To tell dd to save her "lunch" money

[grecianurn82]

My 15 year old gets 20 euro a week for money for lunch. She buys a roll and a drink every day which costs 4 euro a day. Then at weekends she's usually looking for another 10 to go out with her friends. Aibu to tell her she needs to save her money during the week and bring lunch from home a couple of days?? Her dad (we're separated) is trying to tell me I'm being unfair and apparently the maintenance he gives me is for this. I think 30 a week is a ridiculous amount to be giving a teenager..Aibu??

If you are taking packed lunch and little ones are tell her new plan is she does same. It’s expensive and often unhealthy buying lunch every day.

@UnshakenNeedsStirring in fairness the food she would be bringing from home would probably be healthier than what she's buying in the shop so I'm not stopping her eating well by questioning whether she needs chicken fillet rolls or sausage and bacon rolls from the garage deli every day.

Ime a lot depends on what she is getting for lunch. I have stopped loading dc's dinner cards. Last week I 'spent' £20 on soft drinks..
Back to taking lunch in now.

If she wants more weekend money, tell her to take a packed lunch (as long as there's reasonable food fir her to make it from)

I used to get a £1 a day (in the 80s) for secondary school dinner.
I discovered I could spend 14p on a portion of coleslaw and save the rest for cigarettes and alcohol.

I would rather my kids were eating
properly, but it depends what your daughter is buying.

I still make pack lunch for my teens (they haven't the patience for queuing). They could make their own but DS1 would rather go hungry, and DS2 would make a very biscuits and Crisps heavy pack lunch.

Really surprised at the way the vote is going here
YANBU at all, she's 15, she's got food available in the house she could take if she could be arsed, then she'd have 20 euro for the weekend (and probably a better lunch). You are teaching her that you can only spend your money once, which is a lesson I wish I'd learned a bit earlier in life tbh

The thing that really shocks me about this discussion is the assertion that this 15 year old mother should make her lunch !!

Honestly I despair of some parents and their mollycoddling. No wonder this generation gets tarred as 'snowflakes' with this sort of default setting .
Surely making your own lunch is the very least this girl should be doing.

Give her €30 pocket money and show her the cupboard full of packed lunch goods and tell her that she can make her own. If she is too lazy to do that and chooses to spend it on buying lunch then that's her look out. There is no more .

@onceandneveragain I think what changed this year is that they're allowed to leave school at lunch time, last year they weren't so she had no choice but to bring lunch. Then this year she started hanging around town with her friends at lunchtime and buying lunch while they were out. So i was giving tje same amount of money but she started spending it on lunch instead of bringing lunch.

I'd say to her... Your allowance is X amount say €25 a week.

And she can choose to spend that on lunches of she so wishes, or she can make herself a free packed lunch on any day she likes, and save the money for socialising.

That way she's making a budgeting choice.

To be entirely honest op, our dc's lunch moneyvandcallowancescwere entirely separate by 15/16. They are 26 and 23 now and their school lunches were about a fiver at that age (independent admittedly).
Your arrangement sounds very stingy to me.

@00100001 thank you, that sounds sensible and it's giving dd the independence to make the choice.

I don't give my 16 year old lunch money or pack him a lunch - he's perfectly capable of packing his own.

For a while he did start buying food at school every day with the money he earns from his job, then he realised it was a total waste of $8 a day and he's back to taking his own.

@Finknottlesnewt

The thing that really shocks me about this discussion is the assertion that this 15 year old mother should make her lunch !!

Honestly I despair of some parents and their mollycoddling. No wonder this generation gets tarred as 'snowflakes' with this sort of default setting .
Surely making your own lunch is the very least this girl should be doing.

Give her €30 pocket money and show her the cupboard full of packed lunch goods and tell her that she can make her own. If she is too lazy to do that and chooses to spend it on buying lunch then that's her look out. There is no more .

Couldn't agree more

[quote grecianurn82]@DrManhattan calling me tight when you don't know my financial situation is a bit unfair. I'm currently only in a position to work part time due to another one of my children needing a lot of care, they have disabilities. I bring my own lunch to work to save money so I have extra for my children so its more about trying to budget well than being tight.[/quote]
You are not tight at all.

I think £20 a week and telling her she needs to decide how to spend money is a good thing.

I’ve gone through/am going through this with my DC - the older 3 have access to a school canteen/can go out at lunch and they all want “money for lunch” I used to give it out ad hoc until I realised they were spending it on £4 coffees and £6 smoothies and complaining they were starving 🙄

I now give them each £20 pw which amounts to £350 pcm and tell them to make their choices. It still feels extremely extravagant.

My DD is older but she's got £25 a week from me from being 15, there's always stuff in (I generally take stuff to work) to make and take her own lunch which she's welcome to do and keep the £25 to spend on what she wants, however I don't top it up if she chooses not to take from home and to buy food at lunchtime instead and I made that clear from the start.
I think it's important to teach that choosing what you spend on impacts elsewhere and when it's gone it's gone. She generally splits it really, buying some days and taking from home others.

@RosesAndHellebores

To be entirely honest op, our dc's lunch moneyvandcallowancescwere entirely separate by 15/16. They are 26 and 23 now and their school lunches were about a fiver at that age (independent admittedly). Your arrangement sounds very stingy to me.

Well it isn’t ‘stingy’ as it utterly depends on what you can afford. I have four kids, that would be £20 a day on lunches. That won’t be happening because we can’t afford it. Instead, they can pack themselves a lunch. It’s not like op is saying the child can’t eat.

And actually I think it’s an important lesson in budgeting. I know I’ve had to bite my tongue many a time as I listen to a colleague assert that they just ‘don’t know where it all goes’ when I’ve seen them have McDonald’s for breakfast and buy lunch almost every day.

At her age I used to get lunch money, with the result that I used to not eat lunch at all and save all my money for going out. I didn't eat breakfast either so I basically starved from bedtime all the way to the next days teatime, then binged on shite for 4 hours. It was not healthy!

I know it's frustrating but these days young women have so much more crap that can push them into eating disorders - I would personally make her lunchboxes up. Yes she's more than old enough to do it herself but sometimes you have to step in.

Get her involved - encourage her to try new things. Look up recipes together. If she has access to a microwave at school then the options are endless. She could be having something different (and much healthier) everyday instead of SSDD!

I see where u r coming from OP. Tell her she gets €20 a week and if she wants to spend it on buying food instead of taking stuff from home that's her choice.
What drink is she buying? If it's like a can of coke etc then she could easily take one from home.

So give her pocket money and provide food for lunches. If she wants to fritter pocket money away on extra treat food that's up to her.

I wouldn’t be happy if my DH was spending money on shit food every day let alone my DC. Do what you can to encourage healthy eating, if that’s giving her a set amount each week to spend how she pleases, she might start taking healthier food from home.

If she is buying a roll or wrap that could easily be made at home. Perhaps she needs more interesting pack lunch choices that are easy to eat when walking about town

I can see both sides. If she is choosing to spend her pocket money on school lunch rather than bringing a packed lunch which you have provided food for that is her choice.

But, do secondary school kids really want to take packed lunches? I mean sure, if as a parent you are struggling to pay for school lunch then that’s fair enough but if you can afford to pay for school lunches then if that’s her preference I’d keep that separate from pocket money.

I'm in Ireland where school dinners are not the norm and if you are buying lunch then it means a walk to the shop so my perspective may be a bit different than in the UK where (I think?) school canteens are a thing in most schools.

I absolutely would not(and do not) give my teenager 20 a week to spaff at the shop for lunch every week. Packed lunches like the majority of kids all the way. Then depending on what they have going on with friends at the weekend they get 10-20 quid to spend on eating out/the cinema or whatever.

I wouldn’t be happy if my DH was spending money on shit food every day

Presumably as an adult he can choose what he spends his money on.