Moving Budget: Relocating Your Kid As A Freshman For Campus Life

Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 9:02 am

A college freshman is in need of one main thing, a moving budget to help prepare for campus life. Many students head off to college with a few dollars in their pockets, no job prospects, and the desire to eat as much pizza as possible.

Every budget will need to be tailored to the student, but there are some things that are basic that parents should be aware and account for:

1. Gas
2. Food
3. School Supplies
4. Entertainment
5. Laundry

First off, the moving budget should include gas/travel expenses.
If the student is planning on returning home frequently, this MUST be entered into the budget. There also must be room in the budget for getting around town and campus.

Food expenses are also needed.
A student can’t be expected to ONLY eat in the school cafeteria, sometimes a pizza run, a date, or the need for something different will drive your budding scholar on to other places of food consumption.

Number 3 seems to be the one that most parents are concerned with.
No matter how many pens, pencils, notebooks, or three-ringed binders you send them with, there will almost always be a class that needs something specific for study. This may be the biology teacher that requires the students to have 180 3×5 cards. And even if you’ve sent them with 300,000 pencils, they will probably lose every single one by the end of the first semester. Your student needs to have money set aside to buy the supplies that he or she needs.

Entertainment is key to the sanity of a college freshman. Without the occasional movie or video game, the student will become rather stressed out. If he spends all of his time studying, and no time just hanging out, his grades will suffer horribly and he will be less likely to get anything out of the classes.

And last but DEFINITELY not least. Laundry needs to be added into the budget.
If your kid only does laundry once a week and has two loads, that is about $5 a week (at least). When you multiply that by about 20 weeks per semester, this seemingly small bill comes up to $100 a semester! That figure is quite conservative actually.

So now that you have a basic list of budget needs, sit down with your prospective student and figure everything up. His or her input is ESSENTIAL in this process. But it can be a fun learning experience for you and for him.

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