I know this may sound ridiculous, but some kids are really good with money and letting her grab dinner with friends and a $7 cup of coffee isnt a big deal to us nor do we see it as a missed opportunity to “teach her lessons” about money.
She knows we’re paying almost $90k/year for college, BUT dont get that fancy coffee at the student center.
I think it’s great she’s good with money. Not every kid is-regardless of the circumstances in which they grew up.
Our solution for this issue was to buy our coffee-drinking kid an espresso machine as a graduation present.
Plenty of people never get back on track. As you point out, they have forever impaired earning power. For retirees, it’s called the “sequence of returns risk”; for workers, it’s the phenomena you describe.
Few (elite) college educated Americans have seen deep and sustained economic downturns. There are not only lean years, but lean decades. Just ask any Japanese college graduate who finished from, say, 1991 until very recently. Or ask any Chinese college graduate from 2009 until today. (The 2023 official unemployment rate in China for young graduates, most of whom were STEM grads, is around 20% and it is not unheard of for such grads to be working as food delivery workers.)
Yeah yeah, American exceptionalism, “cleanest dirty shirt in the closet”, all of that. But the wealth creation we’ve seen, particularly in the financial sector since 2008 when interest rates approached zero for decades, does make me wonder whether the financialization of the economy can continue forever in this direction.
It is not entirely rational to me that starting Goldman & McKinsey analysts can walk into $125k starting salaries, or that starting associates who literally have never practiced law can command $225k to start. Nevermind the $3-5mm levels of compensation that are not exceptional after a decade of toil.
And lets face it. Suppose there’s no employment market crash. But let’s suppose your kid goes to some elite school, and does well. Even at the most pre-professionally oriented school, they won’t end up in the financial sector. The majority of kids will do something outside of those most highly compensated careers.
Maybe they will become a junior brand manager at P&G and then after 4 years of working on the small packaging Ruffle potato chip market, they get admitted to Kellogg, where they get an MBA. Those kids arent going to go on to earn $1mm a year. They’re going to have nice, upper middle class lives where endless $7 lattes will actually be something of a financial leak.
Apart from those McKinsey analysts who were told last year to go spend 6 or 12 months on a beach after graduation, because there wasn’t enough work for them to do.
Or Meta’s starting class of graduates in 2022 who were all told they were no longer needed…or the IB analysts who thought they were getting hired at Lehman etc in 2008-09…
I don’t envy the new graduates who currently think they’ll be working for a government contractor like Booz Allen or Leidos this summer.
One of the schools we toured has several Starbucks and Peet’s Coffees on campus…dining dollars work for those and don’t take away from meal swipes. My daughter loved that.
We will also buy her a Nespresso or something similar.
Our D realized that if she uses the school swipe card at the coffee places on campus instead of credit cards, she doesnt have to pay sales tax.
She was pretty excited about that.
Kids also seem to use DoorDash a lot. Trying to convince 18 years olds to buy gift cards at Costco to save 20% on their food deliveries is a lost cause.
Unfortunately that didn’t shift coffee preferences decisively. And the pods are expensive. But a real machine isn’t that much more and you can end up better off overall with the savings on whole bean coffee if you drink it every day. This is about $400 (but may be hard to fit in a small dorm room, we used it in an off campus apartment)
This was our thought as parents. Maybe because that was how my DH and I experienced college. We both paid our own way, albeit in the era when it was more feasible to do so. I have really great memories of being a poor student, in ways life was more simple and free.
My kids have all chosen passions/paths in life that are unlikely to make them millionaires. (Two musicians and one teacher) They are all happy, fulfilled and supporting themselves on what most people would consider very little. If ever they come into more money, I am sure they will adjust. But being able to enjoy life without lots of extravagance is a great quality for them. They seem to have no regrets.
As an example: Talking with my youngest the other day as he was considering various grad schools. He tells me that one of his goals was to not need or have a car before the age of 30. Same kid does not want more belongings than will fit in a large suitcase and a couple of boxes.
And this is just us. There are so many great ways to foster happy and independent adults.
We buy pods for my husband’s work Nespresso at Home Goods or online—they’re like .15 or 20 cents a pod. But thank you. Maybe we will upgrade my husband’s machine and give her the Nespresso. 
Again, “upper Middle Class” is not what many people here think that it is.
For individual income, the top 20% starts at around $100,000, for household income, it’s $165,000. According to GlassDoor, the median salary for a “junior brand manager at P&G” is $137,000, with the range being $111,000 - $172,000. So a Junior Branch Manager at P&G is making an individual salary within the top 20%, and can make enough as a single earner to place their family in the top 20% by income. That “worst case scenario” results in a far better outcome than “upper middle class”.
On the other hand, I will also like to point out that the vast majority of jobs that require a bachelors and a masters are not within that range, but with the real “upper middle class” range. According to the BLS, the median salary for a teacher is $65,000, which inches into the top 40% by income. If both parents have similar salaries, the household income will end up at roughly $130,000 a year, which is the top 30% by income. That’s “upper middle Class”.
Yes, college educated Americans are generally “upper middle class”, but that term doesn’t mean what so many people here thinks that it means.
Also, a latte for every work day from Starbucks comes out to around $880 a year, less if they participate in one of the many programs that Starbucks has.
There’s a lot of variety possible on this topic. What works for 1 family or even 1 kid w/in a family won’t work for another family or even another kid in the same immediate family.
And because somebody else is making different choices than you doesn’t mean that they are judging you.
For example:
My 11th grader has a part time job where she works at Walmart 15-16 hr/week. She’s a responsible, diligent student and keeps her grades up (but struggles w/her Physics class). She’s not interested in make-up or clothes and pretty much saves all of the money she earns from each paycheck. She’s not into drinking Starbucks several times a week and all that sort of stuff. Will have her driver’s license in another couple of months.
My niece is also in 11th grade. Has ADHD and is on the autism spectrum. Struggles to pass english and history classes, excels in math & science. Isn’t ready to start driving yet and many days, just doing something simple like turning in an English assignment on time is totally overwhelming for her.
The approaches one would probably take with each of those kids could be vastly different. Doesn’t meant that one approach is wrong and the other is correct. Just different. Because the 2 kids are totally different people.
Meanwhile, D24 (college freshman) is wired differently than her younger sister. D24, right now where she is in life, needs us (Mom and Dad) to not save her from her mistakes. And she needs to have some more practice at making financial choices in order to grow up a little more. This means that we actively choose to not clean up her messes. There’s a lot of self-confidence that D24 is learning through all of this, though, because she’s learning that she’s resilient and can figure things out.
D24 likes drinking fancy Starbucks drinks often. We are not willing to supplement that. She likes ordering Door Dash sometimes when she’s tired of the dining hall and can’t bribe her roommate to drive her to an eatery off campus. We are not willing to pay for Door Dash each week. Meanwhile, we are also not made of money. It’s been challenging at times making ends meet…DH & I have had to postpone a lot of different things, including delaying some medical stuff because there just aren’t the funds to pay for the deductible right now.
For D24, the only way she’ll learn the value of money is if it’s her own finite resource. That’s why we don’t offer up our credit card as a back up for things. In making her own money-spending choices, she’s learning how to adult. She wants to spend $10/day on Starbucks? That’s a choice. But guess what, kiddo? That’ll mean that a 3-week study abroad for yourself later in college probably won’t be an option.
As it is, my DH has always thought that we shouldn’t pay for a dime of our kids’ college education, but he grew up with a vastly different experience than I did in this department. He & I reached an agreeable solution to that debate quite awhile ago…and we’re paying the equivalent cost of in-state tuition+room+board + we buy her plane tickets to/from school. Spending money, books, Uber/Lyft, gas money, clothing, personal hygiene products? She’s paying for that herself.
And if she chooses to blow a boatload of it on eating out? That’s her problem. She’ll have to figure out a solution. Like getting a job. Or spending less. For this kid, us bailing her out by ordering shipments of toiletries from Amazon to her dorm isn’t helping the source of the problem…it’s kicking the can down the road.
…because the whole purpose of this for our family is that eventually the ___ Family Foundation money train will end. And at some point down the road, DH & I won’t be around anymore and each of our kids will need to be self sufficient.
Would these methods work with my niece? Absolutely not. Totally different approach would be required with her. Vastly different situation.
Thank you for this - I think you really explained it well, different kids, different families, different choices. It doesn’t mean that any one is better or more optimal overall, just that, in that situation, it was better for that family.
I suspect we’re going to do things a little differently with S25 than we did S22. Older son has always been very money conscious, regardless of whether it was “his” money or “my” money. To the point where there have been times that he’s just been too frugal and we’ve had to encourage him to let us spend the money.
S25 is not that kid. He’s always appreciative, but I don’t see the same deliberative process going on with him. Not just on big expenses, but smaller ones too. And he’s been more apt to run through his spending money quickly. So for him, we may treat money in college a little differently. We’ll see - I’ve got a little more time to figure it out.
Where online? I think the cheapest ones on Amazon are $1 each. We have a Nespresso and a Keurig duo (pot and pods because H will drink a pot).
This thread has evolved in an interesting fashion.
I feel there’s a bit of an elephant in the room: behind the kid, there are parents who, earlier in their lives, might have had very different experiences in terms of money.
Many variations in between, but at the heart of this post, it’s really about the parental experience with money.
We all have different perspectives on this, and there isn’t a right or wrong way. I am, however, going to push back on the idea that kids who work during college are somehow minimizing their chances to have fun. I had fun with people I worked with, many of whom became friends. We hung out together. I had money to spend on records, clothes, etc… I wouldn’t change that.
I also think the jobs and internships students hold during their college years are important when they start applying for career building jobs, or more internships, or grad school. I actually wonder what a student who has never had a job would put on a resume or application.
Last night I texted both my kids this question: If you hadn’t needed to work during college because all your expenses were funded, would you have not worked?
D has been out of college for nearly 5 years: My jobs in college were valuable for putting on my résumé. The money was negligible. I didn’t spend much anyway. I only took campus jobs that I felt would help my résumé later. Any money I really needed I could earn in the summer.
S has been out of college nearly two years. His answer surprised me: Jobs were only useful because they got me out of bed at a reasonable hour. I do like money, so I would have still worked, even if I had an allowance. The jobs I’ve had (since graduating) were mostly because of my degree and my interview abilities. People skills are much more important than people realize.
I think my son’s comment is interesting because for him, the most important aspect of jobs was to form relationships with others.
Could probably be a new thread. But neither kid said they wished they hadn’t had to work.
Sent you a DM.
This comment seems true and unavoidable. All of our perspectives on money are shaped by our personal experiences with it. Agree 100% – and so this suggests there is no “right” answer (although we’re all probably judging others’ answers that feel “wrong” given our experience).
Probably some wisdom here. In high school, your schedule is largely dictated for you. At school from 8:30 am until 3:00 pm, maybe sports or clubs afterwards, dinner and homework in the evenings.
In college, there’s a lot less structure. Instead of having 35 hours a week of structured time, maybe the kid has 15 hours a week of lectures and labs. Some will do a ton of extracurriculars, but others will play foosball for endless hours in the student lounge screwing around
I can see how a job, with third-party accountability, helps put structure on the day. And then, once you’ve walked from your dorm to job location, it becomes easier to make a stop at the library, or finish your lab work, or head to a campus maker space.
These types of “jobs” are red herrings. I dont think anyone here, even the parents happy to give their kids blank checks, would balk at their kid taking a job related to their future employment or area of interest. In those cases, the pay from the job is the secondary consideration.
The real question is about taking an unrelated job, particularly where it’s difficult to derive a secondary benefit (e.g., fun social environment, adjacent to an area of interest, skill building, etc) other than the pure monetary compensation. That’s the only type of job I’m talking about.
In my experience this isn’t often the case.
Completely anecdotal of course but the people I grew up with, who all came from relatively wealthy families, tend to be pretty frugal with their kids and themselves.
My best friend and her husband grew up on small farms in the Midwest, went into medicine and have done very well. They were floored when we told them that we don’t provide fun money for our kids in college.
They have been subsidizing their post college 20-somethings completely, paying for endless expensive dinners and very nice fully furnished apartments. My friend told me she just assumed that everyone who could afford it did these things and she doesn’t want her kids to suffer like she did.
But what exactly are the jobs that provide NOTHING besides the paycheck?
I drove a van in college- the regular shuttle route around campus, to the athletic center, labs which were located a distance from campus. My family was hysterical when they heard- I was clearly the worst driver in the family. But it was a hoot, and I managed to NOT crack up university property, and managed to get everyone where they needed to go. And made some buddies who were on my regular route.
I checked backpacks for purloined books at the library exit. Didn’t make friends with other students (it’s not a chatty position) but I did make friends with an archivist who was a regular library employee. Interesting guy. And the library is still my happy place.
I did clerical work in the college’s Human Resources office. Mostly walking confidential documents around campus, making and collating copies. My supervisor wrote me a recommendation for business school a few years later, noting my ability to keep my mouth shut, work ethic, etc. It most assuredly did NOT prepare me for a career in corporate Human Resources, except for the keeping my mouth shut.
I tutored 7th graders at a local private school. I hated every minute of it, so it gave me the confidence to tell my parents (both educators) “I’m not going into education” and I had the data to back it up.
Etc. I’m not sure what kind of work you find devoid of value besides the money? In HS I waitressed at a 24/7 eatery on a turnpike (late night shift- the tips were better then) and it is probably the single most important professional experience of my career. People crave connection and meaning. You can take psych, sociology, cog sci, evolutionary biology and learn this-- or you can spend a summer pouring coffee at 3 am and listen to your customer’s angst. I use the lessons I learned that summer every single day, even though I hung up my hairnet and orthopedic shoes decades ago.
One of my kids worked at the school call center for a term. It was her first on campus job. She was asking alums to donate money. And yes, she got hung up on a LOT. But she was also a good communicator. At her college, they gave a bonus if a call center employee exceeded a certain dollar amount of donations. My kid aimed for that.
This kid was a STEM major…and this job (and working in undergrad admissions for 3 1/2 years) had zero to do with her college major or future career.
She had to work one shift of four hours a week. So she chose either 6-10 in the evening or a weekend time in the afternoon. Her boss there was one of her references when she applied to work in the undergrad admissions office.
