How Much $$ Do You Send Your College Kid?

<p>My son is more than frugal --he’s a total cheapskate. But my kids have had their own credit cards all along – they were in college before the banks tightened up on issuing credit cards to youngsters - and I just don’t want to share a credit card with either them, simply because there’s no way for know whether charges on the card are legit or not. I mean, I get enough calls from the bank asking me to verify some charge or another without having a shared card. </p>

<p>There are many times when I have reimbursed my kids for charges on their cards - such as airfare (I didn’t expect the airfare back and forth to college to come from their earnings) – but I was just a lot more comfortable keeping the cards separate. </p>

<p>Anyway - just to clarify – I wasn’t upset at the idea that other parents used their cards to set up store accounts for their kids, - it was that the college was essentially pressuring me to do the same – or at least it came off that way. </p>

<p>I haven’t found it a big deal. They use our cards for what I’ll call parent-approved purchases – books, other educational expenses, medical expenses etc - and they email us indicating what the charges are and bring home receipts. It’s no different from reconciling any other charge on a credit card bill. Completely get your way - just saying that it’s no different of a reconciliation process. </p>

<p>My kid is very protective of her bank account. Wants to keep it her own and not contaminate it with parents’ money. She is very proud that she is managing her life on her own. She seems to have forgotten the tuition we pay. I won’t mention it.</p>

<p>My parents would put money on my debit card for me as needed- but I was always responsible with it. I used the debit card only for items I “need”- shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, and some food items at the grocery store. About every other week or so, my friends and I would make a trip to the grocery store and I’d pick up cereal, granola bars, fresh fruit, etc. </p>

<p>“Fun” items I paid for with my own money, although I didn’t get a job until senior year. The years before that I used money saved up from babysitting, birthdays, and holidays. I hated going out to the bars, so I never really spent money on alcohol or getting into bars or parties. My “fun” budget was when I wanted to go shopping for new clothes, or buy birthday gifts for my friends. I’d also use my own money if my friends and I went out for a real meal. If it was a slice of pizza or Mcdonalds, I’d usually use my debit card…</p>

<p>My parents were very generous and I appreciate it, but they also mentioned how much they appreciated my respect for the debit card. I say I’d spent $10 a week when I wasn’t food shopping, and $20 when I did. My parents also paid for my books. I had no car, so gas was never issue. I did pay for my friends gas with my own money (when they would drive me home…we all lived in the same area at home) </p>

<p>Both kids could charge things at their bookstores without me giving the bookstore my credit card number.
It was just added to their account fees.</p>

<p>In our case it depended on the kid and the school. With my S we started off giving him a check each month for 50 to cash at the school finance office. After the first few checks went uncashed we stopped sending them. We figured if he needed anything he would ask. I doubt he did laundry much. He lived on campus all 4 yrs and had a meal plan. We did set him up with toiletries and such when we moved him in and on breaks.
With one D we gave her 50 a week but she lived in an apartment and drove to school. We did pay her rent and utilities.
Fast forward to kid 3. I don’t have a regular amount but check her balance online and add money as needed. I probably should put her on a budget. She has a horse and it is the vet and horse shoeing and grain expenses that add up. She has a job that is suppose to cover the horse expenses but that doesn’t seem to be happening. She did get an on campus job starting this summer that provides her with housing. That will help offset the horse costs. It is my own fault but we support the riding because we can and it is a healthy outlet.
Do what feels right for your family. There will always be kids who have more and those who have less. I wanted my kids to have enough that they could participate with others and not have wealthier kids picking up the tab for my kid.
Oh and we paid for books. </p>

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<p>Yeah, but when you get a phone call from the bank fraud department asking whether or not you placed a $900 charge online to buy camera equipment… it’s hard to know what to answer you’ve got someone sharing the credit card. (In that case, the call was meant for my daughter --but the bank rep didn’t mention a name – she just called and referenced the last 4 digits of the card number, which didn’t seem familiar at the time but then, who memorizes all their Visa card numbers. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to ask the bank person to verify the name on the card she was calling about.</p>

<p>It’s odd what triggers a call. Last month I bought two computers within the course of a week, and also bought airline tickets to different destinations over the course of about 48 hours, overlapping with one of the computers. So I wasn’t surprised to get a call from the fraud department – until it turned out that they were calling about a $40 online purchase I made for a specialty food product. </p>

<p>With all of my daughter’s international travel over the years, I think I would have gone nuts if I had needed to track her credit card expenses as well. </p>

<p>@turtletime - No the amount the college put is not accurate and neither is the estimated cost of books.</p>

<p>I personally did not place any value whatsoever on the school’s estimated costs for incidentals and text books. I noticed a lot of variations among different schools, but I know that a text book purchased by a student in a public school in Arizona cost the same as a text book purchased by a student at a private college in Boston. And also that there are many different options for books – they can be purchased used, sometimes borrowed, and these days even rented as ebooks for the duration of a quarter or semester at a cost that is only a fraction of their total costs. Costs of books and materials can vary considerably by discipline as well.</p>

<p>If you do plan to subsidize your kid’s out-of-pocket expenses, you can always track expenses and adjust upward or downward as necessary over time. For example, you might simply give your child $500 at the beginning of the semester and ask your child to keep track of money spent on books – and to let you know if and when he needs more. Of course it depends on you kid— you probably know by now if you are the parent of a spender or a saver. Spenders tend to need a tighter rein and more parental supervision- at least while the parents are footing the bill.</p>

<p>My daughter always was a spender – in fact, in high school I wanted to give her a monthly allowance to help with budgeting skills, but she always ran through the money mid-way through the month, so I had to change to weekly. Same amount of money overall, but she managed better when the money was doled out that way. But that was one factor that favored my decision to stop the allowance in college- she definitely learned to see money in a different light and to budget better when she was making the connection between what she wanted to buy and the hours she had to work to earn that money. I think she still leans toward being a spender, but she takes an earn-first approach rather than a pay-later approach. </p>

<p>We paid tuition, books, phone, and board. When sons lived in an apartment, we paid the rent/electricity. When they were home and needed to pay for transportation to an internship, we paid for that too. We also bought a suit for interviews. ETA: we also paid for flights home and the cost to get to/from airport.</p>

<p>What we did not pay: entertainment, extra food beyond what the school charges, and incidentals like gas for his gf’s car while at school. That’s why they got summer jobs. I realize my sons paid for things like cap and gown rental. Wonder what else they paid. They never asked.</p>

<p>following this carefully. My son is unfortunately just like me and is terrible with money. He has worked for years he just spends everything he makes. He doesn’t ask us for much, handles his expenses himself but will not have that job in college so we will need to come up with some plan soon.</p>

<p>We give our son nothing, but do reimburse him for necessary expenses like books and laundry and printing papers. I’d actually be happy to pay for one meal/outing a week on the theory that it’s not healthy to sit in your room doing nothing. Since he got a girl friend he also got a part time job. We pay for cell phones and do expect them to answer at least once a week. </p>

<p>Both kids were pretty frugal. My relative gave S a nice 4 figure sum when he started college, that he drew on and made last all 4 years. He also worked over summers and JR and SR years part-time to earn even more money. He also bought and sold texts online (his and friends), which earned him a few more $$$.</p>

<p>D got a job the 2nd day she arrived on campus, which she used to help fund her expenses. We gave her the equivalent of the lower priced full-meal plan for her to budget for meals and whatever else she needed. We also were willing to pay for any textbooks and course fees as well as tuition.</p>

<p>We paid for plane tickets for both “kids” as well as family cell phone plan and medical insurance through them turning 26. S stopped having us buy him plane tickets (and everything else) after he got his full-time career job after college. We have been very happy. :)</p>

<p>Since D graduated and has no job, we have been giving her the amount of her lodging & utilities plus about $500 per month and pay her this amount as a lump sum every quarter. She has been very good about making it stretch much longer than we expect and generally has quite a bit left at the end of the quarter before we disburse the next quarter’s sum.</p>