To make my daughter contribute all her savings to an iPhone

[Judgeybear]

My DD wants an iPhone 5s for her 11 birthday. I'm horrified- I don't even have an iPhone 5s!! She has £200 in savings and I'm insisting she contributes the lot towards it if she really wants it. The worst part is she attends a school where there are a lot of rich families (we're not by any men's rich) and some if the children have had iPhone 5s given to them without any contribution. I'm now getting grief from DD about this which I think is what's upsetting me most. DD has no real concept of how much all this cost but I think it's the rampant materialism that's upsetting me. Am I behind the times?

heavens yes! Quite apart from the fact that a) no 11 yo needs an iphone and b) its chance of getting smashed is extremely high and c) it makes her a target for muggers and thieves, she needs to understand that iphones don't grow on trees. So she definitely ought to pay everything last penny of her savings to her iphone.

Tell her you'll pay the £10 it would cost to get a basic brick phone needed to arrange lifts etc, and she can find the rest. Worked for ultra-materialistic DD1 when she was 11 and wanted an ipod. She started to put a lot more thought into what was needed and what was merely a want and to save and plan accordingly.

I think people are utterly mad to give their young children such an expensive piece of kit to take to school.

FWIW the 12 yo I know who has one managed to completely smash it at school and had to pay £150 to have it fixed. Her parents paid. She has learned very little from the experience.

I mean, no, YANBU, YABVR!

If the phone she wants costs £600 and she would contribute £200, that still leaves you paying a whopping £400 for her birthday present (assuming too that you would give her nothing else). That's a phenomenal amount of money for a birthday present. And there would still be the insurance and the phone bill to pay. All so that she can spend her time messing around with the phone rather than playing or studying or reading etc. And you're teaching her that it is important to have what your rich friends happen to have.
I'd say that it's madness. Sit down with her and explain that you do not have the money that some of her classmates' families have, and that what money you have you prefer to spend on more important things, and she doesn't have to have exactly the same things as everyone else. She will have to learn that lesson sometime.
My DD is older than that, and doesn't have any phone at all. She was given a 2nd hand IPod for her birthday, and used her own money to buy a charger and headphones. She was absolutely thrilled with that.

Android parental controls guide: www.geeksquad.co.uk/articles/set-up-parental-controls-android

Would you not get her a contract? A 5S on pay as you go would be wasted.
You do realise that you ALWAYS pay significantly more for a phone on a contract? They don't give the phones away for nothing
If you can afford to buy a phone outright, you will save up to a few hundred pounds.
If you break or lose your phone, you have to continue paying the contract, even if you don't have a phone!

I told my kids that I would pay £150 towards any phone and £10 per month on a 30 day sim only contract.
One son chose a £150 Samsung phone, the other contributed an additional £50 to get the Nexus.

Expensive phones are a huge liability.

I have an iphone 4 (managed to smash the screen) so now use the samsung galaxy s4 mini and its just as good and costs £240

Give her some birthday money towards it and let her safe up.

Do 11 year olds want iPhones these days!? I'm not that old surely!!

New iphone 6 is out in September. Will she want that one instead when it comes out? And no doubt a newer version 6 months later. Will she expect you to update these everytime a new one comes out?

Kids these days!

Is this coming from the parents? Do they think that their child must always have the absolute best in material goods?

I think I'd get her one on contract, take some of the £200 for the deposit.

Get her to do chores so she 'earns' the price of the contract each month.

Mines £26 a month for the 5C. O2 blocks all dodgy internet sites unless you use a credit card to unlock them.

god, I'm 43 and I've only just got myself a smartphone!

One thing - if you're not in a city with decent 4G coverage then there is zero point in getting an iphone 5. And most parts of the UK don't have good 4G coverage.

This is unfortunately going to be one of those hard lessons, but I wouldn't do it.

Marmiteandjamislush
Ps I'm not a fan of apple, so may be biased.

I'm not either Marmite!

OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat
Sim free phones with Gif Gaf type sim only contracts are usually cheaper than 24 month contracts at thirty odd quid a month - always add up how much it is going to cost you over the 24 month contract to compare costs. Obviously though, you have to pay a large lump sump upfront.

I have a sim free Samsung Galaxy SIII with a monthly £12.00 GiffGaff Goody Bag. This does everything I want, it might be nice to upgrade one day but I definitely don't need to.

This Goody Bag offers 250 UK minutes, unlimited UK texts and unlimited Internet for one month. Also free giffgaff to giffgaff calls and texts on top of that.

Presumably there are other providers who also offer similar deals.

My 19 year old DSD has an sim free Iphone 5s with the same Giff Gaff monthly £12.00 Goody Bag, she says this does everything she wants. She has never run out of minutes.

My DP has a sim locked to T-Mobile/EE with a Samsung Galaxy Mini which has a complicated system of rewards and offers and costs 35p per minute for UK calls. Giff Gaff costs 10p per minute for UK calls according to their website. I am at the moment trying to switch him over to Giff Gaff to benefit from the free calls and lower costs but am having to wait until his contract ends in August. His contract costs £33 a month. I do not think this is good value for money.

Out of interest I looked up what the Galaxy SIII costs on amazon now (as this is where I bought it from a shade under two years ago) and they have a sim free one at the moment for £200 plus £4 shipping:

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0080DJ6CM/ref=twister_B0080E458Q

Even the black version is only £50 more.

My DD just got one on contract from Carphone Warehouse and it's £23.99 a month. Just as well, as she had busted it the minute, seriously the very MINUTE it arrived. We got a replacement the next day, no harm done but I would never fork out to actually BUY the handset.

OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat - but why would you be paying "thirty odd quid a month" on a contract. No contracts over £8.50 per month here - all came with free phones.

OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat I don't know A LOT about smartphones, I have had a Sony Xperia & currently a Samsung Galaxy.

Both let me have over 10 apps, and ran quite efficiently. The Sony was slower, it couldn't seem to cope with too much.

The Samsung is, so far, pretty good. No slowing up as yet (had almost 2yrs) and heaps of apps.

My DH hates apple Crap was his description. Ive had a very basic smartphone for over two years.
It cost £50 and DH bought it for my birthday 2 years ago. I can only scroll a few tweets into my Twitter feed but cant actually tweet.
I cant get onto MN at all.
I can get onto fb but only just manage to post....its pot luck.
Fine by me .....I am NOT someone who will pay hundreds for a phone. I think its crazy. Also I just couldn't afford it.

I really miss the older phones. The ones you can just text and call on I had a couple of Nokias.

I don't walk along the street glued to my phone.....it stays in my handbag. I think its so sad to see couples in restaurants and coffee shops each on their smartphones not talking to each other. Its killing social interaction and romance.

My ds is 11 and about to start year 7. We got him a mobile phone for his birthday in March as we knew he would need one for secondary school, travelling alone etc. Got him one costing roughly £100 and he's hardly looked at it. Never takes it out, never charges it.
He said afterwards that he really wanted the new iPhone:(

I think it's ridiculous, he's got the usual gadgets, iPod touch, iPad so the phone was literally to use as a phone.

His dad bought him the new iPhone at the time when he was EIGHT, it broke in the end. For him, it was a way to flash his cash whilst only seeing him once a week.
I've got a £20 Nokia from Tesco that does the job.
My sil bought my niece the latest iPhone for her 13th birthday because "everyone else has one" and is still struggling from it 3 months on.

Thanks for the reply different. I might give one a try next time -maybe go to a shop and ask.

Backforgood the OP is talking about iPhone 5s. You don't get them free on £8.50 pm contracts .

Sorry if this has been said I've not read all replies.
I had this with my ds.
Iphone that age was big mistake, silly fuss over texts, social networking, internet use, constant asking for money to buy apps, music, ect. List was endless!
If you go a head IMO her contribution is the only way it is possible. Let her make the decision to buy it or not.
How about a a second hand iphone. I bought an iphone 5 last week £205. Contract is £8.50 per month. Home wifi you can monitor. Loads of texts plenty of minutes.

I would agree that an 11 year old does not need such an expensive phone.

However I think it is right that a child should contribute towards any expensive type gadget - our DS (12) wanted a PlayStation and no way would we have bought him one so he saved half and then used Christmas and birthday money for the other half. It is essential for children to learn how to save and budget IMO.