Pocket money. Earned or given?

[AtSea1979]

AIBU to only give DS (14) pocket money when he’s earned it?
DD (10) doesn’t get pocket money yet.

My Dad gave me £100 per week to play with at that age, it was not a good thing at all. I did not appreciate it, I wasted it on absolute bullshit and still have a shit relationship with money to this day.

I think earning it is important.

We started pocket money at age 5y when Dd was learning about money at school. It started at £1 a week and went up by 50p on each birthday.
Once she reached about 14/15 we changed to a larger monthly allowance straight into her bank account. She now also gets a set amount of money in cash each week to cover her breakfast and lunch during school days.

Martin Lewis (Money Saving Expert Guy) did a brief interview on the radio about pocket money and what he does for his 6yo daughter. I thought he raised some very good points about paid chores need to benefit the whole family, not be stuff that you would do anyway like keep your room tidy. He also says that giving even a small amount is beneficial as it helps to teach about saving up for a bigger treat or blowing the lot straight away. He said there is evidence that teaching delayed gratification in children (ie saving up pocket money to buy something at a later date) means they are less likely to be impulsive spenders as adults.

Link to excerpt: twitter.com/cbeebieshq/status/1144849259893862406?s=21

Dd is 10.
She is given her pocket money. Its unconditional.
I am not paid to make my bed, so neither is she.
She is expected to help around the house. She washes up every 3rd night, makes her bed, puts her own washing away, hoovers and polishes and sorts the recycling out.

My ten year old gets pocket money for nothing, she does normal chores around the house for nothing but can earn extra money doing one off things like cleaning the car etc

Given, because he is part of the family.
Chores are done because he is part of the family.
Extra money for extra things - babysitting, dog walking, reprogramming computer etc

I disagree that children will learn something bad from being paid to do chores.

1. It's a nice and easy way for them to learn the skills of self care with a more obvious reward than merely having achieved self care (which isn't that thrilling to a six year old).

1. When they have those skills as an adult, they will be able to repeat them at will without reward.

I don't know anyone who was paid for chores as a child - like I was - who now refuses to do their own as an adult unpaid. The only ones who don't do anything as an adult were the ones who weren't expected to do chores for any reason whatsoever.

My parents had a good system with us when we were small. We'd get £1 a week, but not given to us, but written in our 'bank account'. We could withdraw (ask for money) at any time, up to our balance. We'd get an extra fiver during holidays, and our Christmas shopping had to be done out of our bank balance too. We'd get a weekly 100g bag of sweets.

I was saving up for a car, so hardly spent anything.

whatisthewhat We have tried out a few ways of managing pocket money and behavior and have found that taking money away isn't particularly helpful in the long run. Dc ended up with no money and the behavior didn't always change.
When we hit a rough patch behavior wise we left the pocket money alone, worked out what behavior we were actually looking for and set a a small reward system for that. So focused on rewarding the behavior we did want to see and ignoring the stuff we didn't.

Mine get pocket money from relatives quite frequently. They can earn sweets from me for daily chores (star chart and sweets on a Friday).

Dreichhighlands - yeah that makes sense, thanks for your response

Given. Our family is a communist regime. 😉

Do people still give pocket money to their children if their behaviour has been badly behaved?

Yes. It's unconditional and it's their money. Not a way of controlling people.

I don't know anyone who was paid for chores as a child - like I was - who now refuses to do their own as an adult unpaid.

We need to do a survey of all the cocklodgers who leave their DP to do everything to find out if they were paid for chores or not... There's plenty out there!

I give mine pocket money but they do have chores. I don’t withhold the money but they get nagged a lot

Ok nanbread, just a question as I'm not at that stage with mine yet.
I'm not trying to control anything

I don't understand why op's 10 year old isn't given pocket money yet. I'm getting old but remember having pocket money given to me once a week at that age and younger, so did others.

My son (14) gets a set amount with no conditions but he can earn more from doing extra things. It’s only little things he does like helping carry the shopping from the car, or feeding the pets. But he has ASD so the extra little things are mainly to encourage independence but he feels like he’s getting something from it with getting extra money. It’s unrealistic to expect kids to be perfectly behaved to earn their pocket money each week/month. Kids/teens are going to make mistakes and are going to be grumpy and that’s completely normal.

@whatisthewhat no aggro from me sorry if it came across that way! Just explaining why we do what we do. We give pocket money mostly to ingrain financial responsibility and because I believe all people in the household deserve some level of financial freedom.

I don't give pocket money yet. My daughter (9) gets everything she needs and we discuss the wants.
I put money into her savings every month and I give her £1 a day for the vending machines if she goes to holiday club. If she doesn't spend it she can keep it.
She is totally free to do whatever she wants with any money she gets for birthdays. she tends to save it in her money box.

As for chores, I was a single parent for 5 years and now have a partner who works away in the week, she knows if she doesn't muck in then mummy doesn't have time to do the things she wants to do like go to the park or take her to swimming lessons. If she doesn't put her clothes in the laundry she ends up with no clean pants. Children need to learn concequences.

I believe you can teach children the value of money without pocket money. We openly discuss household finances and what things cost. She is very respectful of money and hard work. She is an amazing child

I didn't start until 11 when they got their own bank account. But it was given with the expectation that they help around the house.
They have £20 deposited monthly to spend or save as they wish. It's really interesting that they love checking the app to see the account balance grow after "payday". It's a lesson in fiscal responsibility.

He said there is evidence that teaching delayed gratification in children (ie saving up pocket money to buy something at a later date) means they are less likely to be impulsive spenders as adults.

That's somewhat depressing from him, that's just a normal variation on the discredited Stanford marshmallow experiment - pretty much all delayed gratification experiments just show that privilege is what prevents that impulsivity nothing else.

Given. Here chores are separate, something everyone in the house has to do because they need done. Pocket money more about learning to save, making decisions about what to spend money on etc.

Given.

If pocket money is linked to jobs around the house then what happens when he doesn't need the money - won't he think that he doesn't have to do the job? We all do jobs around the house because we are a family and live here and help each other.

And parents give money to children (or buy them stuff directly) if the children are not able to earn money for themselves.

I just gave it to my kids. I expected them to help out as members of the family, not because they were being paid to do it. Tying pocket money to household chores gives the child the opportunity to opt out. As in, I don’t want to tidy the kitchen tonight, I’ll pass on my pocket money this week.