Student Credit Card for living expenses?

[98elise]

My son has recently started university and I'm paying for his travel and food monthly.

We started off with me paying cash into his bank account but its a pain having to keep topping up every time he travels. especially when he's running low on cash. There is also the obvious issue of spending it all on beer

I would like to give him a credit card (with a low limit) just for food and travel, and I'll pay it off each month. It seems I can get a second credit card from my bank, and add him as a card holder.

Is this the best way to do it, or is there a better way?

[98elise]

NickCQ said:

Could you not pay him a fixed monthly allowance? That's what my parents did when I was at University several years ago. It usefully simulates what having a wage is like.

Set up a standing order and forget about it for three years.

The problem is his travel is variable. When he pays for travel up front its eating into his own money. Last night he text me to say he has £2 in his account, yet I owed him £50 for two weekends he's paid to come home. He has the odd trip to London as well which he needs to pay for at short notice. I want to exercise some control over what I paying for, but don't want to leave him short.

Also if I gave him a travel allowance it would probably be spent on beer...that's what I would do

[98elise]

NRS said:

98elise said:

The problem is his travel is variable. When he pays for travel up front its eating into his own money. Last night he text me to say he has £2 in his account, yet I owed him £50 for two weekends he's paid to come home. He has the odd trip to London as well which he needs to pay for at short notice. I want to exercise some control over what I paying for, but don't want to leave him short.

Also if I gave him a travel allowance it would probably be spent on beer...that's what I would do

Surely that is like "real life" though? You need to save a bit previously for both expected and some unexpected things? It also would likely encourage him into budgeting more correctly as a student. When I was there 6(!) years ago most people would complain about being skint to their parents, get some extra money and then it'd go straight into beers/ holidays etc. They'd say they felt bad about it, but it happened repeated and frequently. You can go for the approach of providing for this behavior (let him enjoy his time as much as possible at higher cost to you) or teach him lessons for real life after uni (he has to budget properly). Your choice as to what you want to do. I'd say although the former may be more fun at the time the latter is the better life lesson and sorting them out for the rest of their life.

Thats why I will pay for food and travel only.

[98elise]

Mattt said:

I too would stick with monthly allowance, let him learn to budget.

These days with faster payments you can send him cash instantly if he needs it - see above point that if he budgets then he shouldn't run out of cash and will have plenty of warning.

It doesn't matter how fast the payments are, I don't want him to be stuck somewhere with no cash because I owe him some expenses. I want to be able to deal with it once per month rather then ad-hoc.

I want some control/evidence on what I'm paying for, but I want to keep it simple. The question is more about the mechanism for making the payments rather then if it should be a fixed allowance.

Edited by 98elise on Tuesday 25th October 19:41

[98elise]

bigandclever said:

98elise said:

Thats why I will pay for food and travel only.

How do you know he's not buying booze with his food budget?

He maybe, but one way or another he needs to by food. If he uses the food money to buy beer then he will need to spend his own beer money on food, or starve.

He currently gets cash so he could simply blow that on a couple of nights clubbing.