Ah, leotards and hairspray. And physical therapy. Yes, when the next one goes (a gymnast), I’ll be rich!
Our kids don’t get an allowance however we do pay for A’s on the report cards. Which stops when they go to college. Also he is not on the gym membership so that saves $20 a month.
We didn’t start saving money until we stopped paying college tuitions. We do notice smaller water and electric bills when kids were away. We offset that by eating out more. 
We started saving well before we are paying for college.
But we likely saved more aggressively after we had been an empty nest. The size of our nest egg could have been increased by 20% since our son graduated from college – even though I think my wife still managed to occasionally repay (mostly the interest) portion of his student loans. (I do not know exactly how frequently she did it and by how much each time.) But this could mean that our nest egg was not large to begin with.
This is not the case for us. Our kid could be at least as frugal as us. Whenever he spent some money greater than a certain amount, he would always let us know (most of time in advance, but in a crunch, could be after the fact.)
^^^ my D has access to my Amazon account and a credit card to use for gas and approved purchases (like stopping by the grocery store for me on the way home from school) She also has a credit card for our medical savings account to pay her own co-pays and prescriptions now that she is 18 and I don’t have to go the the doctors with her (unless she wants me there). She has never abused these and I doubt she ever will, she is more frugal them I am and I’m a coupon queen!
My neighbor was contacted by the city after he sent his triplets off to college. Their water bill had dropped so much that the city was convinced he was siphoning water from someone else’s line - off grid water supply???.
My kids have always had a credit card with me, for emergencies. S never used it and D has charged only expenses she cleared with us–probqbly under $2k total in the 6 years she’s had it. sS is the best bargain hunter I know. He knows and likes quality but also knows trends and good prices for high quality.
Funny about neighbor and triplets.
The $60K/year we were paying for his high school. He’s chose a “free” college. God love 'im.
Grocery, dining out costs, water, and gas bills went down. Still paying for private lessons for one instrument, but was paying for four so much less.
Private instrument lessons for two instruments.
Cost for pre college orchestra.
Electric bill was half…no kidding.
Food bill was half.
Got rid of one car…so saved on all the expenses for one car.
Summer programs for one kid…at $3000 per summer that was a nice savings.
I don’t get the “it’s a drop in the bucket, not worth talking about” comments. People here are talking about thousands of dollars. Even if you’re full paying 60K, reducing it to 55K would be noticeable. Thousands are thousands.
Yes, we did pay $10k for HS tuition per kid and the electric bill was cut in half from $150 to $75, but $50-60K/yr per kid college expenses made it hard to appreciate these ‘savings,’ from my perspective.
Luckily S did get major merit scholarship, but his college expenses were still significantly more than the savings, which made me very glad I was able to create a job for myself to help cover increased expenses. H happened to get an unexpected raise as well, which also really helped. Without the job, raise, and S’s merit award, things would have been MUCH rougher for us financially and may have reduced kids’ options.
@garland True. If that is in reference to my post (couldn’t find that phrase exactly), my bad. Poor choice of words.
I guess most of the money we are “saving” is really just reallocated to the balance of her room and board bill after scholarships. We are probably breaking about even.
Once upon a time, when all three of mine were still home and heavily involved in music, club sports and things like weekly riding (horse) lessons, I added up yearly expenses for those things and it was well over $10,000 per year.
All of those expenses went away when the kids went to college. Our utilities and food expenses also went down.
@2muchquan --no. not you. There were a few posts that clearly weren’t getting the idea that it’s still money saved, and sort of poo-pooing the idea that any saved amount counts. We were full pay for a few years (not at the level it is now, thankfully), and i appreciated any little savings that put a dent in that.
I sort of poo-poo it because it doesn’t make any sense – the small amount that my grocery bill, water bill, etc. went down was MORE than made up for by the room and board I was paying to keep them fed, warm, showered, etc. in another location – with ZERO economies of scale to my own household.
It’s like saying - last night I went to dinner at a restaurant and spent $30; I turned my lights off and turned the heat down when I left, and I saved water because I didn’t have to rinse the dishes – look how much money I saved! It’s still a pittance compared to the cost of the restaurant.
It isn’t such a pittance if, like us, you were spending a lot on extracurricular activities and lessons and summer programs. Those “savings” could be allocated toward college expenses.
Yeah. My kids went to public school, and neither had any kind of costly lessons / activities. So really, there was little meaningful difference in my everyday budget.
All of my kids’ college expenses are paid from a separate fund which is used exclusively for college, so those expenses don’t mingle with my household budget/expenses. The smaller amounts saved (I previously mentioned) – club swim, lowering car insurance by switching my son to an occasional driver, etc. were expenses that were paid from my checking account…and were noticeable over time.