Haven’t been on in a while but all the major things are ticked off:
graduation, grad parties, course registration, dorm room selection and advisor meeting! But the thing I’m most shocked about is that my S25 started dating a girl from another school about a month ago. He swore he had no interest in a “situationship” before leaving for a school completely acoss the country…and he hasn’t dated anyone since his horrible breakup 2 years ago…but alas, here we are.
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Popular belief deems Princeton’s eating clubs elitist, but when you drink for free, social life becomes incredibly egalitarian. And they get something like $150 in paw points to spend in town each semester.
Congratulations!! When D22 graduated, the several of the kids giving speeches and receiving awards were her close friends and that was so fun. The best part is that we knew what they were talking about when they went down memory lane or referred to some inside joke.
I am SO sorry. Expected or not, that is always hard.
He probably just wants to breath for a minute. Encourage him to think about a 6 hr/wk job on campus, and explore the on campus job listings. Its so nice to have that little bit of structure!
I have not wrapped my head around my soon to be empty nest.
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On the topic of budget, has anyone set up their kids with an app like RocketMoney or something of that sort? They don’t have to budget per se. As I mentioned, they work a fw hours a week and we give them enough “pocket money” to cover everyday stuff like personal care and (occasional!) meal out with friends and they don’t have to dip into their savings if they are reasonable about it, but I would like for them to get a good sense of where (and how fast) the money is going.
My daughter has a few dresses, skirts, and blazers for profesaional wear for presentations. She is petite and has found things from Loft/Anne Taylor that she liked. She was able to find some solid colored skirts she liked.
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I’m so very sorry, even if expected that is hard.
Congrats on the graduation though!!
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I am so sorry to hear about your loss.
I loved reading this bit of your post, because both of my girls did this same project for their physics classes, and it was equally fun and hilarious to witness!
My D22 had honors physics as a junior, and she and her friend (both musical theatre nerds) did a Chess (the musical) themed boat, with black and white checkerboard pattern. It held up pretty well, but good grief, they did NOT know how to row and managed to spin around in circles before they got going, lol. It didn’t sink, though. OH, and they had One Night in Bangkok as their walk-up music. (Probably all of three people will even get that, lol.) 
My D26 had honors physics as a freshman, and she is an artsy kid, so she designed a dragon-themed boat. It was a WHOLE thing – I’m including a picture. It had cupholders and everything. It didn’t go very fast, and her partner screamed the entire time (my kid was about to jump out, lol) – but they sure won for best design! 
(She is also hopeless at rowing.)
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Oh, this is amazing! I like how the cups can work to bail water out (in theory). Our kids didn’t have walk-up music and most of the boats were not this creative or well-produced. The Edmund Fluxgerald did have some Viking-like decorations (and was generally canoe-shaped, which seemed to help them with speed.)
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I cannot stop laughing at “Edmund Fluxgerald”
And yes, we also learned that the long and slim canoe-shaped boats were the fastest. The wide S.S. Figment had no chance, but he sure looked commanding out there.
I still remember when D26 did the egg-drop project in middle school science – her egg absolutely did not survive the drop, but whatever contraption she built was so aesthetically pleasing. That seems to be her pattern. Good thing she’s planning to study design, LOL.
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I am so sorry for your loss. What a blessing that you were able to spend quality time together a few months ago.
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On business attire - thanks for the tips on where to look for good deals for a suit. I suspect for this year, he’ll be OK with a blazer and khakis. He has been asking for a suit for some time, but really, it would have just hung unused in his closet. If we need to deal with that element sooner, we can do that over the Christmas break, I suspect.
On spending/allowance/budgeting: we’ve made it pretty clear that we’re covering direct academic expenses, books, room/board, travel home, and probably clothing to an extent (we haven’t talked about that yet, but the suit would be a perfect example of something we would pay for). When it comes to discretionary spending like going out with friends, that is going to be on him with the money he earns from his work over the summers/breaks. I am liking the idea of setting him up on Rocket Money or something similar so he can work on budgeting and getting a better overall picture of how he’s spending his money. We also need to have a more detailed discussion about savings and how that works… I will say that since giving him more autonomy and responsibility for his finances, he has stepped up the maturity in how he talks about spending and how he talks about our role in supporting him. I’m sure there will be hiccups, but it’s refreshing to engage with him in a different, more mature way about finances.
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Long time, no post!
D25 was invited to senior awards night. (I called the school to confirm because she is a 3.7 GPA kid who ended up with a 3.5 GPA this semester and we knew it was heading in that direction.) They confirmed and said, “bring the whole family!” So we did. She won best foreign language student in the entire school! We are so proud, and she was over the moon!!
Graduation was hot, and not in a good way. Two ambulances had to come to tend to people, but nobody was taken away, thank goodness. D25 had a great time posing with friends, but lost her tassel because she didn’t take it off before she threw it up into the air, lol. She is not the best with logistics.
She officially quit her job and applied to a dozen other places and they have either said no or crickets. I don’t think plans on leaving in 10 weeks helped her application, but that’s fine. So she is loafing around at home, spending lots of time with friends, is dating a kid from an adjacent town, and will volunteer with me on the weekends at the food bank.
School-wise, she’s done the following:
- found a roomate
- accepted her housing offer and put down a deposit (we are working on asking permission to pay $2k on my credit card before doing so–next time!)
- enrolled in orientation week
- gotten her date for class selection (June 25). She is trying to figure out the school’s canvas site and finds it not super intuitive. Her school requires her to sign up for the entire year of classes!
- signed up for an online high-yield savings account to transfer some graduation gift money to earn a little more interest so hopefully she will save it for something important and won’t blow it on sushi and boba.
- signed up for an in-person bank appointment for August, so she can open an international bank account
- called her doctor and got a prescription for birth control
I’m having her practice freeway driving this summer and we’re waiting to hear about AP test results, which could impact her course selection. She told me she absolutely did not pass AP Chinese, but thinks the others are in contention. She needs a score of 4 or more to get any credit for college.
Re: the above discussion about finances. I have promised D25 $25 a week for a treat or toiletry. She can use her part-time job money to cover anything over that. So far, she has bought tickets to parties and Ed Sheeran herself.
Hope everyone is having a great early summer!
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That reminds me of one time when I heard a Civil Engineer speak at a Career Day. She said, “our job is to take the beautiful things that architects and artists imagine, and try to create them in the real world on Earth”
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My spender takes their money out weekly in cash to keep track of how much they are spending. When the money runs out they know they are done for the week and it helps them budget better using cash.
My frugal ones also use cash, but feel comfortable using their debit card knowing they won’t overspend.
They are all authorized users on one of our credit cards and use that for expenses like: plane tickets home, interview outfits, etc. I’ve also gotten texts from all of them asking to use the credit card for one off personal expenses that they then repay (usually purchases they wanted the protection of credit card purchase v. debit card - like concert tickets, or their subscriptions to Spotify).
They all grew up getting a monthly allowance (not weekly) so they had years of practice and learned the hard, but low stakes, way what it felt like to not have cash at the end of the month if they didn’t budget well.
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S23 and S25 have been authorized users on one of our credit cards (one that we don’t use) since middle school. They use them for just about everything. We cover the vast majority of their expenses and they reimburse us for things we don’t cover (things like video games, concert tickets, bar tabs.)
S23 is naturally frugal and doesn’t spend much. He spends so little we’re unlikely to ask for reimbursement, but he always offers. I think I’ve shared this before, but he was buying books at the bookstore and included a $12 poster. He wanted to send us the money. We declined.
S25 is the opposite. He has very expensive taste and isn’t afraid to spend money. We’re going to have to watch his spending and will likely give him some sort of allowance rather than allow free for all spending on our credit card. TBD.
It makes me laugh how kids in the same family can be so different with money. Mine are the same. D22 is pretty frugal. D26 on the other hand, hoo boy. She also has access to one of our credit cards – we don’t question the occasional meal out or clothing purchase or whatever, but she loves craft supplies, so she will go shopping at Michael’s and come back with an armload of yarn and whatever else she needs for the project of the week, lol.
We’re lenient with it because at least she’s doing something productive instead of staring at a screen (she does plenty of that, too) – but we always joke that she’s going to need to find a lucrative career…or marry well.
S25 is somewhere between the two – his expensive hobby is electronics of all kinds. (Mom, I read about these really good gaming headphones…) Mostly I worry that his Chipotle habit is going to bankrupt us this fall, lol. We’re going to need to set up an allowance for sure.
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Every summer my dad gives him a $250 Wawa gift card. Best gift ever lol. Grandparents occasionally buy something for the girls when they are out together. Nothing big but a cute top they saw or a book they wanted. S never wants anything so they started the Wawa thing.
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They deal with this by only keeping a small “weekly” amount in their debit account. When they were younger and first started using their cards I set it up this way to force them to log in and take a look at their balance every once in a while.
In our case they pay for everything from gas to grocery runs for me from their own account and I reimburse them. That has really helped them become aware of the cost of things.
D25 is not a spendthrift but she’s had a paying job since forever so she’s always had enough pocket money to do the things she wants to do - her tastes are not particularly fancy, pretty regular suburban teen life - without giving it that much thought. Still, I think good saving habits don’t hurt, so I am trying to help her be more aware of say, how many lattes she is having each week. Also, she is a little too generous with her friends. While we are probably the most well off, she is the only one with a year round job. She is extremely kind and not hung up on material things but I don’t want her to be taken advantage of either.
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This! We have had the same issue with our kiddo in the past too. We’ll set up his GL card so he’ll have money for meals at overnight track meets, and depending on the meet, maybe swag, and low and behold he’s buying dinner and snacks for a teammate or two… I mean, he can eat, but no way is he eating $60 worth of pasta at Olive Garden by himself.
I think he has always treated the GL card as a sort of slush fund, since he has no stake in where those funds really come from. They just magically appear when he needs gas… but now that he has a regular debit card tied to his personal checking account, he’s looking at things a bit differently.
We’re going back and forth between making him an authorized user on my CC so he can buy plane tickets home and for emergencies, or having him get a “starter card” from Capital One. I think we will likely do the former to start, and then if he’s managing his finances pretty well, start him off on a credit card. I think he’s a little intimidated by the thought of it right now, and I’m OK letting him get his feet under him at school before adding that layer of responsibility.
I do like the idea of having him pay for things that we need as a family and then reimbursing him so he can start to see the true cost of things. Making him an authorized user certainly would open the door to that.
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IMO not really, if he is not paying the bill/looking at the statements.
Regarding the starter CC, she charges a small subscription to it and set it to autopay to keep it active. She sticks to her debit card for the most part. But what we did was keep paper statements addressed to the house. This way we can keep an eye on things and advise as needed.
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For D25 the money she earns from her summer job will be her discretionary money during the school year. I would say she is pretty frugal. She frequently complains about how expensive things are!
Her school also has ‘bulldog bucks’ built into what we pay for her meal plan. These can be used at many popular off campus restaurants as well as the Safeway grocery store near campus. She gets $900 a semester which breaks down to about $55 a week. That should more than enough!