D’s planning to loft her bed, so storing items under it may be interesting. We may leave her with one suitcase, one duffel bag, and her backpack if she brings it. We will take the rest of the luggage home with us (flying Southwest, 2 bags free per person).
@rhandco, what is disgusting and grody? Renting a microwave and fridge?
When I was in school back in the day, they banned waterbeds due to the potential for leaks. No implication of a “party” atmosphere, just trying not to destroy the buildings (my freshman year building was built in 1895, with additions up until the early 20th century - so yeah, I don’t think they wanted huge quantities of water sitting around waiting to leak).
As for storing suitcases, you can put extras of stuff in it, like dry food (cereal, soup mix) or tissues. And stuff that your parents made you take but you don’t need (like a sweater you never plan to wear). Also if your student plans to travel from campus anywhere, a lighter bag can be kept in the suitcase or even a backpack / sleeping bag.
We were living in an apartment complex senior year, and it started to rain. Turns out the person above us didn’t get that the overflow for the tub was not enough to keep it from overflowing. We luckily had almost no damage, but were told that some people grew up quite “well off” and never had to draw a tub for themselves, so they didn’t get how they worked.
My son is going to school about 3 - 3.5 hours away by car, so he will probably use a duffel bag. Bringing little friends back and forth is a concern, we used to leave my brother’s bag on the porch for a while to “air out” namely get the roaches to roam free before he tried to bring it inside. After one bad incident LOL.
I am amused that typewriters are still listed as OK to bring. Does any kid still use a typewriter?
(I’m a fan, but I’m an old lady.)
The rent-a-fridge/microwave combo is brilliant and saves the need to tote stuff around.
Frankly I don’t know if my kids have ever seen a typewriter let alone used one! And I am OK with the rent-a-fridge thing too, especially since we are not local to D’s school. They deliver and they pick up. That makes me happy.
I’ve seen a typewriter! … on the Waltons. 
I have an '80s model electric typewriter I keep in the garage. I like using it to neatly fill in forms when they’re not available online. I’m a weirdo. Anyway. When the kids were younger, they used to beg me to take it down and let them type on it. They were mesmerized, as if I’d produced a wringer washer or shown them how to make fire from flint.
Speaking of little friends that come home from college. I’ve been thinking that college dorms would be fabulous environments for bed bugs, yet I haven’t seen anything about that. Are bed bugs a problem? If so, how would one be sure not to infest DC’s home with them?
I don’t know if this helps or not, but my globe-trotting sister puts all of her baggage in her deep-freeze in the garage for a while before taking it into the house. (Just clothes, shoes, not cosmetics and stuff like that. She’s bedbug free.)
We are looking at sending in an FA appeal letter, hopefully tomorrow or early next week.
But we are wondering - anyone know of any websites where they calculate what a family really can afford? I saw one about “discretionary income” calculators, but I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to look for.
How much of our “extra” money are we supposed to spend on college? Would 30% of the family’s income after taxes be crazy or about right?
Aren’t you cutting it a bit fine, time-wise, to send a FA appeal with a May 1 deadline looming?
A friend with a freshman this year said it was suggested in their HS transition meeting that they buy the plastic-y protective zipped mattress cover for the dorm mattresses. These are generally for allergy reduction, but they also work for the type of “little friends” you mentioned, @PhxRising . Her D is planning to leave it on the mattress when she moves out and buy a new one for next year – the dorm can leave it on or take it off, but they don’t want it in their house!
I think the mattresses in my daughter’s dorm are the gross rubber-encased ones.
It’s even worse than that - it’s an FA appeal for ED, so they’ve got him in the bag.
But they (FA office) knew that when I called them up, and still said I should file an appeal letter.
I mean, it is like 15K less income for 2015 projected vs. 2014 due to various circumstances (like not getting a freaking raise for many years and getting backpay for everyone not just me in 2014).
(okay, so I am hoping he will definitely get work study added, not mentioned previously in his FA package, if they can’t do anything else)
But why wait until a week before D-Day? Wouldn’t it have helped your stress level to do this weeks ago?
I am definitely, definitely buying one of those plastic mattress protectors for my D’s bed. I had not even considered the bedbug issue but I definitely do not want any visitors here!
As overprices as those microwave/fridge rentals will probably be, I still think it would be a better arrangement for us. We are traveling to the opposite coast and the less we acquire the better.
I am also buying the plastic encasing mattress covers for the dorm. I like the idea of just leaving the cover on the mattress at the end of the year.
We are within an hour of the university and I am still considering the rental. It might pay for itself on move-in day when we don’t have to lug appliances in August heat.
I could not have sent the FA appeal letter weeks ago. I only was able to upload from the IRS in the past two weeks, and I didn’t have time to do all of the research on the backpay etc. after that. Also only figured out about the mandatory retirement contribution being an issue within the last week on CC, IIRC.
The spouse did the taxes, so they were filed later than I wanted to, but we had a weird form appear at the last minute, in late March, so it is good we didn’t file early February when we got our W2 forms.
(What irks me is not this, yeah, I suspect it is “too late” for the FA appeal letter though I was encouraged to submit, but my son is dragging his feet on his forms, like getting testing accommodations and picking his dorm. I really want to light a fire under his butt, and I am hoping he doesn’t expect to be home every weekend because he hates his dorm / dormmates / dorm setup.)
Our daughter did the microwave/mini fridge rental the first year. One year’s rental was considerably more expensive than buying. However, the biggest issue was that by the end of her freshman year, D was pretty much doing all her own food prep and then they wanted the unit returned in the middle of the last week of school (not counting finals). Plus they delivered to the room before she moved in, but she had to get it out of the dorm and to their truck for the return. Last August we bought them and now DS will use them this year (not looking forward to that August heat) since DD will be in an apartment.