Thanks for the advice, Choosy, Pink & Happy.

Interestingly, after the tantrum on Tues, he competely got over it when he realised that both my husband and I were going to stick to it.

Oregonianbroad, he doesnt nag for anything - very occassionally he'll ask for a new book or dvd but thats it. However I shop 95% over the internet so rarely go to town so he doesnt really go shopping.

Most of what I buy him I choose as I know he'll like it and I love shopping for him.

my ddage 5 gets pocket money from my mum..she gets it same time each week when we all go food shopping, sometimes dd buys something, mostly she brings it home and puts it in her money box..same with birthday moeny, spends a bit saves the rest....i was a terrible waster when i was younger and ive learned the hard way..shes on the right track now and am proud of the way she works things out

Oh, also, I didn't go to the shops much with ds between about 18 months and 3.5. Actually, i still don't.

sorry to keep quoting katherine whitehorn (does anyone notice?) "they have least resistance to the cheerful impersonal 'no'"

if he's too young to deal with pocket money, get into training now by setting yourself a budget/boundaries on buying 'stuff'. Doesn't really matter what they are, just stick to them. E.g. they can have a magazine per holiday, plus for any train trip over 1 hour; they can have a toy OR book once a month - whatever you can afford. Once you know what your boundaries are, relax - you've made the decisions. Children really know when you say No and actually mean it. And if you know you're not going to
give in, you can just patiently wait out the tantrums.

Otherwise, even if you do give pocket money, they will wheedle more out of you!

I haven't cracked all this btw - it helps that we have little spending money atm - when I start earning again, it will actually be harder.

yes, but then how do you stop him nagging for things contsantly, HMof1?

DS is in reception and understands enough that 20p covers juice and another 20p is for toast at snack time lol.

Maybe in Y1 i will start to look at pocket money but feel he's still too young for it yet. I prefer to buy him treats like toys, books, dvds etc at the moment rather than give him pocket money weekly.

lisa- £5 each?

My DD (3) doesn't really have pocket money, any gold or silver coins just go straight into her money box. She gets a present once a month from us, which makes up for the fact i don't let her have choc

I give my ds aged 7 and 5 £5 every friday, but everytime they are naughty i deduct 10p from the amount and depending on how good or bad they have been depends on how much they receive the following friday. Seems to be working well they usually end up with about £4.50 each but they have to use that money for anything they want to buy. Eldest child is saving up for a Ronaldo top - they cost about £35 so he's been really good

hardy har har, norma.

how are you anyway?

I think I was about 25 when I first gave DS1 pocket money

OK, so I guess the question I should be asking, is <<do I spend too much on frivolous crap for the dses, and is it doing them harm?>>

The answer seems to be yes.

This is very similar to the way I was raised, and I had no conept at all about the value of money until 1. My parents split, leading to a huge decrease in spending power but I also started 2. working at a Saturday job when I was about 14 or 15 (this was in the States) and then 3. My parents gradually lost all the money they ever had.

We save all of their birthday money and put a very small amount in their accounts by dd. This was something I never was encouraged to do -- any money we had quickly slipped through our fingers.

I want them to understand about money and I also want to cut back on the amount of crap they get bought, but I seem to have a real lack of impulse control on their behalf!

Saying that, each week/ten days/fortnight or so they get about 1 magazine, 1 toy costing around about a fiver, and a book now and again. Is this excessive? Should I be making them pay for these things out of their own pocket money in order for them to learn to save?

We don't give pocket money as a regular payment. The children tend to keep any birthday money that they receive and budget with that and later they have usually got a part time job. We help them out where we think they need something.

At the start of Year 1. Had originally intended to start in Reception, but found they were to young to cope and understand the relative value of money and could work out basic maths. Which is about age 5/6.

I gave 50 p/week in Yr 1, then gradually upped with 10 p/year.

I won't be able to give them the whole Child benefit for buying clothes when they're older; we simply don't earn enough to be spending that much on clothes, even us adults. And bus fares/train fares do have to be adapted to what we can afford.

I don't actually think that's too much of a problem; I knew that I was a teenager that I had to careful of expenses, it didn't make me feel resentful, and it's been a useful skill for later in life.

I'm going to wait until my ds is old enough to recognise coins and have enough maths skills to work out for himself what he can buy with the money he has got. He is 4 atm and it seems a long way off. He has been given birthday money and I've taken him to choose his own toys with that. I think a couple of quid a week is a lot for a 3yo.

I was told by the dentist that it wasn't a good idea to give raisins because they were high in sugar. He said that although raisins were healthier than sweets, they could still damage teeth if eaten in the same way. Presumably the sugar is fructose and is the same in any dried fruit.

Didn't know that!

Apostrophe- it is my understanding that fructose is very different from sucrose in its effect on teeth.

(wouldn't dried mango be just as bad for teeth as sweets? So sticky and chewy...?)

About four years, we started giving ours their age in pounds every month (actually started this when we were living in Canada and they got their age in Can Dollars, but the same spending power). This seems like a perfectly sensible amount to me. They are now 10, 13 and 14. My 13 yr old daughter buys her own clothes now as well (not uniform shoes or underwear, which I still buy), so I give her £10 a month clothing allowance. This seems to be just enough to buy a pair of jeans or whatever from H & M every couple of months, and she recently had saved enough after two years to buy herself an iPod, so she seems happy. At 6, they mostly spent about £2 a month (mostly on dried mango*, tinned lychees, and the Beano) and saved the rest.

*I don't let them buy sweets, unless they agree to pay for their own fillings...

I'd say a bit young, but it depends on the child, obviously. We sometimes gice DD (almost 4) 20p coins, and she knows that when she has 5, she has enough money for a ride on the Thomas the Tank engine at the shops. I think thats about all she can really uderstand.

I do often say to her though, when she asks for things "That (toy, or whatever) costs the same amount as all the food we ate today", or "that toy costs more than your new shoes" and that sort of thing, just to give her some information about prices, and to help her understand that somet things cost more than others etc.

Also, occasionally I've said "you can have that magazine, or that sweet. I don't have enough money for them both", whcih I think is good for her too - to learn opportunity cost.

I remember as a teenager being shocked and horrified when my Dad told me how much a takeaway he had bought us cost (it was equivilent to 6 weeks of my pocket money at the time!). I just had NO idea.

We started earlier this year, DS1 was five, DS2 almost four. They get £1 a week plus the odd extra 10p if they've done something especially good. They also get money taken away if they're naughty. They have grasped the concept of saving up for something and that, once the money is spent, there is no more and it has prevented many arguments in shops. I'm all for it!

<watches with interest>
we have been to a couple of fayres recently and DS1 was wanting stuff all the time, I wanted to give him a packet of money and told him when it was all gone there was no more but DH didn't think he was old enough to understand. He has just had his 4th birthday.

i think 4

dd1 now gets £1 a week

dd2 is 4 and she gets 20p or however much the change is from paying the milkman on a saturday morning

dd1 was 8, but dd2 was 5. i started giving them both pocket money at the same time. dd2 is actually saving up for a wii game (donkey kong?) which will take her over a year on just pocket money, so she has said she may ask for money instead of presents for her birthday as well.

so basically, he's too young?

I like your idea about the CB, riven.

We started on their 6th birthdays with our three. Before that they didn't seem to want to buy anything ro have the responsibilty of looking after cash.

about 4 or 5 I think. Some kids 'get' it straight away, others (like my 16 yo dd) think you're made of money and totally unreasoanble for not buying them stuff forever.
When they turned 13 they got the CB and told to buy all their own clothes/train fares/bus fares etc etc

DS1 (3yo) is getting a bit spoiled (thinks he gets a toy whenever we go out; yes, I do know this is my own fault). For example, I bought him a Bob the Builder truck thing he wanted last friday (it was on sale and he wanted it), although I did try to steer him towards something else (which was about £6). This am, he said,'are we going to the shops, Mom?' and when I said yes, he said, 'maybe I could get that other toy.' I explained gently that we would have to wait, etc.. but he started having a massive tantrum. (I haven't given in, BTW)

We thought one way of getting him to understand the value of money would be to start giving him a couple of quid a week and letting him spend it or save it for something as he likes.