How much do teens cost??

[Heatherbell1978]

Inspired by a few threads and now looking for facts! DC are currently 6 and 8 and we're provably in a bit of a sweet spot financially with them as far as buying them 'stuff'.

Neither gets regular pocket money, 8 year old has never really asked! Both happy to wear whatever I buy and thankfully not too brand influenced (yet!), generally happy with getting stuff at Xmas and Birthdays. I do pay about £275 a month in wrap around care and need to shell out for holiday clubs. Don't do loads of expensive days out but occasional trips to zoo etc.

Appreciate that pocket money will become a thing soon and phones in the future.

What does your monthly outlay look like? (I have a boy and a girl if that makes a difference)

Interesting thread. Mine are approaching the pre teen age and Nike has made an appearance but there's absolutely no way they'll be getting money to "enjoy eating out with friends" and £400 Prada shoes.
Likewise if I've always managed with max £150 androids they won't be having expensive iPhones until they're paying.

A lot. Mine aren't into brands but still cost a fortune.

I had 4 and none were ever 'brand influenced' tho their friends were.
They'll only be like that if it's a thing in their lives and seen as important. My eldest vehemently refuses to advertise a brand having paid through the nose for it lol.

Yes, it's not cheap.
Holidays and meals out are the worst, they basically double in cost (or worse if you can't get them to share a room...)
Haircuts, adult size shoes and extra curricular activities really stack up. Not phones though as there are so many muggings round here that we only give them a cheap castoff on a tenner/ month contract.
DD1 babysits so at least that brings in £ for more frivolous stuff like Starbucks, makeup, friend's birthday gifts etc

Food definitely costs more. And as they hit 15/16/17 etc they’re out at all funny times and don’t eat with the family so much so you can never meal plan for everyone and they come in and eat all sorts. It’s never ending.

They cost load and I’d agree with you OP, you’re at the age where they seemingly cost a lot less - childcare has reduced and they don’t seem to want much. I was saying this recently!

DC1 is 16 this year, and DC2 is 12. They cost an arm and a leg.

DC1 gets £100 a month pocket money. This will reduce when she gets a more reliable Saturday job. However, it doesn’t go far really when you think the cinema and McDonald’s would easily cost £15 these days - as much as it galls me. From this she has to cover her social activities and rubbish from the Tiktok shop she is fond of buying. It works well for us as the constant request for £10/15/20 were driving me mad and it definitely cost more in the long run.

Then there’s the brands - Nike AF1s for school (sadly both in adult sizes now 😩), Nike/Converse/Vans for outside of school.

The endless Nike, Gymshark, Bershka, Stradavarius hauls for DD.

£950 for a ski trip
£££ on tech - MacBooks (take out screen protection 😩), PlayStation stuff, Oculus for Christmas.

The food - it’s the sheer volume and multiples needed to get us through the week that pushes the price up. Gone are the days where we could buy one pack of Frubes a week - it’s at least 2, often 3. Ditto packs of smelly Fridge Raiders (3x3 packs a week).

I’m so glad we stopped at 2 - I genuinely don’t think we could afford a 3rd when the driving and university days start in earnest 🙈 I’m so glad we have 3 years between DC so hopefully won’t have 2 in Uni at the same time (praying nobody wants to become an architect 😂) 🤞🤞

Clothes and shoes. A lot of kids, particularly boys, go through a massive growth spurt around the ages of 15 and 16. It cost us a small fortune in clothes and shoes and we were not buying designer. If they play sport factor in all the trainers etc you need to buy.

Food. You're paying for adult portions and then some. They eat like crazy and eat more if they're playing a lot of sport. Going out for a meal is rare for us.

Instruments and music lessons (went from playing 1 instrument to 4).

Upgrade in laptops, phones etc.

School trips can get crazily expensive eg Geography A Level trip to Iceland. Music trip to America. Yes, I was shocked at these trips, almost horrified there was a trip to somewhere like America for Music at the cost of over £1,000. And there's DoE if your kids are into it.

Driving lessons.

It's about a 3 year wait for braces near us at the moment. We've paid around £3000 for one kid.

I've been surprised at the amount of birthday presents we're buying for their friends. Only £10/15 here and there but it adds up.

Spent about £400 on prom stuff for 2 of them so far.

We must be unusual but our costs are nowhere near some of these. Dds are 14 and 11. Dd2 is heading to secondary in September.

We spend about the same on clothes as growing has slowed down and they are wearing things much longer. Dd1 is in year 9, she has had the same school blazer, skirt and pe kit since year 7. We have just replaced the shirts as they were getting a bit small. I got most of her uniform second hand in the first place. Dd2 I think will be more brand oriented, she likes her sketchers trainers and if she doesn't like something she will not wear it.

She has pocket money to spend going out with friends £30 a month for dd1, £10 a month for dd2 (she doesn't really go out without me)

We have Netflix, disney plus, amazon prime, crunchy roll and Spotify usually. (Currently stopped a few due to needing to save for a house move).

I guess the biggest expense has been the rent for a 3 bed rather than 2 as they need their own space now and aren't happy sharing.

Days out - we've switched free park days to free museum trips! If we need to eat out that is more expensive now its not childrens meals but we rarely eat out. And going to London I now have to pay for dd1 on the tube so adds an extra cost.

We recently bought ipads for school work, but they sorted old toys/clothes which I sold on vinted to pay towards them. They are both on sim only contracts with o2 £6.99 a month, then I bought phones from music magpie around £160 each a few years ago. Works out cheaper than getting a phone on contract.

My biggest bit of advice is to start managing expectations now. We have always bought second hand tech, clothes, toys, homewear. My girls know if they go second hand they can have more for their budget. Make up I don't buy expensive so once they start wearing it I certainly wouldn't buy expensive brands for them.

You don’t have to buy brands, latest tech etc. if they want that, they can get a job to buy it. At least you’ll not have wrap around childcare anymore, but likely need more food in the house.

@Xrays
Food definitely costs more. And as they hit 15/16/17 etc they’re out at all funny times and don’t eat with the family so much so you can never meal plan for everyone and they come in and eat all sorts.

yes!! You never know whether to make more of the meal for them or if they’ve already eaten. Or will be in a strop and refuse to eat my boring tea…

Exactly. Someone will say “just leave them some to heat up later” but they won’t, they’ll just eat something else and then you’ve wasted a load of food. It’s one of my biggest annoyances. I mean I love my dd but the whole food thing drives me crazy.

Thanks all - loving the insight. DS will be going to private school next year so aware that we're going to start a phase where we really need to look at what we're spending. Hoping we can get away with relatively few 'casual clothes' once uniform comes into play. And I think there's probably more 'brand pressure' at the local state (I remember it well from my days) as we don't have particularly strict uniform policies where I am although aware uniform costs £££.

We've promised DS a phone when he gets to P6 (and the new school) but he can have my old one so keen to not encourage new tech where possible.

It's the holidays I'm quite worried about - we do go away every year if we can and enjoy the sun. We're going to a very nice Turkey AI this year, all in one room, cost under £5k. Bit worried about what that kind of holiday will cost when I can't just chuck kids on camp beds or in the same bed at times!

DS will just eat what I cooked but later. If he ate the lunch food then he knows he would run out for lunches.

We've paid for beavers/cubs, gym, tech club, swimming lessons karate, judo and junior rugby over the years. It was good to give our son the opportunity to try different activities he was interested in. He enjoyed them all bar rugby and did really well in all like getting his junior black belt in karate and all of his swimming awards. Now he's older it's been guitar lessons for a few years and we also currently pay for driving lessons. Also pay for big ticket clothing like trainers etc. He likes his brands and labels but not obsessively so and has quite an individual style. There's also a travel pass to college, lunch money, phone. He has a fairly generous allowance from us and my mum and an occasional job. His money is used for some clothes, eating out etc with friends and buying gifts for family.

I have a boy and a girl. Girl is more sociable, boy likes gadgets. I feel like I've got away very lightly with things like brands, they aren't bothered. They don't have pocket money but I'll give them money to pop to the shop for a snack or grab them a new hoody if they fancy it.

Outlay for each:
School bus £45/mth
Club/hobby £20/mth
Phones £10/mth

Clothes is more for the child at college, but I get away with a lot of the clothes being for birthdays/Christmas.

DD has a meal out or similar approx once a month.

They both prefer pack lunches because of lunchtime queue logistics.

And snacks. You can never buy enough snacks.

My 12 year old is pretty expensive because he’s growing a lot. He does a lot of sport so when his feet grow it’s not just school shoes, school trainers and smart trainers, it’s two pairs of football boots (one for outside and one for futsol inside) and then cricket spikes if it’s the cricket season. I never pay full price for anything but they’re still expensive as Sports Direct or similar because (1) he’s an adult shoe size and (2) he’s particular about what he wants.

I’ve had to buy him a whole new wardrobe over the last couple of months. He mainly has sportswear but it has to be Nike. It really adds up!

Equipment for cricket is expensive and he needs a new bat every time he has a big growth spurt! Plus he won’t have the plain crickets whites anymore, it has to be the club logo stuff which is more expensive, especially as he needs two sets because he plays Saturdays and Sundays for his club.

Mine weren't too bad. A club each. One had two clubs. They weren't wild for branded stuff-maybe the odd bit. Shoes are probably more expensive, but I'm not sure. School trips can mount up . I didn't find it at all worse than the earlier years, and anyway it was probably cheaper, as I wasn't paying childcare.

Depends on the school of course OP, but private school can help to make costs at least more predictable. Lunch and clubs are all included at ours, so we pay nothing for lunches or activities on a week to week basis (apart from music lessons). Really no extras at all apart from uniform and optional trips (local trips are included). They never bother changing out of uniform after school, and they have school on Saturdays, so casual clothes last very well (I tend to get to the holidays and realise they've outgrown a bunch of stuff and have nothing to wear!) Sports uniform is pricey, but secondhand shop is fab.

But then what happens then? Do you just not feed him? It’s easy to say that but in reality who would actually let their teen go hungry.

The ones we're looking at don't include lunches (although can take packed lunch) and we'd need to pay for school bus as we're in a town where the privates tend to pick up kids on various routes which is likely to cost around £100 a month. But we pay that now for each DC for wrap around so the bus kind of replaces that for DS. He's sporty so I'm hoping weekends are spent doing sports which are included. We pay around £120 a month for various sports now for both so again some netting off there perhaps.

This. I have three. Mine aren’t into brands either but they grow so fast! 13 year old DS is 6ft and in men’s clothes and shoes which are more expensive, even just brands like M and S.

Mine are very undemanding, but they eat a lot, and I support their hobbies (surfing, music, photography) though bigger buys like the camera and surfboard are birthday and Christmas gifts. They get £5 per week pocket money into their bank accounts.

And the shoes! Football boots, Astro boots, trainers, school shoes. We pass on between them when we can but school shoes get so battered!

He just wouldn't eat the lunch food for dinner on a regular basis so wouldn't go hungry. There's enough for extra food if he is hungry but he would still eat what I cooked before looking for something else. He knows what day I shop on and can see what there is until then. I'd be worried if he couldn't plan what to eat and what to save for later at 17.

An absolute bloody fortune.

School fees.
Music lessons
Musical instruments
Sports stuff
They eat more and drink more
It goes on and on and on (now can't remember where it all went, as it has merged into 'bloody fortune').
And that's without expensive school trips/phones etc, and with DC who weren't bothered about 'brands'.
My youngest DC in particular was a walking money-pit.

It's slightly better now they are all at university, but not much.

@Heatherbell1978, you can probably get uniform second hand. Does the school have a second hand shop? My DC mostly had second hand things. They look second hand by the time they've worn them a couple of times, and in fact my DC were happy to have hand me downs etc as a full new uniform marks you out as a 'new' pupil.

15yo DS here.

Doesn't care about clothes.
Youngest of 4, we dug out a huge amount of clothes from his brothers yesterday, including BNWT item
I inherit DC cast off clothes nowadays, actually, so that's an offset.
We decided DC can pay for own driving lessons.
Commuting: about £300/year maybe.
Sports: ? about £1000 /year.
Cadets £200 / year?
DoE or other leisure, £200/year
Holidays, time away, DS is not keen now, but this could be large if he were
Share of utilities, mobile phone monthly: £250/year ?
We eat a lot too but only the odd pack of chips out of home... think I reckoned it's about £100/month for DS alone.
Housing is main thing but as youngest, we already had the house. We badly need to downsize, actually.

DC3 is similar, DC1 has been financially independent since age 18. DC2 is our expensive one, but not crazy sums.

Also mixed for us, we have three, aged 17-20.

Mine aren't into designer clothes but still require a lot of clothes for (non uniform) sixth form, and their activities. Certainly my dds get new clothes more often than I do.

Big tech items are for birthdays and Christmas.

My food and energy costs are through the roof. The washing machine is on every day. They routinely use every dish in the house and all like to cook or bake so the cooker and dishwasher are always on.

I'm booking a holiday at the moment. Everyone is adult prices for everything, I need two hotel rooms. The cost on eating out on holiday (even just drinks and ice creams) is eye watering. Passports are expensive, but will last for the full 10 years now.

Whilst we have reduced or stopped most of the extra curricular, one dc still does music lessons and band and one is in a sports club with the associated subs, equipment and travel costs.

The big expenses for us have been tutoring (2 kids have had for GCSE and 2 for a level) and driving lessons, theory tests, driving tests. The oldest two had driving lessons and we will start the youngest this year. I know this is optional but we wanted to support them to get through whilst they are younger as they will have more options for work etc if they can drive.