College kids and money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in the 2000s I got 1000 a week I could imagine it should be higher now

Sorry I meant 1000 a month

[Anonymous]

We've tried a few different moves, but something that worked great for one of my very independent kids after they moved out of the dorms was just to say "Hey, this is the amount we have budgeted for the year. With that. We need to pay your tuition directly to the school. But whatever is leftover you can figure out for housing and food and then if there is anything left it is yours." In August we put the full amount in her bank account and she budgets for the rest of the year. When we needed to pay her second semester tuition bill in December, we withdrew the money from her account (yes, it helps that we all have linked accounts, and it wouldn't work if we didn't). Just an idea we had that seemed to work well for a kid who wanted more independence. If she runs out of money, she had better find a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've tried a few different moves, but something that worked great for one of my very independent kids after they moved out of the dorms was just to say "Hey, this is the amount we have budgeted for the year. With that. We need to pay your tuition directly to the school. But whatever is leftover you can figure out for housing and food and then if there is anything left it is yours." In August we put the full amount in her bank account and she budgets for the rest of the year. When we needed to pay her second semester tuition bill in December, we withdrew the money from her account (yes, it helps that we all have linked accounts, and it wouldn't work if we didn't). Just an idea we had that seemed to work well for a kid who wanted more independence. If she runs out of money, she had better find a job.

That would not work for my ds because he blows through whatever is given to him and FAST. We gave him money for the summer (on top of what he had earned during the year) and he blew through all of it and perpetually has under $100 (total, no savings) in his account, basically his $25/week allowance plus a little money given by family and one time dog sitting.

Had we given him money for the semester he'd have just spent it in a week so we opted not to and to keep the weekly allowance system since he can't be trusted to make it last. And of course we've discussed all this with him and none of it is sinking in. DD is the opposite of him: she managed to travel a lot this summer on the money we gave her, save a lot of it AND she is working and saving over 80% of what she makes.

The whole thing actually upsets me because I feel like he is not being responsible. I WANT to help him but I can't if he doesn't learn to budget better and there are zero signs he will.