Spendthrift daughter

[Zizzagaaaaah]

My daughter is 16 and has her own debit card which she has had for a few years
at the beginning of the year, I told her that I would be giving her, £85 per month to buy clothes with
Out of this, she pays for her Netflix subscription £5.99- I pay for her phone

She has a love of Brandy Melville clothes, which although aren't wildly expensive - they are pricier than some for bog-standard t-shirt

She needs clothes for college and has so far since April has put in 6 separate orders with Brandy.
each time she has paid £3.50 shipping

Today the postman delivered a package from boots with some bio-oil and dove face wash
She paid £3.50 for the delivery (We have a Lloyds chemist less than 5 min walk and boots and Superdrug in our local small town) We also get a weekly shop from Tesco (the bio-oil is £2.50 cheaper)

She doesn't even think about using her student discount and then moans that she doesn't have enough to buy the things she wants.

I've spoken to her many times but it's falling on deaf ears

I know this is small stuff but it's really starting to annoy me that she doesn't seem to care that she can save money every time she shops, either by waiting and buying more each time (instead of buying a single t-shirt and paying £3.50 to have it delivered) or going to the local shops

Do I ignore it and quietly seethe as it's her money and hopefully when she starts having to earn it herself the penny might drop?

It is all relative but lots of delivery charges plus buying things that could be purchased 5 minutes away cheaper, without a delivery charge, would also do my head in.

I hate waste.

I probably would have a conversation about it explaining it. If she just dismisses what you say, it perhaps indicates it is tok much for her.

Good luck.

Yes I do! If shops and restaurants are open by then I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect her to earn her own money

You seriously think in a limited job market a 16 year old should be encouraged to take a job that could mean the difference between a family eating or not? If you do, you really need to think about your priorities.

£85 a month is a ridiculous amount. Christ most adults don't have that a month to just fritter on crap.

I really hate that attitude. Some people are poor, so children should get nothing

£85 a month?!? Jeez louise!

I wouldn't have had that to spend in a YEAR at that age! Plus 16 year old girls are pretty much done with their growing by then, surely? So it's not like she's out-growing stuff and lightning speed.

If you think she's mis-using the money, drop the amount significantly.

@Zing How did you get clothes as a teen then?

Why does she need £85 worth of new clothes/stuff every month

She doesn't have to spend it every month, she could save some for a bigger purchase or for the sales.

The £85 is what the OP has decided she will give her, some will have more and some will have less, but either way, just because she gets money every month, doesn't stop her saving some of it, not that it sounds like she will anyway as she's complaining it's not enough.

You seriously think in a limited job market a 16 year old should be encouraged to take a job that could mean the difference between a family eating or not?

as the law is currently to discriminate the minimum wage according to age groups, you might find that employers who employ a 16 year old specifically stick with 16 year old, possibly because that's all they can afford to employ and it's legal.

You cannot tell your child not to take a job because someone might need it more!

I wouldn't have had that to spend in a YEAR at that age!

the competitive poverty on these threads never fails to entertain

You seriously think in a limited job market a 16 year old should be encouraged to take a job that could mean the difference between a family eating or not?
wtf, really?

£85 a month??? Definitely don't tell my Brandy Melville loving 14 year old DD that! She gets a very meagre £25 and is expected to do a lot to help around the house for that. It sounds a bit like your DD doesn't quite get the value of money and it's all a bit too easy to come by? Getting her to add up how much she's spent on p&p is a good idea. It probably wouldn't hurt to put some conditions on the monthly allowance either?

You cannot tell your child not to take a job because someone might need it more!

No, but a PP advocating withdrawing pocket money and telling them they need to go and get a job during a global pandemic isn't right either. Now isn't the time to be forcing kids out to get jobs, let's be fair.

In "normal times" I would absolutely agree, though.

You cannot tell your child not to take a job because someone might need it more!

No you can’t. You can, however, not encourage them to do so and point out how many people with families have lost jobs in the industries likely to employ a 16 year old.

No comment on the amount - that's a family matter, entirely your own business. But she is only 16, growing up is a process. Just as when she was younger you taught her about mixing sociably with other toddlers, keeping herself safe, healthy eating and so on, now at this stage your job as a parent is to teach her about handling money. They're not born knowing it. She needs to learn about bills too, and debt, and credit scores and mortgages.....you've done well in starting her off with her debit card and handing her responsibility for her own expenses. She's made her mistakes, that's fine, now is the time to sit down with her and chat about it, show her how much more she would have got for the money if she'd done this or that. Then it's back over to her, no baling her out. She'll learn. We all have to.

Yes, £85 is excessive! I’d cut it to £60 - tell her it’s because she’s wasting so much, and if she goes on wasting it you’ll cut it even more.
Teaching her to be careful will be doing her a big favour in the long run.

@Alsohuman

Yes I do! If shops and restaurants are open by then I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect her to earn her own money

You seriously think in a limited job market a 16 year old should be encouraged to take a job that could mean the difference between a family eating or not? If you do, you really need to think about your priorities.

That’s the worst counter argument I think I’ve ever come across on here.

Where are these jobs, my uni. son had two part time jobs before covid since the age of 16, both gone now.

You can, however, not encourage them to do so and point out how many people with families have lost jobs in the industries likely to employ a 16 year old

Most 16 yr old would have weekend or evening jobs so who are these 16 yr old taking jobs from? What about adults who have 2 jobs? What about someone who does public & private work? When is a 16 yr old "allowed" to get a job?

vanillandhoney

There are plenty of supermarkets and they are always looking for new part-time staff. If it’s acceptable for her need £85 worth of new clothes every month to attend college in, it’s acceptable for her to find a job to pay for it.

Also if you're worried about a 16 yr old coming for your job I suggest a better tactic is to change or up skill rather than to tell 16 yr olds to not work.

This sort of thing irritates me too after a life time of spendthrift habits, but I would seethe quietly.

What I would say about the multiple orders with separate postage is that teen clothes in popular sizes tend to sell out very quickly. It might not pay off to wait if it's something she particularly wants.

Also, I guess during lock down she wasn't spending money on bus fares, coffees, bubble tea and whatever else she might ordinarily? So it's not as though it's money she'd have in her pocket anyway.

I would wait until the next time that she moans about not having any money and suggest that you go through her last few months spending with her to see where it gets 'wasted'. But she might not be up for this, not everyone is.

I was sitting on a train sometime last year and heard woman in her 20s saying that she had ordered a load of clothes that hadn't come in time so she'd gone and bought alternative ones, and when the package arrived she just left it on her bedroom floor. Couldn't be bothered to send them back or sell them.

I could actually feel my anxiety levels rising as she was talking, but it was perfectly normal to her. I did have to move seats when she said, "I'll probably just put them in the bin" though!

@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken

vanillandhoney

There are plenty of supermarkets and they are always looking for new part-time staff. If it’s acceptable for her need £85 worth of new clothes every month to attend college in, it’s acceptable for her to find a job to pay for it.

Around here, they've all changed it to 18+ for supermarket work - presumably so people can be as flexible as possible in terms of hours and how long they can work each week.

Of course in normal times she should get a job, but these aren't normal times. People are being laid off daily and businesses are folding. Now is not the time to be moral and to be force a 16yo to work.

By all means cut her pocket money or link it to chores around the house, though.

@healththrowawayx

I don’t think she’s as bad as you make out

Since April we’ve been in lockdown and shops have only just reopened - so how did you expect her to just go to the local shops? All of us have had to make do with online orders. Some Boots stores cordoned off non-essential aisles, and staff at the door were asking you what you wanted before allowing you in so Boots certainly wasn’t business as usual.

With the £2.50, how much of that would be spent on public transport to town? Lloyd’s pharmacy wouldn’t necessarily stock the beauty items she wants to, and certainly not at a cheap price.

Student discount is for university students, not school pupils unfortunately. Hence unidays

For the most part, these companies give you free delivery if you spend over £X amount - Brandy Melville has free shipping on orders over £100. So would you rather she spent £70 extra (or whatever the difference would be) on stuff she doesn’t want just for free shipping, or just pay the £3.50 shipping each time? I mean, £100 is even over her £85 allowance so she’d have to wait another month to do a large order - when she’s probably bought things on sale that will sell out if she waited. I would just pay for delivery.

@healththrowawayx Student discount is for university students, not school pupils unfortunately.

Actually students in further education (sixth form, college etc) can get student discount too. DS has had a card since he was 16.... very useful it is too!

Going back to the OP the amount is relevant to the family however maybe reduce it a bit so she learns to economise. If she shops smarter she will probably afford the same stuff with £60. She's wasting money on p&p, not looking for discounts or using student discounts so she can't be that upset about not buying what she wants.

vanillandhoney
Yes, a reasonable compromise would be to pay her for chores until she finds herself a job.
£85 per month would be about 10 hours of cleaning so it would be easy for mum to make a list of jobs to take up that time in one month.
It would possibly give her more of a motivation to find work too if she hates cleaning.

So many answers

I'm sorry I should have said at the beginning - the £85 covers everything
Bus, Socialising, ALL Clothes, toiletries, She buys lunch with it as well

She also has to buy birthday / xmas gifts out of it.

We don't have family netflix, only she does, she also pays occasionally for spotify (we don't have a family account for that either)