Joint checking with your student

Hello again! It’s been a long time since I have posted and I’ll write a What-I’ve-Been-Doing post, but first, I wanted to quickly talk about money.

This is more about high school than college, but I still wanted to share a life-hack that’s worked for our family. When my daughter got her first job at age 16, I opened a joint checking account at my bank, Fifth Third Bank 5/3. I already had a savings account at 5/3 Bank that I wasn’t using. Whenever my daughter got paid, she would decide an amount to save, donate, and keep. We had suggested she split her money so that she saved at least 10% and donated at least 10%, but after that, she could decide.

It turns out my sweet daughter was frugal and good at saving. She donated 10% every month and usually saved all but like $30. This would change if she had a friend’s birthday or something that she found she wanted to buy, but mostly she saved. So she told me every two weeks how much money to move to her savings account and I got on my bank’s app and transferred it. Her not seeing the money in her account helped her not think about that money as spendable…so out of sight was out of mind for her.

Fast forward to college. We still have the joint checking but now it’s for me to easily send her money for things she needs like books, tuition, etc. #SOEASY I also added her name to the savings account so she can save whatever she wants and handles that on her own. I can tell you from observation, she doesn’t save like she used to. I wonder if it’s because she can see both accounts as “her money to spend”.

What has worked for your family? How can I help something like this work for your family?

We’re all in this together.
🙂 LouAnna