18 year old 'pocket money' amount

[MrsJa]

How much should just turned 18 year old DS get as pocket money per month.

Is still at college, works part time getting at least £600 per month before overtime added.

No board to pay.
Eats food from home but pays for own driving lessons and meals out with friends.

We pay for holidays.

What are peoples thoughts/ opinions?

You don't give an 18 year old pocket money.

None

Nothing imo

We give pocket money till end of y13 (when they get supported through university instead).

I feel the amount is not much, but if they want more they can earn it particularly at 16+. dc Y13 currently gets £10pw which is £5 basic and £5 for a task they do in the house (they also have a couple of small basic other chores which they don’t get paid for). If they want more, they have to work a job for it.

DC y11 (age 16) also gets nearly the same £9 due to a household task. However, they do have a job.

driving lessons we see as birthday or Christmas presents, or they pay for it out of earnings.

Of course we pay fares to sixth form (annoyingly went up to £100 pcm when turning 18) + lunches + phone.

We cover car insurance, phone and weekly money for lunch. If he is still in education then i would do that. We also paid for driving lessons as 17th birthday gift. If you don't want to give directly then perhaps put some money each month in a savings account.

I agree that you keep up the child support payments while he still lives at home and in education. Your initial post was so misleading I'm almost wondering if it was deliberate. Of course his mum shouldn't give him pocket money - she's already keeping a roof over his head and keeping him fed. It's entirely different if you're not paying for those things because he doesn't live with you.

Why not set up a lifetime ISA and put into that each month if you want to give something?

Depends. If the £600 is going into a University savings account then I'd probably pay for more. If it's disposable income, I'd probably encourage a healthy savings habit of 50% in the bank for University and if so, I'd pay for driving lessons.

This!

Basically the OP is fishing for support to stop giving his mother the money in lieu of CSA, so has created a drip feeding post.

Perhaps he could move in with you instead OP then no need for his mum to worry about covering food/board etc?

If I was given several hundred pounds a month at 18 I would have had a fabulous social life. I wouldn't have saved a penny. It would have very much been about sex, drugs and rock and roll. If @MrsJa thinks their DC is responsible then great personally I'd want to manage the savings.

Surely child maintenance won't end until he leaves college? I thought the end date was meant to be August of the year they leave?

Once child support is no longer payable, then a monthly allowance to support him would be appropriate if he is going to Uni, as most parents expect to provide. If he isn't going to Uni, and has a full time job, I'd probably put a couple of hundred pounds a month into a HTB account in his name, to set him up for the future.

In general, decent parents don't absolve themselves of financial responsibility for their offspring when they turn 18 or leave full time education. Your DH should still expect to be providing some level of financial support in some way or another.

I have never given pocket money. Both my older 2 have had a Saturday job from the age of 14. Eldest is 17 and hasn't applied for a part time job despite us suggesting he does, so be it. He won't get pocket money from us as he has just quit the Saturday job. We pay for holidays, phones, clothes etc... they don't get paid to do chores. Probably not the norm to not give pocket money but at the age of 18 with a job I don't see why you woudl

I am truly shocked by the comments on here. We supported our children until they had finished university. I appreciate that we were in a position to do so but we did give up things in order to be able to afford it. Yes we gave our children pocket money while they were doing A levels. We certainly would not have wanted our children to be working more than a few hours while they were studying and nor would they. Yes we paid for driving lessons. BTW: Our grown up children manage their finances perfectly.

I'm gobsmacked you think you should give 'pocket money' to an adult!

I'm all for that, I'm currently saving hard so that I can pay for my kids tuition fees if they go to university but in this case the DS is living rent free with very limited expenses and earning £600 a month.

He has £600 a month disposable income. He doesn't even pay for his own meals at home. Does he pay for his phone? His toiletries, cleaning products? Chip in for household bills?

He should be paying you at least £100 a month!

Well if he's predominantly at his Mom's where he pays no rent, would it be better to offer to continue to pay until he finishes college / starts paying rent?

Surprised at people's responses
A parent's responsibility it to support a child when they're in full time education
Presumably if he didn't have a part time job then you'd be giving him something and at the very least paying for driving lessons so stopping his pocket money is basically punishing him for making the effort to find a part time job (and from the sounds of it a very well paying one!)

Usually on here you get parents saying how they couldn't possibly expect their dc to do anything that would interfere with their a levels so they subsidise everything. I think a job is really valuable so would want to encourage that.

The government still expects the majority of people to support their children through university, despite also being entitled to maintenance loans and most students having the option to work part time, even if the student lives at home, so seems bizarre to think you could stop giving him money for six months and then start again in September if he goes to uni.

Echoing everyone else… none

He should get a big fat nothing at all.

See this is an example
Op's DC works hard to pay for everything themselves, OP advised not to subsidise them at all.
Your dc chooses not to get a job, you might not give him pocket money but essentially still cover everything for them!
I'd be saying forget the job if I had those two options!

OP should change the name to Mrs Machiavellian.

All of the answers saying 'nothing' assume that you are actually providing a home for the child, so stop with the 'I'm so shocked it's nothing' nonsense.

Your DH needs to continue to support his child and you need to stop being so manipulative - suggesting that all DH needs to do is throw a little 'pocket money' his way is outrageous.

Haven’t read all the responses, sorry, but if your DH still wants to utilise the money he was paying in child support, could he put it into a savings account for when DS is older?
If he gives it to him as cash, I suspect it will just get spent and forgotten, whereas he could have a nice nest egg in the future…

No you're not, read the update - the OP & DH are ending CSA early and hoping to pay nothing at all towards the care of the child which is all done by his mother.

None, though I'd still treat them to little things here and there/pay for them to come on trips with me etc.

Edit: sorry, didn't RTFT