Before our children leaves us to live on their own in dormitories, they must learn how to budget their money for living expenses. One way to do this is to teach them grocery budgeting and meal planning. Several weeks prior to sending them off to college, we can start giving them their own money to spend on their weekly groceries. Doing this is like a rehearsal for the actual experience when they are on their own. It will be easier to correct mistakes this way while we are still around. Any other ideas on how to train kids for college food budgeting? Please share.
Oh the hardships of being a college student. Yes, its important to teach kids how to live independently and budget their limited resources. When I was still in college I lived off fast food for almost 4 years on a tight budget (I'm still alive and cancer-less as of now thank goodness). But I think rather than giving them a monthly allowance, have them live off on their own effort, teach them how to get a job and work. Since they'll be living on their own now (if they still haven't already) its better to let them learn the value of earning and working for money and spending it wisely. I've learned that early on in my life and I have to say it served me more than I hoped.
I am 24 and graduated college 4 years ago. I didn't really need any food budget "training" going into college really. I didn't need that experience until I was living on my own, my last semester of college. And even then, all it takes is about one pay cycle to realize what you can and can't buy. Also, this is irrelevant to a lot of college newbies...there is usually a college meal plan students use.
I guess one of the things you can train them to watch out for right off the bat, is to make sure they actually have enough time to use their college meal plans if they are on one (which the schools usually require you to be). My first year of college, I was constantly unable to make it to breakfast, lunch or dinner. Some times I would have 4 hour classes that wen't completely over the lunch time, and I almost always had morning classes that were too far from the cafeterias to the point where I wouldn't be able to make it to class in time if I stood in line for breakfast first then tried to run across campus to my class. Dinner was often hit or miss as well depending on my evening classes. You can maybe force them to allocate some of their money towards food, by giving them a portion of it in the form of gift certificates for the local grocery stores. There were a few times that I got so tempted to blow the money I had for a given week on some rare bootleg albums at the local record shop, then I was broke and had nothing to eat for days. You should also probably lay out a plan for the whole semester, with exactly how much money they will be spending overall during the course of those months, along with what percentage of it should go towards what. It's a lot easier to know that X amount of dollars is all you have allotted for entertainment, and the rest is for necessities - rather than to just be given a large sum of money and assume you will pay everyone off and figure it all out later.
