If you have adult children who are good with money then please tell me about how you did pocket money?

[coodawoodashooda]

I am a single mum whose xh was useless with money. Spent it all on himself and couldn't spend it fast enough. Any ideas appreciated .

DDs 1&2 both got £10 a week straight into their bank account. With this they were expected to fund treats like perfume, posh toiletries and days out with friends. (I supplied normal toiletries and would pay for them if I took them out) They were also encouraged to save money if they could.
They’re both adults now and very good with money.

From secondary school age I added everything up that I would normally pay/give them for a month or a % of things that wernt monthly (ie hair cuts)

Dinner money
Hair cut
Pocket money
Toiletries
Clothing

And gave it to them monthly and hoped them budget it at first and then let them get on with it. Both DC very responsible with money.

I put the monthly allowance in their banks.

I don't have adult children, but am an adult who considers themselves quite good with money. I was given a lot of freedom with pocket money, I was allowed to waste it, make mistakes and those taught me lessons. I was encouraged to save for bigger things I want but never forced, and if I hadn't saved enough of those items then tough luck! There were times I wasted it week after week on things like chocolate, then a PS game came out that I really wanted, the disappointment of not being able to buy that game, and if I hadn't spent the way I had taught me a lesson in a way my parents advising me never could.

A friend's adult son is excellent with money. From a young age he had to save a percentage of his pocket money and any birthday / Christmas money, could use his savings for bigger things (with appropriate consideration, not on impulse) and it became a habit that followed through when he started earning.

I'm the adult child who's good with money.

I had the same pocket money as my 4 siblings that I grew up with.

One moved back home in tens of thousands worth of debt. One pissed a £150,000 inheritance up the wall. One spent some time living rough. The other was in a lot of debt too but is getting on top of it now. I don't think pocket money makes a big difference.

The main things to teach are budgeting and to avoid credit. I have very debt-averse parents who gave me money but I had to budget in things like my £8 weekly student bus pass and get a job when I was 16. The deal was, I work, and they gave me about £70 a month for bus and lunches.

I agree with @Pkwi and I did just the same.

With university I also provided 12th each month. Friends paid rent etc. but I wanted my children to get used to managing a monthly payment.

This is exactly what I have done with both adult children, and they both managed to navigate university with money left in the bank. I explained it was their money to do with as they wanted, but if they spent frivolously, they'd have to save for further purchases, we wouldn't fund them. They've just bought their own cars, with no help from us, after working in holidays and being careful.

I'm curious as to why you'd avoid credit?

My children had credit cards as soon as they turned eighteen and I supported them to use them wisely for consumer protection etc.

I've used credit sparingly but there are times when it's allowed me to move onwards and upwards.

I don't have kids so this isn't about pocket money but might be worth mentioning. I'm pretty good with money and I think I learned a lot of this from example - seeing my mum actively managed the family finances and seeing my auntie saving to afford nice things. I had an awareness that money was finite and should be looked after.

Something I'm amazed I didn't learn in school is the power of compound interest - for good (savings) and especially bad (credit cards and other debt).

Here to agree with @girlmom21 - I have three young adult DSC. One is amazing with money, came out of university having saved enough money to finance his own MA. Next one is dreadful with money, just burns a hole in their pocket. Last one is in the middle of the other two. All three had same pocket money situation as a child.
I think it's maybe like sleep - people assume their parenting was what impacted on their child's sleep until another child comes along to prove them wrong.

I would suggest it goes beyond pocket money.

My mother always let me see the family budget, and later I was actively engaged in the process. My brother and I helped meal plan, we were taken shopping to eg price compare, we were involved in planning holidays and big purchases.

We were shown where cuts were made, why decision were made, how we pulled from one pot to find another.

As well, we both worked a small amount in High school to fund our social lives, and were given monthly budgets to manage for transport, lunches etc.

But it was seeing the adult spending that had the greatest influence on me, just like seeing a tidy house or healthy eating habits

DDs are early 20s. From age of 11 they chose which current account they wanted using MSE's guide. I helped them open it. DH and I both paid in £50 per month for clothes & entertainment. We paid for school uniform, dance kits and concert gear. I think I also paid for some prom dresses too. They weren't able to go overdrawn due to their age.

At 16 they both worked on Sundays and school holidays in an ice cream shop. DD2 has also done waitressing. Their wages went straight into their accounts and they loved seeing it grow. At 16 I mentioned cash ISAs and both again used MSE guides. I transferred the money from a legacy that was in the Building Society into their ISAs and shut the accounts.

Both are open with me about money and we often talk about budgeting. Partly as a result, when DH and I got a new credit card last year, we added them as additional card holders. So far, it has worked really well.

My parents felt that learning to budget was important.
I was given money on a Saturday that was my pocket money and dinner money. If I spent it all on a Saturday then I would be hungry the rest of the week.
The down side to this was that I learned that I could cope with just having a bag of crisps and a bar of chocolate for lunch. Much cheaper than school dinners. I’m not sure that was part of the plan.

Mine is similar here really, albeit no loving rough.
I was mortgage free by 30, my sister despite living at home for most of her 20s on a good wage has never had more than about £1k in savings and is always overdrawn. My other sibling is really all or nothing she either saves her entire wage and lives off beans on toast or spunks it all on a weekend

I have two DS and their attitudes to money are night and day, but they were raised in the same way!

DS1 is careful to the point of being mean. Like his father.

DS2 spends money like water, like his mum (me).

I wouldn't have ever said this before I had kids, but I wonder if the money-management part of your personality is just inborn.

I'm really good at managing money. We didn't get any pocket money and didn't do chores for cash. I never really had any money as a child

We're were given generous presents at Christmas and Birthday, but very little in between and we were expected to do chores just because. We were always given the money we needed to go out and do things and "enough" clothes, but it would be incredibly unusual to be bought "stuff" if it wasn't our birthday.

My dd is v good with money. Basically I trusted her with it from a young age ( year 7) by topping up her school meals with £50 at the beginning of each half term and let her get on with it with on the condition I would not give her a penny more if she spent it all week one and I did similar with a monthly pocket money allowance. Not saying this is what did it but she did use to work out her daily budget for spends and also made pack lunch mid week so she could get nicer stuff on a Friday for lunch etc. She worked it all out herself and do it was all good for me as I didn’t have to think about school lunches each week!

I seem to remember we had a modest standard amount but small sums were deducted for certain - preset potential offences, rudeness to siblings etc I suspect. I think the whole thing collapsed in the end because I just wanted them to be able to meet up with their mates and do things. The last thing I wanted is to have them indoors playing video games or on their phones 24/ 7 so I generally always paid for them to do stuff and they knew it was in place of pocket money.

My adult DC were treated the same, and yet are very different in terms of their fiscal behaviour!

They had monthly pocket money for treats, sweets, comics etc.

If they wanted expensive trainers or similar I would tell them how much I would spend on a non branded pair and agree to put that towards their purchase but they had to make up any difference from birthday/Christmas money. That really made them think about how much they wanted something and whether they wanted to part with their cash or not.

At secondary school I gave them a monthly amount that equates to the cost of school dinners for the month. It was their decision is they had school dinners or chose to divide the money into weeks and buy the food to make their packed lunches.

They mostly chose the packed lunch option and we would go to the local supermarket where they would buy their food for the week, quite often pooling their money to take advantage of offers etc or sharing a 6 pack of bread rolls.

This really helped them with both budgeting and meal planning and they loved getting a deal or a bargain. They could keep any of the money they had left over and used to treat themselves to an ice cream from the van outside school on a Friday.

I'm proud to say they never ran out of money, they just enjoyed the challenge but I did say to them if they ever did run out, there was bread and ham in the fridge and an apple in the fruit bowl, but I wouldn't top the money up until the following month.

They never struggled at Uni with food shops or budgeting or indeed cooking and I think it worked really well.

I’m the adult child (32) who is good with money. My mum was a single parent who would spend every last penny (and more) on me and my sister and I’ll never forget bailiffs rocking up to our house when I was about 8.

I’m not sure if seeing how in debt my mum got is the reason for my sensible finance head but I also got an allowance every week on my lunch money card which I would make last me by plotting out what I could have everyday in my little school notebook 😂

That said my sister is the total opposite and we both had the same upbringing so 🤷🏼‍♀️

My DD16 has always been good with money. She has a part time job and saves for the things she wants (like an Apple Watch). My DS14 gets £50 a month for doing the dishwasher - everything to do with the dishwasher is his job. I buy basics for him - school uniform, shower gel, anything to do with school etc. but he’ll pay for cinema tickets, Xbox games, McDonalds with friends, and some clothes. If it’s a big ticket item (he’s a big fan of North Face) and I think he needs it or will be useful for school we’ll agree to go halves, or I’ll agree to pay whatever a coat/pair of trainers etc. would cost in M&S and he’ll pay the rest - so if a school bag cost £30 in M&S but he wanted a £50 North Face one, I’d pay the £30 and he would pay the extra £20 himself. It works quite well and it does make him think quite hard about whether he needs something or whether he just wants it.

All my children are good with money.

A great tip I was given was not to buy them bits and bobs when we went shopping, but to give them money and allow them to decide how they wanted to spend it.

So I might give the £5 as we would go shopping and say to them to decide what they wanted to spend it on.

This worked really well because 1. they asked for nothing as they had money to buy what they wanted, and 2.they enjoyed the whole looking and deciding.

Amazing how often they bought little but well.

They would talk about things being rubbish/too expensive/good value/bad value, it focused them.

I continued with that and they have all learned the value of money because from a young age they were spending their own money, not mine.