Dear Snarky,
I feel like my daughter is being hustled by her new college roommate. My daughter is leaving for college in a month and at first loved her soon to be roommate. Then the girl and her mother went over the top on decorating the dorm room. They want customized linens with monograms, padded headboards for the beds and black out drapes from Pottery Barn.
All of this came in at over $2,000 for each girl! If that’s not ridiculous enough the mom suggested that I send her the money over a Pay Pal account and she’ll just buy everything so it “matches perfectly.”
I don’t know these people and I sure don’t want to send the mom over two grand via Pay Pal. Plus, I don’t have $2,000! I’m paying for college!!!!
How can I put a stop to this without making my daughter’s roommate situation miserable?
Signed, Worried
Dear Worried,
Give me a second to catch my breath. $2,000 to decorate a dorm room and a mom wants money via Pay Pal. Are you kidding me? Yeah, let’s just call all that a great big “Oh hell no.”
Now, turn that frown upside down because I have a fool-proof and super easy way for your daughter to emerge unscathed. All she needs to do is text her new roommate and blame everything on you. She should tell her roommate that you’re a little crazy and obsessively thrifty so there’s no way that she can spend that much on a college dorm room – ever.
Your daughter should then suggest cheaper alternatives for the look as in getting linens from Target or a Home Goods store and having them monogrammed. As for those padded headboards I just found some online for $39.00. Sure, they’re not top of the line, but, oh yeah, it’s dorm.
If the new roommate and her mother turn their noses up at the idea of bargain hunting then your daughter should just stand firm and suggest that her roommate does exactly want she wants for her side of the room and she’ll do the same.
The bottom line is it’s a flipping dorm room and no matter how much money you spend it’s going to smell like a dorm and feel like a dorm. Plus, you go to college to further your education not to win cutest dorm ever.
*If you have a question for Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude 😉 – email me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or PM on my Snarky FB page.
