How to Help Your Child Financially After College

A diploma doesn't guarantee immediate financial independence. Being a college graduate will give your child a leg up in their job search, but it won't guarantee them a job immediately after graduation. It's important to support graduates during this transition period while helping them move toward financial self-sufficiency.

A food card is a really good way to help those recently out of college. Fifty to one hundred dollars on a grocery store gift card will go a long way toward covering their food budget for a month. It will also keep your progeny from living on a diet of ramen when money gets tight.

Paying for a cell phone plan is a good investment since it will keep your graduate in contact with possible employers. It will also give you a way to make sure they haven't fallen off the face of the earth or gone into a coma from an all-ramen diet. Paying for internet access is a good idea for the same reasons. Your child could get along with a calling card or by spending a lot of time in internet cafes. However, this quickly becomes expensive and means their ability to communicate with you or potential employers is spotty. It's not hard to find internet and cell phone plans that are reasonably priced and adequate for job search and contacting home needs.

Transportation is the next big hurdle for anyone on a job hunt - it's all well and good if your graduate snags an interview, but they have to get there before they get the job. If your child is living in a metropolitan area, a bus pass is an excellent investment. They can be a little pricey ($50 for a month-long pass in the Seattle area), but they're worth it if your child is a frequent traveler.

Sometimes public transportation doesn't quite cut it, especially if your graduate has to travel relatively long distances or is situated outside of an urban area. If your new grad is lucky enough to have a car and uses it frequently, a gas card is a gift they are sure to appreciate. A membership to Zipcar or a similar car share organization is a boon for those who don't own a car but still need to use one occasionally.

So far I've mentioned strategic items that are relatively moderate financial contributions. Larger financial contributions can be tricky since they raise the specter of the eternal dependent. This is something to be careful of, but there are some situations in which more monetary support is appropriate for short periods of time.

Usually, these situations are ones in which there is a set waiting period before your child will be financially solvent. For example, they might have to move to a new location in order to start their new job or their job won't start for a few more weeks. This is a perfectly appropriate time to help out with larger financial burdens like rent or moving costs. Money with be tight for a defined period of time after which your grad will be able to be financially independent, so stepping in to help out is the kind thing to do and won't lead to economic dependency.

Just as there are good ways to financially support your graduate, there are bad ways as well. Don't just open your pocketbook. This might seem obvious, but it can be hard to watch your child struggling with money issues. Just throwing money at a problem like this won't make it go away - they need to learn from experience how to find and keep a job and how to budget the money they make.

Usually, moderate monetary contributions are appropriate ways to help your child out in the period right after graduation. That said, don't give them too many treats. Shopping trips that don't exclusively involve the grocery store are immediately suspect. It's not bad to treat your hard working graduate on occasion, but a constant stream of little presents is distracting at best and will lull them into complacency at worst.

Don't saddle yourself or your child with any more debt than you already have after paying for four years of college. Avoid rewarding them with large financial burdens like a car, unless you're able to pay it off in a fairly short period of time. You don't need any more debt, and neither do they.

Along these lines, do not under any circumstances encourage your child to solve their financial problems with credit cards. It's not a bad idea for them to have a credit card for small purchases so they can build up their credit rating. But if your graduate has a hard time keeping their spending under control, now is not the time to cosign on a new credit card account.

After all these warnings against spending too much money on your new grad, don't go in the opposite direction and refuse to spend any money on them at all. Unless they're set up with a job right away, don't leave them out on a financial limb. It's hard to leave them comfy world of college and parental support. Don't make them do it cold turkey while they're also working their tail off looking for a job.