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And what does she have to buy with that? We are always subsidising dd's pocket money and think she needs to start budgeting. Thinking of upping pocket money but insisting she funds social life and presents out of that. What does everyone else do.tia,

Thirty pounds a month for non-essential clothes, trips to coffee shops etc. I wouldn't expect her to buy presents out of that though and we pay for phone credit on top too.

That's 2 dds - one 16 and one 14.

Nothing. If they want money they need to babysit, get a Saturday job, etc. Their phones are paid for on a family monthly plan by exH. They pay for everything they want to do out of money they earn, plus clothes over and above the basics, coffee, etc.

£35 a month. That is used for her phone, days out, cinema tickets presents non basic clothing ect...

DD2 14 has the option to have £40 a month in return for keeping her room in a reasonable state of clean, but she very rarely bothers. She usually gets bought a fairly bumper clothes shop about twice a year, usually coinciding with holidays, etc, which usually sorts her out for everything basic, anything else she fancies buying needs to be funded herself. We also pay £10 a month for phone top up, which isn't connected to any chores as she needs to be able to contact us in an emergency.

£20 per month.

We buy all clothing and they have to contribute half to any mobile top-up although I often top it up for them if it has been a long while or they have been really good or helpful.

Thank you all for your replies, that's really helpful. We have been fairly woolly to date about who funds what and I think we are shelling out over and above too often!

I'm 17 and I get £70 a month.
This is to cover food outside the house (although I have a school card for snacks that aren't lunch etc), little things here and there (hair clips, makeup, all that kind of thing), haircuts if I want them, days out (train tickets etc etc)

My parents pay for my phone.

Dd 14 gets £15 a week which is dependent on keeping room clean, walking dog and generally being helpful. We buy essential clothes and pay for phone separately.

DD1 gets £60/month to cover:

- clothes other than school uniform/smalls (covered by the management)
- phone
- haircuts
- walking around money

She budgets well.

At 16/17 (1997/8) I used to get £10 per week pocket money and £30 per month clothing allowance, and worked for more. Was fairly middle of the road for my (not particularly wealthy) friends. 1997! With inflation...

Same here. DD gets nothing. She has a paper round. I sometimes pay for friends' bday presents and cards and basic clothes, but everything else she has to fund. She has all food paid for, but if she wants a McD, she pays. If she wants to go to the cinema, she pays, if she wants more than one lot of sweets or choc per week, she pays.

dd is 17, she has been getting 25 a month in her bank account since she was 13 and we paid her phone contract. I buy her clothes (reasonable clothes so she's dressed!) if she was into hollister then she'd have had to fund that kind of ting or get it as pressies.
now she's 17 and at college, we give her £95 a month ( the same 25 she always got, plus 40 from tax credits and 30 from family allowance) to help her budget, she pays her own phone contract, buys pretty much all her own clothes, pays bus fare to college and pays for her own social life from that.
I do her packed lunch everyday and buy toiletries/face wipes/ moisturiser for her.
she gets a bursary of £10 a week from college and has a Saturday job and babysits. we literally feed her, basic clothing and drive her round (although if she's far away we'll sometimes ask for petrol as we are on v tight income.

I got £50 a month pocket money from 13-15. Before then, my DM paid for me. That was to cover food outside of house, buses, clothes, haircuts, phone etc and was expected to earn it by doing housework as my DM worked 5 days a week 12 hours a day so kind of took over for her like hoovering, polishing, tidying, mopping etc. My pocket money stopped when I got a weekend job and then paid 'rent' which was 20% of my monthly wage, only usually £40.

I never minded because I knew how expensive things were but my DB gets treated v differently, has his car insurance paid for and pays no rent even though he is 20 [hmmm]

This was about 6-8 years ago when I got my pocket money. However, having to earn my money has made me so much cleaner and still clean the house when I visit my DM.

It is important to teach them to budget, DD1 now a 21 yr old student, used to get at 16 £40 pm plus phone and clothes paid for by us. DS1 at 16 got £50 plus phone and clothes paid by us. Both are very sensible and budget wisely. DD2 gets a pension from her late father's estate it was £120pm when he died and she was 15, now she is 16 she gets £240pm and runs out by mid month. She has no idea because in the first few months I was too upset to control her spending. DS1 gets the same amount, it will double next month when he is 18, and saves every month. I feel really guilty for allowing her to get into such bad habits. So my advice is to limit teenagers to teach them good habits.

My 14 year old gets £20.00 a month. She helps with chores around the house, but she has allocated 'work' for which she gets paid the amount. If she does all the work, she gets all of it, if she doesn't, she gets some taken off. She usually does it all. She has to save a bit of this, give a pound to charity towards an orphan, and she can spend the rest.
She's developing good habits with money. She has to do her phone top up out of this too. She manages well.

My dc's are 14 and 15 and i used to put £15 each on their dinner card a week.
Now i put the £15 + £5 into their bank account every friday they can decide if they want dinner at school or to make up a lunch at home and save the money.
Out of that money they buy food, clothes, friends presents, days out, haircuts and phones
If they dont have enough money they dont get

15yo gets £14/month: with that she keeps herself in non-essentials. We pay for school uniform, basic out of school clothes, shoes, a coat, basic toiletries (sanitary stuff but not make-up); we also pay for one activity (drama school).

Those of you whose kids work, what if they can't get a job?

In our family as long as those over 16 and have finished their GCSEs are trying hard to get a job, then we still give them an allowance. DD3 is 19 and still at college. She has been applying for jobs for the last 2 years without any success. Although she did nearly get a job once but it didn't fit in with her college hours. Before any one says why do we give an 19 year old an allowance. She is Dyspraxic and has some other learning difficulties. So is a few years behind others of the same age.

OMG!! I pay way too much. My DD gets £20 a week. We pay her phone contract, shoes, school uniform etc. She pays for non-essential stuff and also for her majorette subs, hair cuts and birthday presents. I think she's doing alright! lolol

We pay for everything ds needs and he pays for what he wants over and above that. He has a Saturday job. We don't pay for his phone credit but we don't expect him to pay for presents. There is always room for rewards if he's been good (which happens more often than I thought it would ).

Dd is 14 and gets £25 a month.
She has to buy non-essential clothes, make up, going out, presents.
I top up her phone (£10 a month as it is me that wants her to keep in touch with me when she's out - she couldn't care less about the phone!)
She seems to cope pretty well. She's hoping to start babysitting a bit soon. I expect her to look after her younger ds sometimes and keep her room tidy and lay the table, do some washing/drying up etc.

This is really helpful - we're discussing an allowance with DS (14) at the moment but we're both stuck for how much and to cover what. I pay phone contract which we negotiated to be lower than the £10 a month he was on. He's preparing to baby sit to earn more.

Annelg, what sort of work does your DS do?

Do your DCs have bank accounts or do you act as bank of mum? The idea of a debit card at this stage is scary, but they do need to get to grips with the banking system.