at the age of 19 in college, although they all had small limits. (I mostly used them responsibly.) But nowadays, students under the age of 21 can’t get a credit card unless they have their parents’ permission OR they have proof of income sufficient to cover the payments.</p>
<p>But I agree with the others - presumably your son’s between 20 and 22, and he needs to learn to manage his own finances. Better now in the relative safety net of college than struggling when he’s finally out on his own, for real. I started managing my own finances (including filing taxes for myself) when I was 18 and in college. I certainly could not imagine turning over money I earned from working to my parents or letting my parents have access to my bank statements so they could “warn me” when they thought I was getting into trouble.</p>
<p>Have you made it clear to your son what you expect from him when he graduates? My kids know they have to be self supporting after undergrad graduation. They can live at home over the summer until a permanent job or grad school starts, but the expectation that they will be doing one or the other after graduation is quite clear. D1 saved money she made from her summer and campus jobs until she got “ahead” on the expenses she was responsible for, and was able to foot her own apartment search & deposit bills when she moved to the city where she got a job after graduation. She was home for about six weeks that first summer, which was fine. But she knew that the expectation was that she would launch right away, and she did.</p>
<p>If you expect your son to have some money in the bank for those expenses and a limit on how long he can surf on your couch after graduation, you should make those expectations clear to him now. Otherwise he may be thinking he just has to last until May with that money and someone (you) will foot his living expenses after that. If you don’t want to do that, then now is the time to tell him.</p>