Teenagers renegotiating allowance.

[StrumpersPlunkett]

I am aware there will be variation but we have been on £1 a year each month.
So aged £12 it was £12 per month.
Apparently this is not the going rate.
We can afford more but just don’t want to spend more than we need to

[quote quarentini]@MiscUser9823 my children did help around the house but they didn't get an allowance to do so.
They were expected to tidy up as everyone who lived there did.
They also saved birthday money.
They got an allowance to learn how to budget and take responsibility for their own money from a young age.[/quote]
Fair. I think thats what my parents tried to do. But from their point of view that = not allowed to spend, only save.

If it makes a difference, to this day I still struggle to spend money

(But thats also probably why ive been able to get on the property ladder and do rather well compared to my friends who earn exactly double my salary but still live month to month)

Negotiation is a great skill to learn. Our son negotiated with the tooth fairy by pillow messages. His fairy spoke to the tooth king and the rate increased.
I think it depends what they have to buy with it. Certainly at sixth form it doesn’t feel like a huge amount.

I give my youngest aged 14 about £60 a month. Seems about right to me and fits fine in my budget

@BatFacedGrrll

I give my youngest aged 14 about £60 a month. Seems about right to me and fits fine in my budget

Is that on top of lunch money, clothes and phone bill, or does the £60 meant to cover this?

We did the same as you OP

£1 per year of age, each month, so £14pm for a 14 yr old.

To be fair, my dc are young adults now so I think if I had a 12 yr old now I'd have upped it a little bit for inflation.

However, every pocket money thread on MN attracts people from both ends of a very, very long piece of string, and usually the people that pay out loads can't believe anyone could possibly get by on the lower amounts, and the people that give their dc lower amounts are flabbergasted at the amounts the higher payers give their dc.

My Foster son is 14 and we told how much allowance to give him. It is £7.45 per week for 15 year old. He is supposed to learn to budget but our FS has special needs so he tends to buy same or similar sweets every week. In normal times we.pay for his Scouts, cricket, karate and swimming and if he goes ice skating with a friend. I think he is supposed to save up for cinema but we just buy his tickets. He saves bits of his pocket money and throws them in a big jar. He told me he likes the sound it makes going in.

Posted too soon. At 12 I think.he hot 4.89 each week.

Mine get £40 a month. They are expected to do some chores around the house for that. We pay for mobile phones and basic clothes and toiletries but anything more (make up/extra clothes/Xbox live etc) they are expected to pay for.

@MiscUser9823 yes it's on top of those things. I put £15 a week on his card for lunches at school, pay for his phone and buy all his clothes - although I'd draw a line at anything ridiculously priced but he's not there yet thank goodness. I buy Adidas and Nike mainly and not loads.

You have to remember though that everyone has different budgets and different ideas about this sort of thing. Mine is expected to do any chores he's asked which he does and I expect his behaviour to be good - which, on the whole, it is.

My DD aged 12 gets £20 a week and we pay for her phone. If she wanted to get the bus to school or buy hot lunches she would need to use that money but she prefers to budget. To be honest if she did spend it on bus and dinners we'd increase it. We cover all clothes etc.

She does wash up after dinner once a day to earn that money

I think half of their age per week is reasonable. So 12 year old gets £6 a week etc

My 2 get child benefit put into the account, about £60 a month each BUT half to save half to keep and I buy everything that's needed /phone and necessary travel

Mine get an allowance but it’s purely for fun spends. Lunches, clothes, school items, phone etc is paid by us as they are still children so our responsibility.

How old are they? At 16 DD got £100 pcm and was expected to pay for all toiletries (including sanpro) clothes except school uniform etc from that. We continued to pay for her phone and her travel card and we bought enough food for her to make a packed lunch every day - if she wanted to buy school dinner she had to pay for that.

My ds 10 get £3 a week with a possible extra £2 for added chores goes in to his go Henry account. He buys any extras he wants from that books or games.

£12 a month is less than £3 a week. What can they buy with that? Not even a magazine and a bar of chocolate, and they're not old enough to get a Saturday job. It must be embarrassing in front of their friends if they're always short of funds. That's about what I was getting as a 15-year-old - back in the 70s!

My 15 year old gets £30 a month. I pay for phone, clothes and basic toiletries. She pays for make up, extra beauty products and pre-covid, days out. I would give her extra for big days out (theme park, friends birthday etc.) During covid she has spent some of it on takeaways.

DS (11) gets £10 a week and if he wants more he can earn it by doing jobs around the house. He’s at high school and in normal times, he has to hang around for a bit in town after school so he needs money for that. He also buys the odd Switch game or Stranger Things merchandise. We pay for his phone contract, clothes and shoes, hobbies, bus fare and school dinners/ snacks. If he goes to the cinema with his friends (again in normal times 🙄) we pay for his ticket and he pays for his sweets and drink.

What do they do to earn their allowance?

DS 17 gets £30 a week plus whatever he earns from his weekend/holiday job.
He pays for his phone, socialising, college lunches, stationery, gifts for family and friends, most clothes (we buy coats, shoes, sports kit and underwear) hair cuts, any extra toiletries he wants above the basic family stuff.
We pay for and expensive college equipment, music lessons and driving lessons when he can have them.

He does loads round the house but we don't link that to pocket money. All the DC are expected to help.

Dd3 50 per month at 13. "Walking about money" is what my dad always called it.
Should cover shopping trips, after school snacks, maccies etc.
Phone is a tenner a month paid by me.
Older dds(now adults) got 40 a month until they were 18 at least. They had jobs from 16 but it seemed to mean to stop!

my 16 year old gets £30 a week, I pay for phone, clothes toiletries
My 13 year old gets £20
even if they get a bubble tea that's £4, or a fresh smoothie is £4.50, it doesn't go far.

DD2 age 16 gets £150 a month and apparently that's less than her friends which isn't true as I checked with their mums. She has to buy her own clothes out of this, before COVID when she could go out she was always running out and OH would give her more but I've told him no it's enough and she has to budget. We still pay for her phone, toiletries and coats throughout the year plus clothes for holidays. She is very good though , keeps her bedroom and bathroom spotless and helps out around the house.

That does sound very low. My almost 8 year old gets £20 per month, but has to budget and pay for hamster supplies out of it.

17 year old dd gets £5 per week for ironing, her phone and travel paid. (6th form)

19 year old gets £50 per week top up to her student loan during term time, phone paid and gets driven 160 miles every term. I’d also bung her money for impromptu train fares home if needed.