Mumsnet Talk

How much do you give your pre-teen? My nearly 12 year old gets £10 on the first of the month to last the month.

With that she can buy what she likes.

I know it's not much but I pay for clothes, cinema trips, toiletries etc. so all she has to buy out of that is whatever takes her fancy.

If she's going shopping with a friend I give her £10 on top.

Trouble is, it's not teaching her to budget. She is like me - if she has the money in her purse she'll spend it. I give her £3 a day for school dinners, but I have to give it daily as she hates having £15 in her purse in case she overspends.

What would you do?

Mine gets 30 a month into a bank account that has a debt card. If he wants to go out etc he has to pay for it, he also has to buy presents etc from it and clothes that I wouldn't normally want to buy him. Curently he has £150 in his account! Am thinking of stopping it for a bit.

£15 per month. I pay for 'essential' clothes only i.e. when I think they have enough in their wardrobes I stop buying until they grow out of stuff. If they want any other clothes, they save up.

Same as you for my Yr 7 child, Celia, but for that ds has to buy non-essential toiletries and clothes - we keep him in basics but any extras are for him to buy.

He doesn't get more to go shopping with; the point of the allowance imo is that once he spent it, he can't go shopping. Though I will sometimes give him bus money, in a situation where a driving parent might have offereded a lift.

I give dd £10 a week, but her days out etc do have to come out of this too - trips to the cinema, swimming etc.

I pay her phone bill and buy essential clothes, if she wants yet another dress that she really doesn't need, she has to pay half. She has a debit card, but still not got round to actually using it.

andiem, you are thinking of stopping it because he has saved?! That's one way to put him off saving for life!

ds aged 8 gets a fiver every Friday BUT he has to do his jobs to earn this. If he doesnt, he does not get paid.

Learning about budgeting started when he was 5ish. He was asking for stuff from the Argos catalogue. I made him cut it out, put it on the fridge and save up with his wages.
He does it naturally now. Its worked well for us.

But then, me & DH are good savers and have a very healthy philosophy, so its kinda normal in our house.

DS gets £25 a month in a bank account. He has a cash point card with it. He also gets his phone contract (£10 capped). From his money, he usually pays me about £10 for lost sports kit and the rest goes on cinema/sweets etc.

I am very hard with him about kit - he has everything he needs and will get new stuff when he outgrows it, but I'm buggered if I'll pay for yet another water bottle or yet another pair of goggles that he has lost.

My lot get twice their age x 2 plus 10p so ds age 9 gets £1.90 a week
I feel like Scrooge but its more than I get to spend I myself

DD is 10 and gets £5.00 a week IF she is good etc, but we buy everything for her so its just hers to save up etc

Chops he has a savings account as well I won't say how much is in that!

You'll find this is one of those 'how long is a piece of string' questions - we are all so different.
In primary school mine got 10p per week, per year of age (7 yr old got 70p a week, 11 yr old got £1.10 per week). Once in secondary, mine get the amount per month they are for their age (15 yr old gets £15/month, and 13 yr old gets £13 per month).
That's it then - no giving them extra if they go shopping / pictures / bowling / ice-skating - that's how they learn to budget.
We do pay all subs for things they belong to, but they fund their own phones. They don't have to buy any clothes or toiletries though. They get £2.10 a day pocket money and I know dd1 saves bits out of that.

you are not scrooge...all my DCs get 50p per week it's theirs to do what they want with....but it's not much is it. Can't even buy a comic without saving up

but they never, ever complain.
and the pound shop is our friend

DD - 11 yr old - gets 2.50€ per week then can earn more on top. We have our own business so she does little bits of work for the business and gets paid for it. She recently managed to save up 100€ for a camera.

My 11yo dd gets £22 a month. Goes into her bank acc by direct debit and she has a cash card.

I give my 14 year old dd 40£ a month into her debit account, with this she pays for cinema, any clothes that are non essential ie I buy underwear, jeans, tshirts etc but if she wants a dress she buys it. She gets 20£ a month on her phone pay as you go and any extra she covers-it's amazing how the bills have come down since we started this arrangement she buys any music DVDs etc etc.She also buys her own presents -if feel this is important the money isn't just for her but for her to do nice things with iyswim- seems to be working pretty well plus she feels grown up with her 'own' money and card.

My DCs (10&8) do jobs to earn money. They have a "price list" they decided the prices for:
Polishing shoes 15p a pair
Washing 30p a load
Vacuuming 10p a room
Sweeping 10p a room
Mopping 15p a room
Clean sinks 15p each
Dishwasher load & unload 20p

They can spend this money as they choose (usually on sweets).I pay subs and they generally get clothes bought by grandparents. I save £75 a month each for them in a tracker fund, and they have 30 day notice savings accounts for birthday money (they are not interested in shopping yet so have a fair amount in there)

£40 a month transferred into her account. She has a debit card and has to buy her own train tickets and phone top ups. She is getting the idea of how to save on those by calculating whether or not a monthly/weekly/daily ticket is the right thing to buy etc. Handing her money (which she would prefer) is not an option.

10yo gets £2 a week

12 to gets £20 a month into her bank. Pays for treats & days out. Often pays for phone too.

Been reading this thread with interest We're due to move back to the UK this summer, after living abroad for the last 10 years. Our eldest has just turned 12 and we have been discussing pocket money etc. I'm really surprised about some 12 year olds having their own bank account and debit cards, is this common? Just interested to hear in case we'll get the normal "all my friends have it" when we're back
TIA

Mathwi - I don't think you'll get the "Everyone ELSE has one" line on debit cards , but if they have to take the train (or in our case two trains) to school and back every day, and by extension they have to have a phone, they need some means of paying for those things. If they have their own card they can take the responsibility for those couple of things. I think it is a valuable lesson in budgeting.

DD (8) doesn't get any money but then she doesn't ask for any either. She is still quite innocent about money. She will cotton onto it soon enough, so not in any hurry re pocket money. I think in our case maybe age 9 or 10 would b a good time to start.

Mine earn money by doing odd jobs round the house on a price list basis. The eldest is trying to prove to me he can save up for a mobile phone contract so he can get one when he goes to senior school in September. He is doing well so far but we do have to resort to bribery sometimes.

janinlondon, glad to hear it Think I was around 16 years old when I got my first debit card, so thought 12 sounded young But I see what you mean about having to take trains etc. Guess it might work as well in terms of learning to budget and take responsibility. Definitely something to think about. Next will be how much pocket money to give

My 11 (nearly 12) year old gets £5 a week and my (just turned) 13 yr old gets £6 a week. It goes directly into their bank accounts and they tend to save it up to buy something big every now and again.

If they had it in cash, they'd just waste it on sweets and plastic rubbish

Oh, but if you are wanting to teach her to budget, then you have to stop protecting her from the consequences of overspending.

This means giving her the £15 and letting her be responsible for it - and if she blows it - she has to make herself a sandwich to take into school.

Give her her toiletries allowance - work up to giving her the cash for all her things as one allowance from which she has to buy her clothes, toiletries and pay for her social life!

She will fail at first. She will overspend and go without.

but she will learn.

Better that than only starting to learn about budgeting when you have rent to pay and food to buy and you spent your council tax money on a funky new dress!

Having an account means that elderly relatives can give my dd cheques which makes their lives easier and her a free reign in what to get.

Both my children (daughter 11 and son 13) get £2 per week each by direct debit into their bank account. Birthday and Christmas money they put into their bank accounts too. Son is a very good saver, daughter is less so but give her credit she does save up between spending sprees. Their pocket money is really for them to spend on whatever they want over and above the basics which we buy for them. I pay for their phones as well but they use them very little. A £10 top up will last son about 6 months, daughter about 3 months.

my DD age nearly 13 gets £5 per week, paid a month in arrears for which she has certain chores to do each week. If she wants to earn extra she then does extra chores.
This gets paid straight into her bank account which has a debit card. I buy any essential clothes for school or otherwise, toiletries etc and she pays for trips to the cinema, swimmings and meals out with her friends.
Her and her friend went out to dinner the other week, and they did research first to find the best Early bird prices
I quite like the idea of giving her money for toiletries etc to teach her to be even more independant.
Occasionally she does some babysitting for my next door neighbour and gets paid which she loves.

mine get £80 per month in bank accts aged 13 and 15. That has to pay for everything (excpet phones) and be saved for stuff. We've just started this so we'll see how it goes.

DD is 10y. She started with £1 a week at age 5 and it goes up by 50p on each birthday. She now gets £3.50 a week. She sometimes gets the odd bit of money from grandparents too. She saved it for bigger items. She currently had £76 saved and is hoping to get herself a Kindle before we go on holiday at the end of the month.

oh just noiticed it's preteens.

soz

DD has her own bank account and has done since birth, but has no real access to that. We put a small amount a month in that but it is pretty nominal tbh. Birthday and Christmas money gets spent as it is received, this is what we recommend for her as in our case the money she is sent by people (not much tbh as most get gifts) is for something now and sent instead of a physical gift due to distance posted or whatever. Most of the real savings for DD's future are done in other ways through our own saving account systems.

My 11 year old gets £1.50 a week, he doesn't really spend it and has saved up loads over the years. He doesn't really go anyway to spend it to be honest, we live quite a rural way of life and he is very health conscious so won't buy sweets etc. He gets toileteries for birthday and Christmas and seems to make them last all year !

He doesn't have a phone or anything else technological !

Mine gets £20 per month. She is expected to keep her PAYG mobile topped up so she and I can contact each other if needed, purchase her own sanitary products and buy supplies for her hamster. The rest is hers to do with as she pleases. If and when she makes mistakes and runs out of money we give her chores to earn extra.

I give my 10 year old $10 (Aus) cash per week.... It burns a hole in his pocket and is gone on that very first day!

My DD(13) is getting £20 a month, DS(11) £3 a week. This is supposed to cover any activities they choose to do with their friends/odd bits of clothing/jewellery/sweets, etc. I top-up their PAYG mobiles.

However, we pay (a lot!) for their sports clubs and related clothing, trips, etc. And I give them the money and card for friends birthdays (also mounts up!)

They are pretty good with their money and tend to save at least some of their birthday/Christmas money.

DS (12) gets £5 every Saturday. DD1 (7) gets £3. I invite them to do chores fir extra money, they aren't interested. The money tends to get spent on the same day on sweets, comics, Moshi Monsters.

I didn't know about bank accounts with cards for children do young. Can you deposit just the odd £10 in cash? Or do you keep the cash ANC transfer the money between your account and theirs?

Double their age every 2 months. No strings but I can dock it for misbehaviour. They can earn extra by doing chores (they rarely bother).

I pay for phones & clubs, most entertainment type things.

My 8yo just got own bank account but my preteens aren't bothered. Bank seemed surprised that we would bother for any child!

Well, thanks to this thread DS has just started to open his first ever bank account. He's incredibly happy and will be watching for the postman over the next few days I doubt he'll have enough to deposit into his account after the initial £10.

DS1 (15) gets £40 a month and DS2 (nearly 13) gets £24 per month. They only have to pay for phone top ups. I buy all clothes and toiletries. The can earn extra for doing jobs that are not on their rota. DS2 usually does the extra jobs though (DS1 would rather sit in his bedroom).

Oh and both of mine have debit cards.

DD1 (aged 11) gets £12.50 per month payed into a bank account (she has a cash card) but it is dependent on her keeping her side of our 'contract' (bedroom tidying, homework completing, music practicing, table laying, dishwasher stacking etc)
She can spend it as she pleases but has to pay 1/3 of all family birthday/ xmas presents and cards that she wants to buy and 1/2 of friends presents and cards. I pay for clothes/ school equipment/ sports equipment etc that I feel is needed, and she has to save up and pay for anything else.
She seems to have quite a healthy bank account!, but she does have to do a bit of budgetting (and not just think of what SHE wants) because of the present thing. It seems to work quite well, but we will see whether she has a little more understanding of the value of money when Christmas comes and she has to fork out for some presents herself!