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??

@PinkMochi

Why don’t you prepare a packed lunch for her the night before (or give her some ideas and demonstrate this) and then give her separate pocket money? £20 a week is quite generous as pocket money.

Demonstrate how to make a ham sandwich? She’s fifteen!

Blimey there's some generous types here.
My DC get £5 a week from years 7-11.
Then £20 in sixth form but have to buy their own clothes.
If they want packed lunches they make their own. Otherwise I pay for school lunches and that's about £4-5 a day.

@PoshWatchShitShoes

You're not giving her €30 as spending money though, most of it goes on food.

Because that’s how she chooses to spend it. It’s not a necessity, she could eat the packed lunch food provided and keep the money.

So much hate about my comment about OP helping her Dd with a packed lunch. What I meant was that op could give Dd some lunch ideas! Show her how to prepare food (rather than just a ham sandwich everyday). So many triggered women. How dare a mum make her Dd some food?

But yes her lunch and pocket money should be separate. Feeding her is pretty fundamental to being a parent. So yabu there

The DD is choosing to spend the money on lunch.

At 15 she should be learning about money management and realising money can be saved by taking packed lunch and then having money to spend elsewhere is a valuable lesson.

Packed lunch at secondary school is so uncool though.

Well tough. It sounds like it's not a priority in the OPs budget, especially as it would be unfair to give extra money to one child because she wants to make expensive choices and her friends take packed lunches so it's not like she's the odd one out amongst her peers.

Anyway, I thought wasteful single use packaging you get with bought prepared food was uncool too, but apparently not.

I also thought the FIRE movement was cool amongst the young and making your own lunch because it's massively cheaper would be one of the basic principles of that ideology.

@TirednWorried

Packed lunch at secondary school is so uncool though.

Uncool?!

Well, I must be lucky mine all made it through secondary unscathed with their roll and apple each day!

I wouldn’t be spending £60 a week on school lunches just because bringing food from home is less ‘cool’

Packed lunch at secondary school is so uncool though.
No it is not, one of my most confident nieces bring hers 4 days.
She's 16 one of the most popular girls through sports clubs and running student groups.
She'll start a trend.
It's silly wasting money on a cheap roll easily made from home.

I agree around food and pocket money. Separate. I have a 18 year old on a gap year who hoards money and doesn't eat. Be careful op. If you are not able to do both stock the cupboards from Aldi or suchlike. I do this now and I check she has eaten. We had a period of poverty and it effected her.

@TirednWorried

Packed lunch at secondary school is so uncool though.

Is it nowadays though? When I was at secondary it would have been uncool, same as wearing second hand clothes. But now I think it’s different. My niece is 14 and carries a set of reusable straws/wears clothes from charity shops/has little washable bags to put her sandwiches in. She is quite a cool kid and very popular but also very financially savvy and environmentally aware. I think things like this aren’t considered ‘uncool’ anymore, or at least not as much as they once were.

The OP says that most of her DD’s friends bring a packed lunch in. It also sounds like there is no (subsidised) school canteen, she’s going out to the local garage to buy food which is way more expensive than your average UK school dinner.

Providing your child with food isn't part of pocket money. So you are giving here 10. I don't see what the issue is tbh.

I had this with mine. They’d want to buy lunch either because they couldnt be bothered to make a lunch or it’s not cool to bring a packed one. Then would ask for the taxi fare to get home at the weekend because they’d spent their pocket money on lunch.
I also thought it was healthier to take a packed lunch. But you could just stop buying packed lunch stuff for her that she doesn’t use and see the lunch money as not pocket money.
I don’t think it’s mean to expect teenagers to pay for their own social life. Mine we expected to have Saturday jobs, or as some have said get paid for jobs at home.

Dd is 15
We top up her canteen card to use at school or ask her what she wants for pack up
Once a week she takes £3 for a Tesco meal deal
We give her £10 if she goes out with friends. Perfectly adequate for food then if she wants extra treats (freak shakes, waffle sundaes etc.) it comes out her own money

We would all love to eat in the canteen every day but we can't because life is pricey and budgeting is important! Great lesson for her to learn.

@comedycentral

We would all love to eat in the canteen every day but we can't because life is pricey and budgeting is important! Great lesson for her to learn.

This!

Some of the posters are making out like the OP is including the daughter’s meals in her pocket money and that’s not fair.

It’s only because she is refusing to bring lunch from home and choosing to ‘eat out’ instead that the OP is including this in her allowance as it’s so much more expensive. Something has to give.

I tell my kids they can have a canteen lunch twice a week and need to take sandwiches the rest of the time. Cant you do the same?

I know sometimes it can be about what their friends are doing and whether they can sit together if they have different lunches. In which case I'd pay for a lunch. But otherwise paying £20 a week for school dinners does mount up, hence why we do a bit of both.

Agree with PPs, pocket money is separate from lunch money. Mine don't get any but can earn it by doing jobs. But if they go out with friends (which they dont often) I do give them some cash.

Or she could just get a part time job??

Or get take lunch-like you said.

I’d be worried she’d go without eating to save money for going out.
I think you should give her lunch money to cover her lunch and pocket money separately for going out.
I also used to just provide sanitary products, all toiletries and cleanser/ spot treatment as standard so mine didn’t have to find the money for that from pocket money as I felt they were essentials. X

I know sometimes it can be about what their friends are doing

I would be more sympathetic if all of her friends bought lunch every day and she was feeling left it but OP says most of her friends bring lunch in (like she used to do).

I would say she either does the same as her friends, or buys lunch but she’ll have less pocket money to spend. Her choice.

It possibly depends on where you live. (I haven’t read all the comments- there are just too many)
Some areas you can get a sandwich for a couple of pounds. Other places it’s double that or more. Hot drink from £2 and often much more. Crisps 50p to £1.
Speak to your child and give her decent pocket money if you can afford it.
I really think you need to introduce her to accounts and the value of money. Possibly a good exercise for you too.

I think if she’s choosing to buy chicken fillet rolls or sausage and bacon rolls from the garage deli every day rather than taking a roll from home or a subsidised dinner at school then she should be paying for it out of her allowance. This will mean less money for the weekends-that’s how life works.

Give her a pack lunch and 20 euros a week or the 30 euro, but let her know that, that is it.