My DP has expressed that he wants to open bank accounts for his two DCs (12 &15) and put money in there for Christmas and birthdays instead of giving them cash that they will waste away or buying stuff they will never use. Atm anything we give/get them has to stay at our house (we and the DCs think it's unfair) and we are quickly running out of space! They get £100 each for birthdays and £150 each at Christmas plus they occasionally got to work with DP on weekends and he gives them money for that too which would go into the bank accounts also.
DP thinks if they have cards to use whenever they want then if they buy stuff whilst with their mum it should stay there, his thinking is that they would rather this as then they get more use out of their things.
However, he's concerned about giving them the cards and PIN numbers, especially the younger DC as he doesn't trust his ex not to dip into their money if given the pins so he's conflicted on what to do, he doesn't want to keep the cards here because then they are limited as to when they can spend and feels the eldest would benefit from having his own card now for going out with friends etc, but doesn't want to say oldest can have it but youngest can't either as it isn't fair.
I suggested that we keep the cards and if they want something they can text us what it is and we can buy it online delivered to their home with their cards but he says they won't do this (he's right, we are out of sight out of mind to the DCs when it's not our weekend - he rarely ever gets a text off them just to say hi unless he's texted first) but I think if they know they money's available to do that then they will get into the habit of letting us know what they want when they want it and if it doesn't work out we can have a rethink. Although, I'd rather not have to do all the ground work in essentially still buying for them as ex might kick up saying the stuff has to stay with us.
WWYD? Any other suggestions we might not have thought of? If we can't decide what to do then we'll probably just carry on giving them the cash but will have to have a conversation with ex about where stuff is kept as otherwise we are throwing money away (youngest DC bought a new tablet - with his mum and against our wishes - with our birthday money last year and it's been used a handful of time as he's forgotten he has it as its at our house, I ended up letting my DS have it to play with occasionally as at least he's getting the money's worth out of it!)