Travel money for a 12 year old?

gyrnos

Hi, my 12 year old son is going skiing with his school in a few weeks and needs to take spending money. What is the best way for him to take it?
I was told there is a bank account whick allows him to have a debit card which doesn't charge for overseas withdrawels and also allows me to set a limit of how much he can access each day. Has anyone heard anything about it?
Thanks for you help x

Fiddlestick

gyrnos wrote: »

Hi, my 12 year old son is going skiing with his school in a few weeks and needs to take spending money. What is the best way for him to take it?
I was told there is a bank account whick allows him to have a debit card which doesn't charge for overseas withdrawels and also allows me to set a limit of how much he can access each day. Has anyone heard anything about it?
Thanks for you help x

When I was at school, parents were asked to submit a cheque for the total amount to the school prior to the trip.

This was then doled out in equal installments each day.

iwantahome

When I took some students skiing a couple of years ago they just took euros in cash. Not much as there was nothing for them to spend it on (sweets mainly). All meals and entertainment were provided, apart from meals at the airport. They took about £80 each and this was far more than they needed, but they all managed to spend it on rubbish.

As the teachers we took control of their cash and put it in individual bags. "The bank" was opened once a day. We sat in a cafe and each had our allocated students queued for their money. Envelopes were signed by staff and students to say how much was in there and how much they'd withdrawn. The students could take out what they liked to teach them how to budget for the week. It was reassuring to see them learning from this by withdrawing a lot in the first couple of days and then realising that they would need a few NSD (no sweets days) to be able to have extra for their final days. The hotel was very good about putting the bag of envelopes in their safe as we only required it once a day, and this was used as a good excuse for not having the kids constantly coming back for money and pestering us during their "free" time.

Can your school operate a system like this? I'm sure if you ask they may be quite willing to, as it will mean pupils have less money on them and therefore less opportunity to lose all of their money or heaven forbid, have it taken from them. I know many teachers may not want the responsibility of looking after all of that money but it meant that our students were very sensible with what they withdrew and also it meant they could not go overboard on the sugar as they needed to make sure they had money for the rest of the week. Also as it was in the safe for 23 hours a day it really was looked after.

When we wanted to do a spur of the moment extra trip that the students needed to fund it also meant that we could just take that money (with their permission as it was a trip they all asked for) without the hassle of going to a bank.

As we were in a remote village there was no cash point. If any students had to go to a cash point they wouldn't have been able to as we did not have access to a car. The bus dropped us of and then left us for the week, picking us up to return to the airport. Check the place he is going on the internet to see if there is a bank or cashpoint facility, as many places in the mountains are not as equipped as big cities. If any student needed a cash point they would have had no money all week as we did not take any extra to fund them.

Hope this is of help.

[Deleted User]

You could put it on a card such as a Travelex Foreign Currency Card or an O2 Money Card (2.75% fee applies)

gyrnos

Iwantahome that sounds like a really good idea. I will definately ask in school if it's an option as it would be a really good budgeting lesson for him. I don't want him to get out there and lose all his cash or be unable to withdraw any however I don't want him to be able to blow it all in the first couple of days either!! :eek:
I only hope we've managed to instill a sense of being money savvy in him .....the joys of parenting eh?!

Thanks for the advice everyone xx