I really like how this mimics what I refer to as “buckets” of spending (non-discretionary expenses, discretionary expenses and savings). We are not this granular but I can see how it would be great learning about money management.
Yeah, I didn’t ask for an equivalent to the Category 2 thing in our negotiations, but now having seen it I think it is a pretty cool idea. I might see if I can introduce it in a future round (like, say, if and when S24 has a car on campus).
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We are in high negotiations about this too. S24 is not a spender but he also likes to eat food that is good and I am not confident that all meals will be in the dining hall. How much is reasonable a month for him vs s21 who goes to an out of state private that costs less than half is a hard balance. I am big that he gets an on campus job for a little spending money but not sure if that between likely several music activities and the intensity of an LAC that he will have time. May have to just see how it goes…
There are two things that have helped our kids in that front.
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When we set up their HS account with a debit card, they got a savings and a checking. All their money (small allowance, paycheck, etc) goes into the savings and they only keep about 250$ in their checking account. This forces them to go to their accounts to move money somewhat regularly. Because of it, they are aware of their balance and how fast they are spending.
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We are happy to cover gas, but they pay everything from their own account and I refund the amount every once in a while. Even if they have a big purchase, or run errands for me, I prefer to have them use their own debit card instead of my credit card. This has helped make them very aware of prices. Their friends who use “moms cc” for these things have absolutely no idea of how much things cost.
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So we’ll see how it goes, but we are using the college’s own estimated Miscellaneous/Personal expenses (reported as part of its COA) for that portion of the budget. I figured out the number of weeks S24 will be there in session, and we are dividing the annual amount by that number of weeks, and then multiplying it by two to get a two-week budget. Books and supplies is then a separate budget amount per term (so the annual amount divided in half since S24 has two terms), and finally for now we parents are going to pay directly for travel (again this may change if a car gets involved).
Again I don’t really know how this will work in practice, but it seemed reasonable for a starting point for budgetary purposes. And it also seemed like if it worked out, we could use the same procedure for D30 without a lot of cries of unfairness (they both watch each other like hawks for any perceived double standards).
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You are very organized! I am hopeful there won’t be many books but I am fairly certain he will want hard copies of math and physics texts which are not cheap!
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General question because I feel like maybe I’m inhabiting a vastly different planet than much of CC sometimes, but…do your kids not hold summer jobs? Around these parts, which has a very wide socioeconomic spread, all the kids work in the summer by age 16 or 17.
We paid for a lot of our daughters’ misc discretionary expenses during the school year, but once they were earning, that was all on them. As far as misc spending at college, D24 has been socking away a portion of her summer earnings to cover it.
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It is almost impossible for kids where we are to get a summer job. There are not many places that hire kids for seasonal work and they are extra busy during the school year. Many have issues during the summer in college and will work at camps for much less than minimum wage
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ah, I didn’t consider that. We’re in an area that relies heavily on summer tourism, so seasonal jobs abound.
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S24 has a friend who is going to local cc next year and wanted a full time job starting this summer and even that was not easy
My daughter (and most of her friends) all worked summer jobs starting at 16. I’m seeing the same thing now in my area with kids of friends of that age. Typical summer jobs - lifeguarding, working at fast food or casual restaurants, babysitting, camp counselor, etc… My D worked at at a sub shop in HS.
(No seasonal tourism where we used to live, nor where we live now).
We’ve done something similar with checking/savings accounts opened in middle school, all deposits made to savings. They’ve both learned to transfer money from savings to checking regularly and keep track of their spending. Thank goodness their credit union has no overdraft charges and transfers the amount automatically — they’ve both been slow learners in this regard but at 18 and 21 have finally figured it out! 
My younger kid has done a bit better surprisingly, I think it’s because she’s worked more summers than her older sister (started lifeguarding at 15 and her employer pays pretty well).
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One of my kids has had a summer job since she was 15, the other not until she was 18 (pandemic).
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My youngest also has had a job since 14 (she is young for her school year) and works year round.
S24 didn’t have a job until last summer due to sports. He doesn’t have random “wants” like the girls, though they are both pretty frugal.
D22 works about 8 hours a week in college and makes more than enough to to cover her wants and covers her own books (which I’d happily pay for if she asked).
S24 intends to work a few hours during the school year but D1 athletics plus engineering requirements might make things tricky. Luckily, students have minimal out of pocket expenses for entertainment/social life at his school.
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One of the many negotiation items was if he found a way to save by buying used texts or such, that would be more money for him that he could use as he saw fit. We’ll see but I bet he finds a way to do that (for sure both his parents did!).
If it were up to me . . . .
But part of NiceUnparticularMom’s argument has been we have kept S24 busy with other stuff in the summers which might have made it hard to get a normal summer job. My rebuttal–that he could have tried–did not go anywhere. In any event, I think the hope (at least my hope) is he will now want to get jobs going forward as it will become clear how he benefits.
Whether we would ever do what my parents did (You want to eat outside the dining halls? Come home for Thanksgiving? Start working, kid) seems unlikely given NiceUnparticularMom’s sense of how this should be handled.
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We are not doing an allowance- we are covering needs (medications, etc) but wants will come from her own savings from working the last three summers and year round babysitting gigs. She is pretty frugal on her own, no car, no expensive hobbies or wants, so should be okay (and is already checking out the job board for a work study position.)
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We pay for everything school related, room, meals, health care, flights home. We are also still paying for car insurance and cell phones through the end of school. D23 pays for everything else, mostly gas, Starbucks, and trips to the mall. She seems to wait mostly until her birthday and Christmas for clothing and I’ll occasionally take her shopping.
We start putting our kids in charge of their own finances in high school when they get their license. We give them a set dollar amount every month and they need to pay for gas, clothing, concert tickets, etc. with it or earn extra money somehow to cover what they want. We also expect each kid to save at least 10K before leaving for college so that they have a nest egg. D23 hit that June of her senior year. S25 hit it this summer. They both did this just lifeguarding and as camp counselors.
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Same. Daughter was a camp counselor the last two summers. A 6 day workweek and they were only paid $375 a week. And the counselors were typically “on” for 14+ hours a day (plus the campers had regular night time bathroom trips, etc). Slave labor. I didn’t have the heart to send her back this year.
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We didn’t ask them to work during college though they did in HS. So like @Izzy74, we covered everything.
They each had three accounts - save, spend, and growth. However, looking back I might have made a tweak at least freshman year - I would have them give us some of their money and we would transfer it back to them monthly like a salary so that they get used to having a limited amount of money in their account at a time.
I remember my senior year I had a friend who had very, very wealthy - but very practical - parents. He ran out of money mid-semester but they wouldn’t give him more money to teach him to be more frugal and he lived on about $20 for two months. It helped to have the fraternity kitchen…and bar…
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My daughter ran out of her extra meal money her first semester in like October. The bonus bucks that come with a lot of meal plans. Poor thing had to eat in the dining hall for the remainder of the term.
My parents were more than comfortable, I went to boarding school and a private LAC. They didn’t give me an allowance outside of housing, books, and meals. My dad’s quote I believe was that he was not required to pay for my beer. These are of course the same people who bought me a mattress for my college graduation 
I absolutely believe in not having kids suffer unnecessarily but eating in the dining hall isn’t suffering 
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