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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be gobsmacked at his pocketmoney??

180 replies

VirtualPA · 16/05/2010 17:14

My little brother (big age gap) is 16.

DH and I went to visit the family this weekend and it came up in conversation that he gets £50 a month pocket money. Half in a DD and half in cash.

I asked what he does for his money and apparently he washes the car every now and then.

I mean..... WOW! Thats a lot of money.

My DD will have to do set chores each day (such as loading the dishwasher) for her pocket money.

Or am I being unreasonable and this is the going rate now.

OP posts:
Mowgli1970 · 16/05/2010 18:07

I don't think that's a huge amount - £12.50 a week won't get you far. It depends on lots of factors - what does he have to buy with it, if your parents can afford it or does it mean they struggle to pay it, etc. My kids are 9 and 7 and get £2 a week each and I expect them to do chores when I ask - lay the table, make your bed etc. I pay them extra if they do extra stuff like polishing, hoovering, tidying to help out as I'm trying to teach them that hard work is rewarded and you can only afford to buy nice things if you earn the money.

bronze · 16/05/2010 18:12

£12.50 won't get you far?
I'm guessing most don't have to buy their main meals. I spend less than that on non household things a month. At 16 its not like they even have to buy a round if they go out for the evening

Original poster
VirtualPA · 16/05/2010 18:12

No it isn't HUGE. But it is a lot when you have no outgoings

OP posts:
Tryharder · 16/05/2010 18:14

Just reread my earlier post and laughed. God, I sound like an old fart or a Daily Mail reader.

asdx2 · 16/05/2010 18:17

Dd just 17 gets £20 pw which is roughly what the majority of her friends get. She has no set chores but is expected to muck in and help out as a matter of course and her room is totally her own responsibility.She pays for her phone top ups and her social life out of that and she buys her make up to top up what is bought for her as gifts.It's not a huge amount considering bus fare and a trip to the cinema costs at least a tenner.

allsweet · 16/05/2010 18:18

By Tryharder Sun 16-May-10 17:57:36
I never got pocket money as a child (I'm 38 now).

Yes, but i'm guessing you're richer for it. I agree on your comments, re, giving £100 per month. I have never heard anything so ridiculous.

GarmerFiles · 16/05/2010 18:18

Blimey. Seems an awful lot if they don't have to cover all their costs.

I got a job in Tesco 3 days after my 16th birthday and didn't have any pocket money after that at all.

And 15 year olds have gym membership? Oh dear, I have A LOT to learn

Kaloki · 16/05/2010 18:20

That's crazy money. I got £3 a week!

allsweet · 16/05/2010 18:21

And 15 year olds have gym membership? Oh dear, I have A LOT to learn

Me too.

MumInBeds · 16/05/2010 18:23

I think pocket money has gone up a lot recently and I think it is partly down to EMA, the government have pretty much set a 'standard' for how much a child should be given.

It must be hard to be a parent who earns just too much for their child to get EMA seeing their child being the one who doens't have the money to go out with their friends and by the fancy clothes etc, I would imagine many would make big sacrifices to stop their child being left behind.

3cats3dogs · 16/05/2010 18:26

My poor dc's must be really deprived - they get no pocket money, and we have no plans to start giving them any.
If they have any after school clubs, dh and I pay for them, if they need any clothes, we get them (but they do understand that at certain times they have to wait)
If they want a bit of money to buy sweets or anything, they do jobs around the house to earn it.

No-one gives me any money for sitting round on my arse not doing anything. My dc's don't have a bad upbringing, considering how tight money is, and I can't think of a worse lesson for them giving them even £20 a month, (let alone up to £100 ) for doing nothing!

Conundrumish · 16/05/2010 18:26

Sounds a lot to me. We work on 10p a week for a year of age - so by my reckoning, ours will be getting £1.60 .

Is £100 a month for doing nothing going to produce a generation of adults that will keep this country out of debt?

diddl · 16/05/2010 18:29

My teenagers get 20euro a month.
It´s for them to treat themselves-they can blow it every month or save up for something.

They don´t do chores for it but are expected to keep their rooms tidy/put dirty clothes in washbox/put ironed stuff away...

bronze · 16/05/2010 18:32

Just looked up EMA
surely thats for educational stuff and if kids arent spending it on that then some are getting £30 a week!
Thats a ridiculous amount
Maybe the government could bring that down a tad

Tryharder · 16/05/2010 18:36

....And they all get cars as soon as they're 17 and pass their tests. My parents live near a secondary school and you can't get near the place during school hours due to all the Escorts and Klios parked on the side streets. My colleague gave her daughter a brand new car for her 18th birthday and the other daughter got a personalised number plate for her 21st. I have another friend who has 2 jobs because she's saving up for her son to have flying lessons - he's 15 now.

But I see everyone's point. How can you let your child be the only one to have nothing when the rest of his friends have got mobile phones/gym memberships/£100 a month. My DS1 aged 5 asked could he have a mobile phone the other day (I said no). He said could he have one when he's 9. I said I'd think about it....

RubyReins · 16/05/2010 18:38

Wow this is all a bit of a culture shock to me. When my brothers and I were kids we received pocket money according to a bizarre formula that my dad learned from his cheapskate mate; ten pence for every year of your life per week. So if you were 15 you got £1.50 a week rising to a whopping £1.60 on your sixteenth. Quite. We lived in the middle of nowhere and a bus cost £1.30 return into town. Suffice to say we didn't go into town very often. We had chores to do but the deal was that we all lived in this house together and we were expected to contribute albeit not greatly. I always had a job (dad disapproved of this greatly as he thought it stole focus from schoolwork)and mum and dad did buy our clothes etc but CDs and make up were either a Christmas/birthday gift or I had to save for them. Mum and dad were always generous beyond belief at Xmas time. I wanted for nothing and once I could drive I didn't have to contribute to petrol costs or anything so no complaints. It does make my dad laugh when I tell him that I'll be due £3.20 a week soon.

Very interesting to read how other families deal with this! So I would definitely say YANBU - my 16 year old self is green with envy!

3cats3dogs · 16/05/2010 18:39

Tryharder - my ds(9) keps pestering me for a mobile phone, but he's been told he can't have his own until he can afford one himself. Until that point, if he's going out, he can borrow my £20 argos special phone!
If I get him what all his friends have, he'd have an iphone

I'm very mean though

bellissima · 16/05/2010 18:39

I had a boyfriend in the (v) late 1970s who got £100 a month for clothes/going out. At the time I earned £6.20 for a Saturday job in Top Shop. (That's £6.20 for the day, not per hour.) He didn't have a Saturday job - why would he? And his family didn't seem that well off...

danceswithfools · 16/05/2010 18:41

YABabitU. £50 is not too much if he has to buy all his own stuff. I would have thought that it's better to give £50 and expect them to decide what to buy and what not. Otherwise how would he learn to manage money?

hmc · 16/05/2010 18:43

Rather depends on what he is expected to buy out of it. For instance I was given generous monthly pocket money as a teenager but I was expected to buy my own clothes with it(not school uniform however)

FuckingNinkyNonk · 16/05/2010 18:44

I think the amount of pocket money is irrelevant actually. The cost of living is way more than that and the whole thing totally depends on how much a child has to contribute to his cost with his pocket money. I will probably delegate a lot of my children's money to them to spend i.e. clothing allowance, school dinner money, phone money, trips, going out, etc etc. and hope that they learn how to budget. For example, accept that they can't top up their phone quite so much this month because they have a train fair to pay for an outing iyswim. I'd also expect them to earn a substantial amount of it, either by contributing to the household or getting a part time job.

but my 2 are preschoolers atm........

JustMyTwoPenceWorth · 16/05/2010 18:44

£50 a month? Bloody hell.

I got conned well and truly by my eldest, who told me that all his friends get £5 a week.

I believed him so he gets £5 a week. He's 11. (just!)

It was only later that I found out pocket money for his age is between £1 and about £2.50. Usually.

He also told me that the tooth fairy pays his friends £2.50.

I believed that too.

He's a proper little con artist! Don't be surprised when I buy london bridge from him.

RunawayWife · 16/05/2010 18:44

DS1 age 13 gets £10 a week and DS2 age 9 gets £5 a week

RubyReins · 16/05/2010 18:48

Heh heh! Sorry pinkpanettone, didn't see you there. I hated "the formula" at the time as all my mates got loads of pocket money but I didn't have to buy much with it and this was before lattes and mobile phone contracts!

bronze · 16/05/2010 18:49

Problem is when they don't budget and then don't have the fare for college or the money to get the text book they need