What is reasonable for spending money freshman year at college?
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Anonymous
| DD is heading off in August to university. We are fortunate enough to be able to pay full freight for her and are well off otherwise. We wondered from parents with experience what is considered a reasonable amount to allocate for spending money during the school year? |
Anonymous
| 250 a month! |
Anonymous
| Completely depends where she is going. Big city? Bigger allowance. Small rural SLAC? Fewer expenses. |
Anonymous
| My anecdotal data point: DC spent $1000 freshman year and $1500 his sophomore year. |
Anonymous
| What is her spending money expected to pay for? Does she have a full meal plan? Does it include snacks/coffee/etc on campus or just dining hall? Does she have a car? Does she have to pay for her own parking/gas? Does she live near a city where she will have subway transportation, etc. to think about? What about things like prescriptions to pay for? Will this include clothing allowance? |
Anonymous
| My parents gave me $50 / week. That was back in the early 00's, though. It was more than enough. |
Anonymous
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If room and board is already covered, I think $50/week is very generous.
My DC (whose room and board is covered) spends about $25/week. |
Anonymous
| Whatever he/she earns at their part-time job. |
Anonymous
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$ 1000 per semester covers books and incidentals. Anything above that should require a specific request.
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Anonymous
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whatever the student earned over the summer.
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Anonymous
| $100/week |
Anonymous
| Good question... we lost grip. He has a debit card attached to an account holding his own earned money and a credit card we pay for reasonable expenses...books, meals out when dining hall is closed, drug store, transportation, washer/dryer time. It's been all over the place per month. The kids also use Venmo to share and pay back expenses so that can really skew the balances. Plus sometimes he'll pay for something out of his own money that we normally would pay so then we get into reimbursements. Club fees can get fairly high and so can computer repairs. |
Anonymous
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OP here. To answer some of the questions: Midsize city. Full meal plan. No car. School provides transit pass for free.
She has some money saved from previous years (did not work this summer because doing other things) but we'd rather give her some weekly/monthly amount than have her spend that money at this point. |
Anonymous
| We do $1000 a semester not including books, travel home, some clothes. |
Anonymous
I'd err on a conservative side. Part of college is learning to live poor. 
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