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Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Teenagers

Money sense-has your teen got any?

21 replies

TryingnottosingtheAbbasong · 04/04/2014 12:42

Dd gets pocket money paid into her bank monthly, and i'm struggling to get her to budget with it. She gets the money on the 11th of each month. Last week she had about £25, and I thought she'd budgeted so she'd have money for the holidays. Silly me. She came home yesterday with a Superdrug bag, she'd spent £20 on make up ! So it's now the Easter school holidays, she'll want to do stuff with her friends and she's got exactly £2.40 until next friday.
I've talked to her about money, and asked her to check her bank online every week, but she doesn't.
I want her to be able to go out and enjoy herself, she's been very stressed about exams and revision and needs a break. But if i give her money she'll never learn!
Would you top her up so she can have a bit of much needed fun, or watch her stew with no money?

OP posts:

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Sparklingbrook · 04/04/2014 12:51

DS2 is 12 and never lets his pocket money build up and it drives me mad. he is very sociable and is out in town a lot, and he permanently needs money for train fares etc. He gets £4 a week, and it's just gone.

DS1 is 14 and the biggest tightwad ever. he isn't very socable (except PS4 online) and has loads of money he never spends. he has a paper round too.

I want DS2 to go out over Easter but if he does I will be subbing him which isn't really fair.

So i am in your predicament with him....

Vickiyumyum · 04/04/2014 13:02

ds1 is 16 and never has any money. He's got a part time job that ahs irregular hours but when he does work, he gets a daily rate of £80, even if he only works part of a day. He usually will work a Friday as he's not at college then, but he's not guaranteed work every Friday. e.g today he's not needed so he's not working. I can guarantee by Saturday evening every penny is gone.

He has known about the Easter holidays and has been counting down, I old him to save some cash so that he could go out with his mates, but he didn't save a penny. I told him no money from me as he hasn't done any chores at all and I brought him a car this month which was £500 (he's 17 very soon) so now we have toddler sulks on and I've just had a text from my sister saying she's given him £20.

The car was brought as it was a bargain, but it was supposed to give him incentive to get his provisional sorted, sit his theory and investigate driving lesson costs, but it hasn't. He keeps showing me links to stupidly priced stereos and speakers and kits. its a 53 reg fiesta, not a sports car.

Bramshott · 04/04/2014 13:03

Chores for cash??

wannabestressfree · 04/04/2014 13:04

DS1 is terrible. He gets DLA and I transfer £50 a week and he is inevitably broke by the following tuesday. I am not sure what he spends it on....... going out and coke by the bottles around his room.
Ds2 is tight and squirrels money away. He always has money in the bank and resents spending it.
Ds3 is too little to have this problem but has expensive tastes eg computer games, trips etc. I am not sure he really understands what things cost.....[he is nine mind you].

TryingnottosingtheAbbasong · 04/04/2014 13:07

Forgot to give Dd's age, nearly 16, in theory should have more sense by now......

OP posts:

thedrunkenduck · 04/04/2014 13:07

Could you maybe save up her pocket money for school holidays? Or give her some money for the holidays and say thats your pocket money for X amount of time?

Panga63 · 04/04/2014 13:10

DD does chores for cash, and volunteers for her DofE and loves working on the till in a charity shop! Has "champagne taste on beer money" as my gran would have said and has no real sense of cash and the biggest mascara collection in the southeast

TryingnottosingtheAbbasong · 04/04/2014 13:11

Yes, chores for cash or subbing her in advance for next month both good ideas. Have to think of suitably horrible chores so she doesn't want to be in this position again
Interesting to hear that even teens who earn their own money still squander it away, i wondered if she just didn't appreciate it because she doesn't actually earn it.
Definitely think financial management should be on the school curriculum!

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Vickiyumyum · 04/04/2014 13:16

yes chores for cash. Well basically if he doesn't pull his weight around he house he doesn't get his allowance. its not like £1 for loading the dishwasher, £1 a day for keeping room tidy. Its a set amount but I expect him to help around the house and he knows that.

Why should I pick up his dirty laundry every day, or worse still why should his brother who he shares a room with pick it up (ds1 is untidy ds2 is very tidy), why should he not walk the dog a couple of times a week (his dog). And if he doesn't do the chores why should I still give him spending money each week. He already has lunch money and bus fare for college from me each week. the allowance is supposed to pay for going out in the holidays and weekends. He gets a lot already, he has an annual merlin pass, train pass, bus pass, I buy his clothing and trainers/shoes/deodrants/hair gels/ shaving stuff.

BackforGood · 04/04/2014 17:03

My 17 yr old has absolutely no sense of budgeting / saving for things / that it's a good idea sometimes to not spend money when you don't need anything. Even when he's been earning his own. Even when he's regretted the fact he didn't put more by for his driving lessons when I suggested it previously.
My 15 yr old is excellent with money (for the last yr, has been asking me to keep £5 of her £15 monthly pocket money, and put it in a driving lessons fund, for example) - she always gets a pressie for her school friends at their birthdays and Christmas, and will have budgeted for this beforehand.

Don't how the 2 of them can be so different.

yourlittlesecret · 04/04/2014 17:58

DS1 18 and DS2 16.
DS1 gets an allowance to cover clothes etc plus he earns about £100 a month.
DS2 gets pocket money.
Neither of them ever spend a penny. It just mounts up in their bank. DS1 wears rags rather than part with any money for clothes. DS2 will splash out on a game now and then but isn't interested in shopping.

GemmaTeller · 04/04/2014 18:08

DD has always been terrible with money - any money she has gets spent straight away.

We've tried explaining about budgeting and saving - she isn't interested.

She's at uni and has a part time job - moans she has no money - DH slips her £50 and next minute she's in superdrug buying mascara at £15 a pop.

When she was at college she 'desperately needed' a certain sewing machine, we gave her half the cost of one - did she save up the rest, did she save birthday or christmas money? No- 'I didn't have enough for one so I spent the money in primark'

DS, on the other hand, has been money savvy since being at primary school - he's minted

foxdongle · 04/04/2014 19:19

ds has been really good with money since he's been earning it (paper round). He saves some and always looks for a good deal. Before his paper round he seemed to need a £5 off me or dh everytime he left the house. We pay for his clubs subs.

dd earns £3 per week emptying the dishwasher and setting the table on Saturdays . Money burns a hole in her pocket, it is spent the minute she has it. If she's going out to cinema/swimming whatever with friends we give her extra for that.
In the school holidays I tend to give dd a daily amount £2 then she can't spend the lot, but she can save up for something good.

HolgerDanske · 04/04/2014 19:25

If my priority was to help her to learn to budget then I'm afraid I would have to let her stew. Otherwise, if her friends are doing one big thing together over the holidays I might bargain with her that she could earn enough money for one trip out by doing a suitably big job in the house or garden.

One of my daughters is very good and saves most of her money, the other is a little more impulsive.

flow4 · 05/04/2014 00:37

Ds2 is good with money. Ds1 is bad with it, and always has been. I stopped doing 'chores for cash' with him, partly because he began to refuse to do anything unless I paid him and partly because whenever he spent up, he would hassle me and hassle me to come up with some more 'jobs' for him. Now he's 18 and has a p/t job that pays him £65-120/week, and he's living at home, but he still manages to spend it all! His attitude to money is so different to mine that I don't really know how to help him learn...

aGirlDownUnder1 · 05/04/2014 03:35

DD (14) is quite good with money, she'll save up and then she'll go on a big shopping spree, but she'll always have about $15 tucked away for birthday parties/unplanned cinema trip/fairs.

porcupinehair · 06/04/2014 15:40

DS has always been cautious with his spending. He gets £30 a month but lets most of it build up, it wouldn't occur to him to just spend all of it just because he has it. He just buys computer games that he specifically wants (but often waits to see if it appears in a Steam sale) or sweet treats that I don't buy him - but he usually limits himself to a small amount and on supermarket multibuys. He has no interest in clothes - I buy him non-branded basics and he's not interested in more expensive brands.

With your DD, I'd be inclined to watch her stew. It's harsh, but my Dsis was like this and giving more money simply enables the behaviour - it backfires when the sums get bigger as they get older and they're expecting you to bail them out of £££.

mumeeee · 06/04/2014 23:47

DD2 was terrible at budgeting until she was 19 and went to university. She grew up quickly then and surprised us that she didn't run out of money. She is now 24 and holding down 2 jobs and managing to pay her rent and living costs without asking us any money. At 16 she would not have even thought about checking her bank balance.

TryingnottosingtheAbbasong · 07/04/2014 10:05

That's good to hear, mumeee.
DD hasn't asked for any money. She has emptied a cash piggy bank she keeps and got a few quid out of it, she's happy with that and said it will be all she needs till friday.
Sorted :)

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BackforGood · 07/04/2014 10:29

That is good to know, mummee - I was worried to hear that the student loan comes in a termly amount, and can't be drawn down monthly or even weekly... in the unlikely event he gets his A-level results I can see ds running out of money by the first week in October.

mumeeee · 07/04/2014 11:56

I think a lot of young people do learn to budget at uni. DD3 is there now and still has about half of this terms loan left, Although that's probably because she worries about spending to much money and doesn't drink much . We did pay her hall rent as that what we did for her sisters, This is all we did and we didn't give any of them a monthly allowance once they went to uni,

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