Reply to How much money do you give your new college grad a month to get started?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DD, who graduated last year, is currently not speaking to me because the Bank of Mom and Dad is not available to her.  We told her that we paid for college, so she has no loans, we paid for a car, so she has no car payments, and we are still paying car insurance and health insurance.  We were very clear that if she wanted to keep living in the city where she went to school, then she needed to fund her living expenses, but we did give her the remainder of her college funds (about $2500) so she would have a $500/month "cushion" for the first few months.  DD was also not responsible regarding utilizing her college career office and said that she just wanted to waitress for awhile to "relax".  Flash forward a year and DD has not made progress towards career goals because she is too busy scrambling with waitressing/pet-sitting and other minimum wage jobs trying to make rent.  She simply cannot afford to live where she lives without making radical changes in her lifestyle (less going out, cheaper neighborhoods, get roommates).  We have made it clear that she can move home and save money all she wants---our doors are always open.   So far she has not wanted to do that and we are just going to leave her alone until she figures it out.   It has really torn us up but like some of the PP above, I have seen the deleterious effects when parents over-subsidize their young adult kids.  [/quote]

I think you're doing the right thing. As others have said, once you take on the role of Bank for their adult life it's very hard to stop without a lot of fallout.

It would (for me at least) be different if she came to you with a specific plan like "Here are the changes I'm making to my lifestyle to curb my spending and here are the specific efforts I'm making to work with my old career services office/intern/job fairs/whatever. It's hard for me to be available for interviews, etc. with my inconsistent waitressing hours. but I cannot afford to cut back on those hours because this is a high COL area. I've cut my spending, but if you and other parent could loan me 500/month for the next 3-6 months it would help me get off the hamster wheel and secure a high paying job. If I can't get something by the end of 6 months then I'll make plans to move home, to a lower COL area, or take on another roommate to save money and be able to pay for my life without your regular financial support."

It's about seeing her taking responsibility for for her life. She's allowed to ask for help, in fact it's good and healthy to do that, but she needs to do the leg work to make a plan and put in the work on her side of things too. [/quote]

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