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 🤷‍♀️

Competitive misery is equalled by competitive "of, of course £600 only goes so far if you get designer gear" type posts though, isn't it?

I'm not sure I've seen any competitive misery anyway. There's nothing miserable about saying "I would never spend £600 pounds on clothes for a holiday". I'm quite happy with that decision, in fact!

I have read quite a few "that's more than my entire holiday budget" comments

6,000 would feel like a lot, 600 really not so much. You don't have to spend it, but it's not an extortionate amount.

I think it can be a lot if it is in addition to general clothes throughout the year.
So if you are already buying Jean's, trainers, t shirts etc and then have another £600 on top of that.
However as usual, its horses for courses. I wouldnt spend that much but I have a couple of friends that would.

I have read quite a few "that's more than my entire holiday budget" comments

I think its difficult sometimes to imagine a scenario quite far removed from your own experience. I spend not much more than £600 on a holiday but even when i had no children more disposable income, i couldn't imagine spending £600 in a day unless it was for a holiday/for a car etc. In the same way people who spend 6k or more on a holiday would probably not blink at £600 for holiday clothes.

We're one of those "six figure household income" families.

We spend our money on a range of things. Eating out. Days out. next weekend we're taking the kids to see a musical in another town, we'll probably have food before and it will be a fairly expensive day out. We have nice holidays and stay in nice places.

But none of us are really interested in fashion and trends. The kids aren't interested in £130 trainers. I think the most expensive pair we've ever bought was £50 adidas superstars. We don't throw clothes out because they've fallen out of fashion - because we don't buy the uber trendy in the first place.

Yes, everyone has different priorities. DD’s “new” jeans came from a charity shop, but I paid 240 quid to take her to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and we spend more than I care to think about on eating out on the spur of he moment.

I'd be shocked at that as well, and also don't get the 'holiday wardrobe' need , my 18 year old DS is off on his first 'grown up' holiday this year after A levels (& paid for the holiday himself), if he wants any new clothes he will have to buy them out of his £50 a month allowance (which covers everything) or do some part time work, which he has got lined up already.

I think some of the people answering don’t have teenage boys. Mine is 6’4” and even a couple of t-shirts and a pair of shorts in jd sports or hollister can cost £100. Then trainers for his size 11 feet. Luckily he doesn’t have as expensive taste as his 21yr old brother (who buys his own clothes) and so can often get trainers for £80 ish but then can like ones that are £130.

Just because one teen likes a branded tee doesn’t make him wasteful. I’d rather buy him a north face tee for £25 that washes and wears welll and a year later still looks nice, than the few primark tees that he has that after a couple of washes are bobbly and out of shape but if that was the budget or what he liked then fair enough.

Its entirely possible that you could have a teenage boy and still not have £600 spare.... or am i missing something, do you suddenly get an extra teenage boy allowance from somewhere?

Unicorn - I certainly do have a teenage boy, and he has managed to buy his own clothes and trainers since he was 14 by having paper rounds & part time jobs, using birthday and Christmas money etc.

I did buy the suit for his prom, biggest waste of money ever, £129 and worn once, I think he wore the jacket again on one other occasion .

I don’t think that’s a lot for holiday clothes tbh. Everything is relative though as others have said.

—I would never have expected a 14 year old to clothes themselves—.

Strike through fail

I have teenage girls , three of them. I wouldn’t buy any branded clothes for them, except for a Christmas or birthday present. It’s all marketing hype that I hope they have learned to be switched on to. They can buy second hand if they want.

My youngest could happily go through £600 on clothes shopping. I thought he was mad when he paid £24 for two pairs of Calvin kline boxers but I must admit they are way better than the cheaper ones his brother wears. They are so soft, wash really well and for the first time in years he doesn’t have eczema on his bum. And as he is an adult and pays for his own clothes it s entirely up to him. Same way it is up to these parents how much clothing budget they give their son.

Look on the bright side next year there will probably be some good quality donations in your local charity shop and someone else will get the chance to have something they probably couldn’t afford to buy new..

We have 2 teens and they get £50 allowance per month each for clothes (excluding shoes and coats and school uniform). So £600 has to last them a year, not one shopping trip. They get 1 coat per year if they're lucky. Dds coat is on it's third year but she's stopped growing. They have a Gap and H&M budget. They can go to Jack Wills etc with their birthday/Christmas money if they choose to but luckily they don't seem to be interested.

That’s how much my rent costs each month!

I think some of the people answering don’t have teenage boys. Mine is 6’4” and even a couple of t-shirts and a pair of shorts in jd sports or hollister can cost £100

But his height, age and sex don't have any bearing on where he shops. If you're happy to buy him clothes from JD Sports and Hollister that's your choice, but what people are saying is that they don't NEED to. Which is true. Your DS doesn't NEED to spend £100 on a couple of t-shirts and a pair of shorts.

took DD 22 shopping last week. 2 pairs of trainers and Birkenstocks were over £200.
A couple of pairs of jeans £140
Assorted tops, Denim jacket and culottes another £150.
So yes, it can easily be done.

Yes if you buy v expensive things, of course it can. Why are you spending so much on her though? £70 jeans? I mean anyone can be extravagant but it’s not like £70 is even mid-range let alone cheap.

Probably half that was spent on clothes to take to uni - and thats a year rather than a week!

unicorn not every teenage boy has stupidly expensive or designer tastes though. I gave DS money to buy some new trousers this week. He bought 2 pairs of £15 jeans from M and S. Yes, I gave him a budget but he was well within it and I'd said he could photo anything he liked out of budget and we'd discuss it. He simply didn't see the point of spending more.

So yes, it can easily be done.

I could easily spend a 10k on clothes in an afternoon. Just because it's easy to do, doesn't mean I should or would do it!

We give our teen dds £500 each in the spring and then the autumn to buy their wardrobe essentials. They are still growing, we’ve been doing it for a few years now.
Easy to spend if you’re not shopping exclusively in Primark and new look etc.
I don’t think anyone is saying it’s essential, everyone agrees you can kit your kids out very cheaply. Both my dds love second hand shopping when they’re out with their friends and using their own pocket money!
Ds is younger and we definitely spend less on him at the moment.

At 14 DS had an allowance / pocket money. I would buy his clothes as in necessities but if he wanted to upgrade from Sports Direct / Primark he would need to make the choice to use his own money. For 'holiday bits' it would be '50/£60.

Having said that DS has a friend whose parents would give him £100 for a random trip to the local shopping mall whereas everyone else got £10.

The comments saying that "it can easily be done" are funny. I'm pretty sure nobody doubts that it's easy to spend £600 if it's in your pocket to be spent You can wander into Burberry and throw £600 away on something hideous in a couple of minutes, and you don't need size 11 feet to spend £160 on a pair of unoriginal Nike trainers in a High Street shop.

Spending money quickly in high street shops doesn't take any element of skill or taste nor any unusual height or shoe size at all.

The question was whether bunging your teen £600 was too much, not whether it would be possible to spend £600 if it was burning a hole in a teenager's pocket

How the other half live