Pocket money, where to start?

[User1053051066]

We would like to give ds (15) and dd (12) pocket money, from which they buy any extras they want, so to encourage saving and budgeting.
I appreciate there will be many opinions here, some giving £100pm and some £3pm which is all helpful so please just throw it at me, what you do and why?
I'm trying to come up with some really good plans.
They both have jobs in the house. Is it dependent on that? Jobs not done, deduct some money? That gets tricky. Can they earn more? Should they? That gets tricky.
I'm lost as to where to start!!

DS is 12. He gets £3.50 as a base rate in exchange for emptying the dishwasher daily. He works for me as I am self employed to earn extra money at £5 per hour. All money goes into his bank account along with birthday/Christmas money. We pay for his phone and clothing still. Anything else he would like he can buy but at the moment he still spends very little. He was just starting to you with the idea of going to the cinema with mates etc before lockdown.

Not jobs dependent here but they're pretty good at doing jobs when I ask, and sometimes even when I don't!

I started giving them pocket money on their 14th birthdays - £40 a month. This is for general spends - everything except for activities and clothes. Put it up to £100 when DC1 became 16 (but she also has to get clothes out of this) and she also has a job so she is saving hard for a car and driving lessons.

I also pay for phone contracts £8 per month (but not phones)
Spotify, Netflix and Disney+
Gym memberships for both at £20 pm

My friend is a foster carer. She is told how much to give her kids so this might be useful:

10 year old £4 per week. This increases by £1 on their birthday, so by the time they are 17 they get £11 per week.

They have jobs they do for this, ie laying the table or, for the younger ones, feeding the dog.

She was told by her Social Worker to stop buying them so many things as they won't learn the value of money (she used to spend excessively on them). She's therefore cut back now. For example, she will now buy them new trainers when they need them rather than because they just like the look of ANOTHER pair. Now they can buy them out of their pocket money.

DD was given pocket money from first day of secondary school - paid into her account (Santander). She had a debit card and understood she had to pay her transport costs. At some point we also made it so it covered her phone bill - different providers allow that at different ages. She soon learnt that if she got up half an hour earlier and took two buses to school it was cheaper than the train....and other similar budgeting skills.

My 10yo DS has £30pcm put on his GoHenry.

I also pay phone (he flexiboards so has it for this), extra-curricular costs, clothes etc, so really his 30 quid is just for luxuries.

My 15 (nearly 16 year) old daughter has £45 p/m paid into her Santander account, she spends / saves this as she wants. We also pay her mobile phone bill £8 p/m and bus pass for school £26 p/m.

16 and 14 year olds £30 allowance a month and they also get £5 credit on their phones. This is for things like socialising, buying presents and for them to get any odds and ends they fancy (we buy all the clothes and toiletries etc they need and pay for their activities).

It's not dependent on jobs - we expect them to do a certain number of jobs because they live in the house, not because they are getting paid for them. They might get paid extra for one off "special" jobs e.g. DS got paid for painting the garden fence.

I would say ~£30 a month is reasonable for extras. It depends what you class as extras really. Do they have to pay for:

• haircuts
• snacks
• phone plans
• birthday presents for friends / family
• Christmas presents
• clothing
• bus passes

If they are paying for that sort of thing I think pocket money should be higher. If they are paying only for little things they want like new video games then £30 is more than enough.

I don't think pocket money should be chore dependent. Chores should be expected and separate from pocket money but maybe they could be paid for additional odd jobs (e.g. painting a fence). I am aware that many families do this differently though.

Our two, 10 and 12, got £5pw until recently but we would buy extra sweets, magazines, gaming vouchers etc. Now they get £10pw each but we've stopped buying the extras, and it's working out cheaper that way. We pay for the 12 yo's mobile though (contract, he doesn't use it much so doesn't ever go over) and both of their online subscriptions for Xbox etc, we just treat those as household bills.

I forgot to say, any extras that they want have to be earned - washing the car, unloading the dishwasher etc

I'm amazed people are deducting school transport costs from their pocket money!!!

I started at 11yrs when DD got for own bank with debit card. Monthly standing order for £20 for her to budget with. She's pretty much saved it up for bigger items so it has worked. It's not linked to chores but they are expected to be completed regardless. I give an annual increase.

It’s a bit late to be starting pocket money. I started the day they started YR 1 at age 6. They get €4 x the year they are in school per month

I don’t link it to house chores, those they have to do anyway as part of family.

I also don’t really let them earn more by doing extra house chores. I just encouraged them to get a part time job when of age if they wanted more money of their own.

Secondary school, opened bank accounts and just transfer their monthly pocket money on first of month. They had debit cards for ATM, shopping and online purchases. To encourage saving, sometimes we’d do a match. For example, our DD wanted a PlayStation so we offered to pay half if she saved up half the price. It took her 8months but she saved the money.

We never controlled what they spent their money on. If it was sweets and silly toys, so what! All we did do was guide them on how to find the best price for whatever they wanted and when to consider buying something used versus new.

We never had them pay bills from their pocket money. It was always extra money for them.

I think you also need to look at what your child's peer group gets and what they do. I know on these threads before there's normally a large number of parents that give their children substantially more - but they are in circles where it's normal to go to the cinema/bowling/ice e skating'/ meal out with friends every weekend plus regular trips to coffee shops. (when we are not in lockdown of course!). In my DC's circle no one has that sort of disposable income and most of their socialising is free/low cost.

I’m surprised how old some of the children are for starting pocket money. I’m starting for my 4yo this summer. both me and my husband had pocket money from a young age so that’s influenced us in wanting to start early. At 15 I would want them to be taking some responsibility for some fixed spending as well as the fun stuff.

I think the difference here is whether you consider it pocket money or an allowance that teaches them to manage money......? At secondary age I think the latter is more valuable as a learning tool and having to pay some fixed costs is an important lesson?

We give our DD 10 years £50 per month on a pre-pay card. We used to give £5 per week but she would save birthday money and pocket money and buy clothes and bedding, rugs, cushions, etc. We figured if we upped her money she would use it on things we would be responsible for buying anyway but she would have independence in the spending.

Pocket money at 4 years old?

I put £25 a month on my sons go Henry card and I'm about to up this to £40. It's for general stuff like gaming bits. I'm then not particularly strict about buying additional things

Oh and he's 13

PomBearsyummy Yes why? It’ll only be £1 a week and it’ll give her an idea on whether to save it for a magazine or spend it each week. I’ll up it gradually as she gets older. I’m giving her the choice what to spend some birthday money on and she’s got a list with the numbers and we’ll turn it into a chart so she can see how much it’ll buy her. Both my husband and I had pocket money from a similar age so it just seems very normal to us. It’s just what you’re used to. I think it’s especially important nowadays that so much is on cards. I very rarely use cash myself so she’d otherwise not really get the chance to use and understand money in the same way I did as a child.

From 12/13 ours have had a job. Paper round once a month first and from 13/14 they have both worked in a local cafe. One day a week. Any money earned they’ve use for themselves.

We pay £10 a month each for phone contact but they supply the phone surprising how long they last when they buy them.

Now 18/19 currently at home due to Covid both have full time jobs and their cafe job still. Saving for uni this autumn both want expensive laptops which they’ll buy themselves.

Never really done pocket money.