<p>As a rule, I don’t pay for the girls’ dinners out with friends and trips to Starbucks when they are at home and the same goes for school. They each have a debit card on their own bank account and get (or did get) $25/week deposited for whatever extras they wished (#1D also had a part-time job which paid for her beer and other luxuries). </p>
<p>My older daughter ate mostly freshly prepared food with some convenience things thrown in. She’s a good shopper, with a large Safeway, Fred Meyer and Trader Joe’s nearby and a Costco card as well. She found out quickly that store brand wasn’t much different from name brand and a large container of yogurt was cheaper/serving than individual cups. She took her lunch to campus with her - often leftovers or a sandwich.</p>
<p>I really think practicing before she heads off by herself is the best approach. Even if she doesn’t do the cooking, coming up with sample menus and then figuring out what it all costs is a good way to start planning the food budget & seeing if it is reasonable or needs a boost.</p>
<p>I agree that the best thing you can do for a kid that is going to shop and cook food is to show them some simple dishes to make and to take them to the grocery store with a list and show them what to buy.</p>
<p>Here is a sample of the foods my D who is a vegetarian eats. She normally has greek yogurt with fresh fruit for breakfast when it’s hot and oatmeal with fresh fruit when it is colder. If she wants toast some mornings she makes it with either jelly or peanut butter and bananas. She doesn’t drink regular milk, but uses almond milk. For a snack she buys large bags of almonds or cashews from Trader Joe’s and keeps a ziplock bag of nuts with her. She also eats bananas and apples as a snack as well as different protein bars. Her lunch usually consists of a pb&j or grilled cheese sandwich or a pita pocket with veggies or a bean and cheese burrito. She loves salads and many times will just have a very large salad for dinner. She can get all kinds of pasta at TJ’s that do not have meat and she likes to eat these tossed with olive oil, garlic, fresh vegetables, basil and a little cheese. Some nights she may just have a couple kinds of cheese with bread, crackers and fruit for dinner. </p>
<p>I know some don’t think that $50 a week is enough for groceries, but my D is able to buy a lot of fresh foods each week for this amount.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine spending more than about $50/week for one person for groceries. I only spend about $75/week for 3 people. And we eat pretty well. My kids have known how to cook since they were young - mostly from scratch. But our tastes are very simple - we don’t eat much meat and I don’t do organic or specialty items. My D, who lives in an apt, does a lot of stir fry, pasta, tilapia and chicken breasts. She also will make a big pot of soup which will last for lunches all week.</p>
<p>I’m with you Hunt, my son is very thin and very tall. We are a “eat to live” family, not a “live to eat” one so food sometimes gets forgotten. This year my son is doing a meal plan that is all what UR calls all declining. So he starts with an amount of money in his fund and when he buys food it debits it until he reaches 0. </p>
<p>We will see how this goes for the semester with how long his food money lasts. Should be a good experience to budget himself. At the same time, he has a fridge in his room and usually eats yogurt, banana or oatmeal for breakfast and makes his own coffee so he never had that meal in the dinning hall anyway.</p>
<p>I think the actual cost will vary by student. This is why we set an amount and then reviewed it to see if it was sufficient. I think that is key. Also, we did give those gift cards, and we did shop when we visited. We also helped with the stocking of staples which can be very costly.</p>
<p>Our son shopped at the Asian market in Boston. He says the produce was much better than at the regular grocery store, and much less costly. DD got many of her veggies at the farmers market because in CA, those ran year round. She and her roommates did a trader Joes run and a Costco run once a month each…there were seven in her house. </p>
<p>The kids really needed to learn to cook the right amount so that there would not be waste. Both also packed snacks and lunches. I’m quite sure they ate out too.</p>
<p>I don’t know - maybe because I live in a large city. We eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies and a small head of brocolli will cost $5+ if organic. A small bag of grapes another $5. Milk - another $4. Eggs - another $4.50. That’s $20 and we haven’t even gotten to the real proteins yet. Luckily, both kid’s colleges are in towns - not cities - so I am sure kids can do much better. I spend $300 a week on average for a family of 4 and I shop the basics.</p>
<p>My food bill is more like Kennedy’s for our family. That doesn’t include the extras that my 18-year-old thinks he MUST have. He pays for those out of his paycheck.</p>
<p>I don’t buy organic fruit, I buy fruit at the local fruit market. I think milk is 2.99/gal and eggs were 1.79/dozen. I did buy local cherries which were 4/quart and that was a splurge.</p>
<p>I have never spent $5 for broccoli. </p>
<p>When my kids were college students I expected them to be frugal but eat healthy. When they got out of college they could buy as much organic free range food as they want.</p>
<p>deb922 - yep I understand. It is definitely a personal choice to buy organic. and bringing that up here is kinda like bringing up political or religious views. Peace.</p>
<p>I think it is easy to beat even the ‘thrifty’ figures because USDA targets the market basket to match existing consumption habits. That might actually be a good thing here because we shouldn’t count on the student cooperating with parental budgeting by learning to eat healthily but differently.</p>
<p>In short: you should allow $200/month, though I maintain that a student can eat well for half that if properly motivated.</p>
<p>I think it really varies by the kid and his/her needs. My son (who has now graduated and is not longer on my payroll), was an athlete who works out year around and as a result ate an amazing amount of food - 5000-6000 calories a day - and still had to be careful not to lose weight. </p>
<p>Four years ago, we started out with a budget of $15 a day based upon what it costs us to feed him at home. We gave him $225 twice a month since that matched the “normal” pay cycle. </p>
<p>He kept track for two months and then we trued it up - turned out that he was eating closer to $20 a day - counting only meals eaten at home or made at home and taken with him (e.g. lunches at school). So we went to $300 twice a month and that seemed to work. The budgeting process stuck - he still tracks what he spends in an excel spreadsheet. </p>
<p>Something else to consider - what is the budget supposed to pay for. What’s in and what’s not. Does it include cleaning supplies? Pizza out? Staples for the kitchen to get started? </p>
<p>Items like salad oil, olive oil, spices, flour, sugar, coffee really add up. We chose to outfit the kitchen “out of budget” - when he moved in we loaded up the kitchen. After that, replenishment was his problem.</p>
<p>True - you have to look at each kid individually and your family budget. My d realized that those k cup things were really blowing her budget (roommate had a machine) so she pulled back out her old coffee maker and went back to Folgers ($.50 a cup). Plus, being a good Southern child, she can eat well on beans and cornbread (less than $1 a serving!). We also do not expect to pay for our kids’ eating out, alcohol, toiletries, etc. Adding in those things would really be a blow to the $50/week estimate. My opinion? I want my kids to get used to budgeting, living frugally, making do, etc. Once they get out in the real world, they are going to need to live on their very modest incomes (both kids in the arts).</p>
<p>My D and her roommate have a jar in their kitchen where they put in $5 each per week. They use this for cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, ziplock bags, etc. She says this is working well so far. If you add in cleaning supplies and toiletries then the budget will be more than $50 a week. My D also has to pay for her meals out and her alcohol from her job!</p>
<p>I think the issue here is that this parent is still paying room and board for their 20+ year old “kid”.</p>
<p>I can understand parents paying for tuition, or even books, or room + board for the first year, as those are an investment, but at this point this girl is 20 or 21 and many people would have been living on their own for years.</p>
<p>Also, you say that she is bad at money management, but the only way to improve is to be stopped from the spoon feeding. I know many of the reasons I learned was because I had to, I had to realize that if I didn’t save most of my paycheck for food and other essentials, I would have to eat ramon or scrounge together some meal from peanut butter, tuna, and flour. Yes it was hard, but I learned to actually budget and how to manage money…</p>
<p>Hope…these are parents talking about how to budget for their college students costs. As noted above, there are parents who do pay tuition, room and board for their college kids.</p>