Pocket money and paying for chores

[Mintmallow88]

Hi. Sorry if this has been posted before but I was wondering what the going rate was for pocket money for an 11 year old? Also is paying kids to do chores on top of the amount of pocket money they get? I am kind of in two minds whether kids should get paid to do chores or not....When I was younger I didn’t get paid to do chores, it was just expected of me....so I don’t know what is expected these days. What is the price too for doing chores??? DS expects to get paid to do chores.

I don’t care what other people expect and I certainly would care what my 11yo expected!
I don’t pay for chores - you are part of the household, you do your bit.
Which is not to say that I judge people who do - different strokes and all that.
But it makes no odds to me.
Do you want to pay for chores? Don’t be influenced by a child!

As to pocket money... depends on what you’re expecting him to be responsible for paying for? Occasional sweets on the way home from school, or cinema trips with friends?

I'm a bit behind times here as my experience is out of date, but assuming this is purely pocket money for him, to buy sweets/toys/magazines out of and you aren't expecting him to buy clothes/bus pass/phone credit/toiletries out of it, I would have thought £5-£10 a week is about right.

Personally I don't like the idea of paying children for 'everyday' chores like laying the table, helping with washing up, laundry, tidying their rooms - to me those are kind of the basics/part and parcel of family life you don't particularly get 'rewarded' for doing, like doing your homework or brushing your teeth. Plus if yours were anything like mine at that age, they get so lazy that the threat of docking pocket money didn't do much to motivate them to get up and do their housework, they didn't really value the £5 worth of sweets they'd get at the weekend highly enough to bother to do boring chores on a Monday without being forced to, in fact it would become a perverse disincentive to get me or their siblings to do their chores in 'exchange' for their pretty measly pocket money (not a minimum wage hourly rate anyway ) so we gave up on that and pocket money was given regardless of chore completion (compliance there was punished/rewarded in other ways)! I did occasionally dock pocket money as a 'punishment' but only where there was a direct monetary link, e.g. the one who was careless and perpetually lost school uniform items had money deducted towards the amounts I was shelling out for replacements. This seemed more logical and effective, for us anyway.

So I think if you would like him to have pocket money (and I think it is good for them to have it, to start to learn rudimentary budgeting, saving and delayed gratification!), give a token amount to him unconditionally (unless as above he is repaying lost or broken items), and find another way to insist he does chores. You could always offer a small amount for 'bigger'/non everyday jobs like £5 to wash the car, £10 to weed the garden etc, so he can 'earn' more for discretionary effort?

My 11 year old DD gets £22 per month to spend on anything she wants (clothes, cinema, birthday presents, phone etc covered by us). I don’t agree with paying children for chores as I expect everybody to help out and see it as being part of a family. She got her own bank account at 11 to learn how to manage her money.
I wonder if girls are expected to help more without being paid and found this article on the gender gap in pocket money interesting - apparently the biggest gap between boys and girls happens at 11!

Ds1 is 14 and gets £5 per week. No extra for chores.

It seems to do him - he usually saves it for a few weeks and then buys a game or something - and we'd give him extra if he's going out with his mates.

Dh & I don't really have much more disposable spends ourselves tbh. When dh is working again I expect we'll revisit.

Oh, and I cover his phone (£8 pm sim only) so it's literally just pocket money.

My 12 year old gets £10 a month and can earn extra by doing jobs. Works for us.

I always felt that dcs should do chores as part of being in the household.
However, I also thought that they should be encouraged to get a small job. But these days there are no jobs for young teens like there were in my day.
So I'm toying with the idea that I might pay min wage for an hour's housework? Now and then.

50p per week per year of age here so that would be £5.50pw. DC are expected to do a few chores like empty dishwasher, change their bed, set table, etc. We very occasionally pay them to do a big chore (eg pressure wash patio) but not for “every day” ones as that’s just part of being a family. We did once dock pocket money when one refused to do anything to help all week but not a direct link.

We've never done pocket money & dc are 10
& 7. They've so far had enough to get things they want (not much), & I want to encourage saving. From what I've read in here I think it's not good to pay for chores.

However also from reading on here, we've just this last week agreed to pay £1 for each book they read up to max of £2 per week. Mostly as they've spent too much time on gadgets through lockdown & they are both good readers so
This encouragement more or less works in our favour.

Thanks for all your replies. Good to know what others think. Yes, i don’t think I will pay for usual day to day chores, maybe on bigger jobs around the house. Interesting read on wide range of pocket money amounts. I never got pocket money when I was younger. Think I will start off will a small amount, it’s not for big spending. He will probably learn to save his pocket money for a bigger item to buy.