To stop giving teen dd an allowance?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

My youngest dd is 14 and loves clothes like many girls her age.

She prefers to shop online. Up to about a year ago, she was choosing stuff to buy and I would pay with my credit card. She likes to buy different colours/sizes to choose from but most of it goes back so apart from a bit of an admin headache, it was fine with me.

Then we decided to give her a monthly allowance for clothes and other non essentials to teach her to budget. We started paying in £50/month straight into her account. On top of this we pay for her phone, school uniform, big items such as coats and essential shoes and underwear.

However she is not being sensible about it. She's buying a lot of clothes, jewellery etc, I don't think she's got anything left at the end of the month. Plus she's buying from places that don't do free returns even though I have advised her against this. Unwanted clothes sit in her room for weeks on end, getting very close to the cut off for returns.

Today I have noticed that she has bought something from the US which now needs international postage to return!

She has also transferred money from her savings account (different account) to buy yet more clothes! I was very cross about this and am making her pay it back.

So instead of this money teaching her responsibility, its not and she doesn't seem to have the maturity to handle money sensibly.

Do you think we should stop the allowance and she has to go back to coming to me when she wants to buy something?

@RickiTarr

Some DC are just born wise and some learn by making enormous mistakes. The bit where she runs out of cash and there are consequences IS the learning experience for her maybe? Better now than at Uni or in her first flat.

If she's got stuff she doesn't want and can't return, suggest she sells it on-line to get some cash back.

£50 EVERY month to spend on whatever she wants? Can I come and live with you 😆

@bendmeoverbackwards

Yes good point. She doesn’t go out that much but when she does we’ve been giving her extra as she tells us food is essential!

Stop doing this!

If she's spent all her money on clothes she doesn't get to beg more off you for food out - she can eat at home!

I would take back control. I'd buy her clothes when she needs them. I'd give a reduced allowance e.g. £10 per week to do what she likes with.

@TeapotCollection

£50 EVERY month to spend on whatever she wants? Can I come and live with you 😆

Oh ffs, it’s £12.50 a week. It’s hardly a small fortune. It’s ten times what I got in 1970 when you could buy a house for £3k.

She can post after school or on Saturday
Make her take responsibility for going to post office

She's 14, of course you should be buying essentials such as coats, uniform, shoes etc. Many adults buy online from abroad not realising - you need to teach her about this. You're giving her about 12 a week to spend - lovely that it is going on clothes etc, she could be spending it on booze n fags. YWBU to cancel her allowance, she hasn't really done anything wrong - it's her money to spend.

Do you think I should insist she pays back her savings that she dipped into? She took out £100, I said she should put back £50. Reasonable?

No. Either she pays back the full amount because they're ringfenced, or nothing because they're not. If you borrow money you pay back the full amount.

She won't learn if you bail her out by topping up and shielding her from consequences.

If she was working and paying bills she would have to be managing without an unlimited cash fountain to back her up. She'd have to make decisions and save up. She wouldn't be able to constantly buy unlimited junk. If she spent all her salary on junk her employer wouldn't give her a payrise to keep spending! If she borrowed money she'd have to pay it back.

You also need to think about the habits youre enabling her to develop with the previous approach to clothes purchasing.

Personally I'd go back to the drawing board and consider boundaries and what she needs to learn. Then I'd start off with a much smaller token amount so that she has to think before she spends and save up if she wants nice things.

Money has zero value to her because you're giving her so much she doesn't have any of the restrictions or limitations that as an adult make you think, "is this worth what I'm paying? Can I justify this expenditure? If I splurge on this for me how do I cover my friend's birthday present next week?" etc.

Start her off on £10 or something with clear boundaries on what it has to cover and actual consequences if she spends it all before the end of the month! (Ie stop chucking more money at her!)

Then as she learns to manage it (and you learn to be consistent with boundaries) you can gradually increase it.

I earned 3.50 a week as a teen from doing a paper round. My mum was adamant I wasn't going to spend it on music as that's nothing to show for it. Still got the cassette, very rare now, and music was my life music made me happy.

I’d keep things as they are and talk to her again about P&P, maybe set her up with an ASOS account and pay for the free delivery pass.

I'm hoping next year when both her sisters move out, she can pick up their babysitting jobs. She has done a bit of dog-sitting/walking for neighbours but they only need her occasionally.

@Embracelife

She can post after school or on Saturday Make her take responsibility for going to post office

I take your point but firstly because of her ASD she finds talking to strangers difficult. And secondly I sometimes take my older dds' parcels to the Post Office if I'm out and about and they're busy. I don't make a special trip but if I'm out anyway it seems petty not to.

with dd3, she pushes the boundaries far more.

Have you considered that might be a result of you shifting the boundaries on a seemingly regular basis by giving in to her pressure and/or buckling because you feel guilty/worried about things being harder for her?

If you held firm with your boundaries and stopped buckling and moving them backwards she wouldn't have to push so hard against you to feel secure.

Just an observation.

I think £50 a month is a lot for a 14 year old who doesn’t buy food, pay bills, or pay the upkeep of a car etc. She doesn’t go out much so of course she’ll splurge on spontaneous online purchases. I would go back to what you did originally, where she asks if you could buy her something or if she could have some money to do something with friends.

Re you taking stuff to post office for her.

Royal Mail do parcel collection from home. You book and pay online, print labels then just hand over the parcel.

Maybe you could support her to explore ways to adapt tasks that ASD makes difficult so she has manageable ways to do things herself (and get that sense of achievement and independence) without the solution always being that people do the difficult things for her?

This will be useful for her adult life and is a great skill to teach anyone living with a long term condition or disability. It might also ease some of your worries about her future.

Hermes courier collection is another option - that can even be set up so they collect from a safe place during a time window and post a receipt through the door. No interaction at all.

DPD can do safe place collection too, but if not the height of interaction is still just handing them the parcel. So still none of the talking explaining paying involved at post office.

@Librariesmakeshhhhappen

You've waited really late to start teaching her this. Of course she messed up. She's never had to be responsible for it. You did it all for her.

You cant just hand if off to her. You need to TEACH her.

My kids are 8 and 9. They have their gohenry cards. They get £12.50 a week.£3 pocket money and the rest earned through chores. Once a chore becomes part of their standard routine, they dont get paid for that one anymore. So they got 20p a day for making their beds and 50p for cleaning up all their toys before bed a year ago. Now making their beds and putting toys away isnt paid; it's just part of their routine. To make up for that money, I added in cleaning the bathroom and making dinner once a week each. So it builds up like that.

They know how much they'll end up with each week. They also know which family birthdays are coming up so they must keep money to get a card and a wee box of sweets or something. They know if we're going for a big day out and they might want extra money for stuff on the day. Whatever.

They are learning how much toys cost, so a lego set cant be paid for with 1 week of money. They need to save for 3 or 4 weeks.

Once they reach £100 moved into their savings, I give them an extra £25 as a reward.

They're learning to save, to budget for upcoming events, and also to treat themselves when they want.

You need to find a way to teach the same things to a 14 year old. I imagine that will be harder because they will feel like you are treating them like a small child if you go step by step.

I think paying children for normal everyday chores is a bad idea - what if they decide they don't want to do them? Is that ok?

I'm both stunned that an 8 or 9 year old needs £12.50 a week to spend and in awe that they are able to cook dinner once a week each.

As the poster points out herself what works for an 8 or 9 year old will not work for a 14 year old. The poster might well find her own method stops working when her DC are teens.

@BabyPink1

I think £50 a month is a lot for a 14 year old who doesn’t buy food, pay bills, or pay the upkeep of a car etc. She doesn’t go out much so of course she’ll splurge on spontaneous online purchases. I would go back to what you did originally, where she asks if you could buy her something or if she could have some money to do something with friends.

I disagree. Both that it’s a lot of money and that she shouldn’t have control of her own cash. She’s never going to learn to budget unless she’s allowed to make mistakes. I gave mine the child benefit.

I hope she's at least doing chores to earn that sort of money

She needs to sell the stuff on Depop. And go to the post office? Can she do that? My DD spends all her money too and I refuse to give more so she ends up selling the rubbish she buys to try recoup her money

@bendmeoverbackwards, maybe she should prepare the stuff for postage then?

I agree that her allowance should cover all her expenses, eating out is a luxury. There may be few times she'll have nothing left before the end of the month and that will be a great lesson to budget better.

Also I'd make her pay £100 back but maybe in installments?

Regarding buying lots of clothes maybe it would be a good idea to talk about environmental cost of that? Most clothes that are returned end up in a landfill.

I’m not sure what you expected at 14. My Dad started giving me £100 a week at this age and it was such a stupid idea. I’m his only child and he barely saw me because he lived 200+ miles away so I think this alleviated some of his guilt. What would a teenager spend that sort of money on? Absolute shit of course, I blew it all every single week without fail and still asked him for phone credit on top of that.

Teenagers aren’t responsible humans by nature, you knew she loved spending money on clothing so it was inevitable she would do this. I would tell her unless she starts being responsible with the money you will have to return to her buying things she needs on your card with no allowance of her own. Do paper rounds still exist? Perhaps she could try that.

@Librariesmakeshhhhappen your 8 year old makes the family dinner? Yeah ok what do your 8 and 9 year olds spend £50 a month on?

First, you give her £50/mo “for clothes” and now you are upset she is spending £50/mo on clothes. I think with her being ASD she has taken you literally. You didn’t say the £50 was a general allowance and she is supposed to save any of it or use any of it for other things. What I would do is say that the £50 has to cover return postage or any customs charges if coming from US. But I’d consider it a success not a failure as she’s done exactly what you said.

Secondly, if she wants to spend more on clothes, then why is it not ok that she uses her savings to buy them? Everyone has something they like to spend money on. My ASD DD17 buys stuffed toys and game subscriptions with her money. I think it’s a waste, but she has never over spent as in asked for an advance or done an overdraft.

I don’t think you need to change anything except help her by sitting down and explaining how she can get good deals when buying clothes. How to spot over priced things. How to account for shipping and returns.

@UserAtRandom

That's the point. I dont want to be teaching a teenager how to budget and save, because it's harder. That's why I'm doing now.
£12.50 is a lot for kids, but both of mine surf, play a contact sport and an instrument so there is always wax, or resin or strings or new mouth guards etc to buy. That's their responsibility. It's also teaching them to save up for their Lego sets or Nintendo games, because those are expensivee. And they have enough to put aside money which is destined for their savings account. I want them to have enough to manage spending and saving.

Tbh, I agree with you about the chores. I never wanted to pay for chores, particularly because ice got boys and I dont want them to think chores need to be rewarded but I also want them to do something to earn their money. I compromised by paying for chores when they are first introduced, and then after a few months, those are routine and not paid for. My kids havent her refused to do any chores, either the routine ones or the newly paid for ones. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Last thing; 8 and 9 year olds can absolutely cook a meal. They can each make a handful of things without help, and a bunch which require assistance.

@BabyPink1

If you really think an 8 or 9 year old cannot cook then you have issues.

Maybe its because I grew up in a different country, but kids in my childhood were given a lot more responsibility and yes, cooking dinner was something you started from a young age. People who grow up in Britain seem to find that unbelievable, but it really isnt.