To ask if £600 is too much to give your teenager to go and buy holiday clothes?

[SandraDea]

Just wondering if I’m a bit out of touch. My son has just come back with his mate from a shopping trip in the city centre.

His mate (14) had £600 transferred into his bank account by his parents this morning to buy clothes for the holiday they are going on tomorrow.

I know the family are wealthy but even so isn’t that extortionate? He did actually spend all the money as he’s shown us all his purchases!

Just interested if this is a bit OTT or if I’m just mean! Or maybe people just spend what they can afford whether that’s a lot or not much 🤷‍♀️

I do think it's OTT. It's not just a case of whether the family could afford it or not. For some families that would be a small amount of money they can easily afford to give out on a whim. I personally would never throw around that much money to a teenager though as it gives them a false sense of how easy money is to get. I think it's great if teenagers get used to saving and deciding what is really worth spending their money on before they leave home. If you're used to spending hundreds of pounds in an afternoon at 14 it's going to come as a shock when you're a new graduate and you have £200 left a month after rent and bills to buy food and entertain yourself with.

Yes they were all high street - north face, Nike, Adidas, Armani, I think he bought trainers which were about £185 so that’s almost a third of his ‘budget’

Yes I am sure he will wear them all after the holiday - at least one would hope so!

It’s not a mad amount if they have the money to spend and appreciate good quality clothing?! I just spent £160 on one new sunglasses for my holidays on a whim so I can see how it could be spent! Not everyone likes shopping in Primark. My DC are still tiny but their clothes rack up pretty quickly too - a few new dress each and you’re looking at £300!

I wouldn't say Armani and North Face are high street...

Armani man bag and north face joggers from JD sports on the high street

it's loads, obviously.

i suppose that at age 14 the boy may be off the back of a very significant growth spurt, & as such in need of an entire new wardrobe?

in those sorts of circumstances i suppose £600 is fairly understandable if we're talking about an affluent family who having nice clothing means a lot to.

I would give them £50, £100 if a specific outfit eg for a wedding was needed. We have a decent income

I once went shopping with someone who spent 10x that on clothes in a day which was an eye opener (Dad gave it her for her birthday).

It is all relative. People in poor parts of the world would think spending £10 on clothes is a lot. To some people £600 is not a lot of money.

PlainSpeaking
Thanks for the tip. Dd will be wanting that sort of stuff very soon. She’s now into Nike Huaraches.

Several of DS friends (16-17) would get similar so I am not shocked about it.

Mine do not get that much but I would send them off w £200 if they were clothes shopping.

That's a lot of money for a 14 year old to spend in a day, but like PP have said, it depends on the parents' income, and maybe he's had a growth spurt too?

I didn't buy my DS many new clothes at all last year as most of the previous year's clothes still fitted perfectly. This year I have had to buy loads of new clothes as there's not much that doesn't look too small.

I also find that it's better to buy a smaller amount of more expensive clothes, than a larger amount of cheaper clothes as the cheaper ones look very worn after only a few washes.

I think it’s a huge amount. Why do you need to go clothes shopping for a holiday? A new pair of sandals, swimsuit and pair of shorts maybe. I wouldn’t give mine money to spend, they’d have to use their own money. I’d buy them sandals or swimming things.

We have a good income. I have never handed any of my lot even £100 to go off shopping. I bought them the basics and they used their allowance if they wanted more.

And now they are grown up, yes they like the odd classic designer/labelly thing but they know how to budget and make their money go a long way.

DS(15) already own t-shirts so no need for new ones just for holiday wear. This summer, it'll be new swim shorts and a few pair of shorts and that's it! Surely, you'll just take existing jeans. hoodies, underwear, socks and trainers. £50 - £100 would do it in our case.

It all depends on your income

Erm...we have a joint household income of six figures and £600 on holiday clothes is still an INSANE amount of money, especially on a child.

DS2 has a friend who's parents are seriously rich. (Have helicopters on the drive) and gets called "Bumfresh boy" at school.
They both get £50 if they go to the shopping centre, I think it's his families way of not making him stand out too much.
Then again I have other friends who pay £30k a year for private education. £600 is a drop in the ocean compared to that.

Erm...we have a joint household income of six figures and £600 on holiday clothes is still an INSANE amount of money, especially on a child

As a matter of interest, what do mumsnetters with high (6 figure) salaries spend their money on, particularly given the professed passion for frugality?

We spent our money on our house, our investments, our nice cars (big mumsnet fail) and our holidays, but mostly our lovely early retirement.

We spent loads on uni and the kids in general though.

My teenage son would buy two pairs of shorts and five t-shirts from Primark and have £550 change. And that's all he'd wear is it, in a week abroad, no swimming trunks, no pants or socks, no new trainers, flip flops, deck shoes, no evening attire, no sweat shirts, no
jacket, no jeans, no trousers?

But he has pants, socks, trousers, the rest of it.

Are there really people who go out there are buy a whole new wardrobe for going away? We took the kids to Fuerteventura for a week in October. They each got new swimsuits as they had grown. Everything else they had already.

We are not on the bones of our arse financially. I could go out tomorrow and spend £500 on clothes if I wanted to. But I don't want to because it's unnecessary and hugely excessive. Hate fast fashion and hate the disposable attitude people have to clothes.

@Aridane
3x rents at university, holidays, train and taxi fares to see family/ get back from uni and the usual never bloody ending boiler/ home maintenance/ car repair.
I have very very occasionally spent almost that, but boy was it an event! It involved lots of research, definitely a trip with a parent rather than chucking money at a child, which seems rather sad.

@CherylCheshire, how can this be the "simplest question ever asked on Mumsnet" when you've already identified this evening the simplest question in the universe?

£600 doesn’t go far up many a London high street, crazy I know but there is a demand for pricier clothing.

I’m not sure there is a magic number that is correct and will please everyone. We all spend according to our means and clothing and appearance is important to some. I would hope that whether he received £100, £600 or £1000 his parents make him do chores, educate him about those less fortunate and don’t let him get everything he asks for, perhaps that is partly why he is a nice child as you say. Other than that it’s really not your business how your friend chooses to spend her money. I think we live in a really judgemental time where if anyone has more than the next or different values it has to be questioned. Live and let live ?

I think we’ve spent just under £1k on DS1 (16) holiday clothes to be fair we are going away for 4 weeks on 2 different holidays and he’s away to Ibiza for a week with his friends so he will get his wear out of them all particularly if we get a summer similar to last year. This includes 3 pairs of shoes also