Rich's comments sparked a thought, so I split his response off from the mortgage thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/showpost.php?p=682633&postcount=27
This isn't intended to be another who-pays-for-college thread. Instead, after the kid matriculates, I'm wondering when the purse strings should be cut. Perhaps some of you with parenting life experience could share your successes at launching your kids through the college years.
As for saving their summer-job earnings before college, I went to college with one of those piles of cash. It didn't even make it through summer break, let alone stretch to sophomore year. "Lifestyle creep" is one of the reasons that we've been encouraging our kid to lock up her paychecks in her IRA.
Our kid already takes care of her own chores (like laundry and cleaning) and she has her share of family chores. She has a clothing & toiletries budget, which meets her needs if not her wants. She also gets an allowance that supports a low-key lifestyle, and she's welcome to earn more from home & yard jobs. She works part-time now (funding her IRA) and she'd probably do more of that during her holiday & summer breaks-- if she wasn't already planning to stay at college for internships or research or some other job.
We're not funding spring break in Mexico or winter holidays at Aspen. We've told her that she'll get her share of the tuition savings from the scholarships that she earns. Of course if she goes NROTC or service academy then that's all her own money. But otherwise I'm not sure how parentally-funded budgets & allowances would change when she goes to college.
How did you guys handle it?
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/showpost.php?p=682633&postcount=27
This isn't intended to be another who-pays-for-college thread. Instead, after the kid matriculates, I'm wondering when the purse strings should be cut. Perhaps some of you with parenting life experience could share your successes at launching your kids through the college years.
I'd take this approach, too, but there's a concern that a kid might not earn enough money to carry them through the year's necessities or to support an appropriate amount of studying. While work/study tuition assistance isn't necessarily a bad idea, I'd hate for the choice to be (1) go to the evening's six-hour shift of the "part-time" job or (2) study a little more for that mid-term in the class they're barely passing-- let alone (3) "party on, Wayne!"Play money was on them.
As for saving their summer-job earnings before college, I went to college with one of those piles of cash. It didn't even make it through summer break, let alone stretch to sophomore year. "Lifestyle creep" is one of the reasons that we've been encouraging our kid to lock up her paychecks in her IRA.
Our kid already takes care of her own chores (like laundry and cleaning) and she has her share of family chores. She has a clothing & toiletries budget, which meets her needs if not her wants. She also gets an allowance that supports a low-key lifestyle, and she's welcome to earn more from home & yard jobs. She works part-time now (funding her IRA) and she'd probably do more of that during her holiday & summer breaks-- if she wasn't already planning to stay at college for internships or research or some other job.
We're not funding spring break in Mexico or winter holidays at Aspen. We've told her that she'll get her share of the tuition savings from the scholarships that she earns. Of course if she goes NROTC or service academy then that's all her own money. But otherwise I'm not sure how parentally-funded budgets & allowances would change when she goes to college.
How did you guys handle it?