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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you how much you spend on your teen’s phone every month ?

130 replies

Beaconoflight · 13/01/2022 20:30

I spend £40 on each contract (I have 2 teens 15 and 18) plus £40 and £60 of pocket money. Yet they refuse to do anything to help, they are rude and think I’m unreasonable. Am I ?

OP posts:
MoreHairyThanScary · 14/01/2022 00:01

16 yr old has £6 / month contract, and the 14 and 12 yr olds have £3.99 a month ( and they are expected to help around the house!

OliviaBond · 14/01/2022 00:03

£5 for one and £2.50 for another, both with Lebrara

fuckyourpronouns · 14/01/2022 00:10

@Beaconoflight

Thank you so much all for your input. My 17 years old thinks she shouldn’t do anything as she is studying for her a levels. I’m feeling overwhelmed
Maybe you should use the same arguement for her and do nothing because you've been at work all day?
ShmeevilWeevil · 14/01/2022 00:33

@Beaconoflight
"I spend £40 on each contract (I have 2 teens 15 and 18) plus £40 and £60 of pocket money. Yet they refuse to do anything to help, they are rude and think I’m unreasonable. Am I ?"

That seems like a lot of money.
Are you paying for a phone as part of the contract?
You can buy perfectly good android phones eg Xiaomi, for £150 or a second hand iPhone 9/10 for a couple of hundred.

LadyGAgain · 14/01/2022 00:40

@Beaconoflight

I spend £40 on each contract (I have 2 teens 15 and 18) plus £40 and £60 of pocket money. Yet they refuse to do anything to help, they are rude and think I’m unreasonable. Am I ?
You're paying an 18 (almost 18??) year olds mobile phone?? Tell them to get a PT job. Same for the 15 year old. That's what we did to pay for our own!!!
caringcarer · 14/01/2022 00:42

15 year old, SN learning disability, £50 a month allowance which he rarely spends.

SE13Mummy · 14/01/2022 00:57

17-yr-old gets £5 per month on her phone and no pocket money/allowance. Helps out by doing occasional load of washing, empties dishwasher, cooks dinner for herself and younger sibling sometimes. She doesn't do an amazing amount around the house but has a Saturday job and does quite a bit of babysitting so doesn't ask us for money. She's studying for A-levels too.

Schlerp · 14/01/2022 01:02

£8 for the sim only contract and one of our older but still acceptable phones. She gets unlimited calls and texts and 8gb data. The company 3 want to put the price up threefold so we’ll be moving her contract to someone else in the next few weeks.

I think it’s daft paying a fortune

RavenBrooke · 14/01/2022 01:26

£6 giffgaff Goodybag renewed monthly
£20 pocket money
Had a new iPhone from dh as a well done gift for gcse's.
Extra pocket money for extra chores- babysitting for a long time/helping with house deep clean etc.
Dd also doing a levels, does chores such as babysitting, laying table, hoovering, tidying, rarely irons but thats because I DETEST putting it away and that's her job. Putting a wash on/hanging laundry. Pretty much helps with most things apart from cooking- she hates it.

Wafflesnsniffles · 14/01/2022 01:47

17yo dd. She has a £5 a month contract. Happily does her share of daily chores.

Belledan1 · 14/01/2022 05:58

I was paying 30.00 a month DC 14 but only because I got a free phone through contract and gave it December 2020 for xmas. Worked out nearly as cheap as buying a phone direct and could spread it out. Its gone down to 7.99 a month now as sim only.

CeeceeBloomingdale · 14/01/2022 06:02

15yo currently has a sim only deal which is £6.30pm

TheChip · 14/01/2022 06:42

£10 top up per month on the phone. Ds17 doesn't get pocket money anymore as he earns his own money and pays me £30 to help out.

He keeps on top of his room, puts the rubbish out and helps with housework when I ask.

In your shoes, I'd be telling them that I will no longer be footing the bill for their phones until they start earning it by helping out. They might hum and har, but their options are to earn their own money to pay it themselves, or help out.

Since they're contract phones, I'd reduce it to the bare minimum and tell them it will go back to what it was when they pull their weight.

Lochnessgiraffe · 14/01/2022 07:28

Wow I think o2 saw me coming! £40 for dd1 and £30 for dd2. Both contract phones. Plus £100 pm pocket money.
They'll tidy their rooms but that's about it. Maybe I need to get them to do more

BarbaraofSeville · 14/01/2022 07:35

Contract phone prices are mad. Pray on people who 'must' have the latest high end phone but can't/won't pay £1k+ in one lump to pay for it.

You can get sufficient data for most people, plus unlimited minutes/texts for £10 a month and a decent but not high end phone for £150-200, which should easily last 2-3 years as a minimum, so anything above an average cost of £15 pm on a contract is quite an expensive option.

butteredbarmbrack · 14/01/2022 07:38

My DDs (14 and 17) have PAYG phones, about £8 a month for unlimited calls and texts through a BT family deal that includes my contract too. Data has a cap but it's more than enough given they use Wi-Fi at school and home anyway. Phones are at the cheaper end, we have paid a certain amount to the most recent ones and they can top up with their own money for something more expensive.

Re allowances,17yo has £60 a month and 14yo £30. We pay school meals and buses are free. They each have to cook one dinner a week at home, plan the recipe and let me know what ingredients are needed, and we also have a system where everyone in the household does a chore every evening (cooking dinner counts as that evening's chore).

Working pretty well so far for us.

HotToddyColdSauvignon · 14/01/2022 07:40

Well the simple way to show them they have it good is to stop the allowance. If the 17 year old doesn’t think she has time for chores because she’s studying, then she won’t have time for socialising either Wink so wouldn’t need any extra cash anyway…

BitcherOfBlakiven · 14/01/2022 07:41

£30 on DD1s phone.
£10 a week for 2 eldest DDs.

For that, they -

  • Load the dishwasher
  • Keep their bedrooms tidy
  • Put their laundry away

If they refused, I’d take DD1s phone away and they’d get no pocket money.

Original poster
Beaconoflight · 14/01/2022 07:49

Thank you all for getting back to me. Oldest tidy up her bedroom and put her laundry away. Youngest will only tidy up her bedroom if threatened to remove her devices or stop her going out.

Everything is a fight, put the table on please, clear your plate please…the food I cook is also disgusting apparently. We had rotas to organise the house shores a bit, no big chores for them but it was such a battle to make them do anything We gave up.

Now I’m just so tired, with my full time work, the house being a shit hole, the kids attitude, I’m crumbling

OP posts:
Agadorsparticus · 14/01/2022 07:51

@lechatnoir

£10 with giffgaff and £20 allowance. If they want more they get a PT job
This for my 14yo. My reconditioned old phone.
Girliefriendlikespuppies · 14/01/2022 09:10

Don't get into a debate with them, ask them once and if they don't do it collect their phones up! The beauty of teens having phones is that you have an automatic consequence when they're being rude and unhelpful!!

It's only an argument if you engage with it.

Tomnooktoldmeto · 14/01/2022 09:52

DD19, DS18 both final year of A levels. DS’s sim is free as part of our virgin package DD’s is £8.50 as part of the package (£27 for 4 sims) both have unlimited data etc. we buy their hand sets and insure via bank account

£35 monthly pocket money but we buy all clothes extras, games etc

They don’t have any set chores or jobs as such as I want them to focus on their education, something they need to take medication to do!

They do appreciate that they are lucky as I had the opposite and often tell them how difficult it was working 2 jobs, studying cooking the evening meal from 13 as mum was out at work

DD does have a small online job as a writer but as this feeds into her end goal post university we encourage her as she will need to find niche roles due to her medical condition

nicesausages · 14/01/2022 14:34

£33 for everything inc the phone. With an additional £8 for full, cover everything insurance

Im2022 · 14/01/2022 14:36

£5 a month for one teen. ID mobile. She got the phone for £150, second hand iPhone 7.

Im2022 · 14/01/2022 14:39

Oh, I should add, she cleans her room, washes her clothes, tidies, helps with her younger siblings. I don’t expect these things from her in return for her phone. She just does it.

Sounds like there’s a lot of spoilt kids on this thread. I can’t even imagine paying £30/£40 a month for a phone. DH and me are on £8 a month contracts.