What value of pocket money should I give my 11 year old?

[scotmum1977]

Looking for some guidance? My 11 year old DS carries out some household chores and has become a good help to me in the house. How much pocket money should I pay him?

Id be interested in hearing this too. Ut i suppose it depends alot on what y
They spend money on. I don't really give dc pocket money weekly. But have start lately mainly because they have started to walk to shop and every time ask for few pound so have me broke. Was thinking more of If I give them a few jobs so they earn their money and therefore budget it for week
Themselves. ( they 11 and 10) i was think £5 a week for basic jobs making own bed and tidying room daily setting table helping with dishes. Hovering now and again ( I normally hover, wash floors and dust when they at school) then extra jobs give a few extra pounds or maybe extra screen time

You'll get loads of conflicting ideas about this. One of them will be perfect for you.

I think household chores are part of life. The reward for laundry is clean clothes; the reward for filling/emptying the dishwasher is clean dishes and so forth. So I don't generally pay extra for chores unless a DD goes above and beyond.

I give DD11 £1/week and DD2 gets 50p. I appreciate this is a token sum. Other relatives give them a tenner or so for Christmas or birthdays so they do build up a surplus.

I cover nearly all their other expenses: clothes, food, transport, activities, kit, presents for parties and more. So pocket money is for little extras they want and frequently they go for weeks without spending so do accumulate a reasonable sum.

DDs mostly spend their money on the endless 'bring £1 for non-uniform' or extra sweets. If so inclined, DD1 could pay for more credit on her phone.

to clarify, DD2 is 8

To be honest nothing.
Let them do jobs and go from there. I am a big believer kids shouldn't get pocket money but instead earn money.

It depends on your income and what you want them to do with it. Your ds sounds mature and helpful to you so why not sit down with him and look at the non essentials you get for him, things like magazines/ small toys/sweets /games etc and then start putting that amount on a card for him each week (bank card/ gohenry card/ prepaid MasterCard) and let him pick up those things himself. My dd uses gohenry it actually has an earn money function so they can "get paid" for doing certain chores it quite good. Also our kids will need to be money savvy in a different way than when we were kids some of these schemes allow them to get used to internet banking and online spending which is useful.

Thanks everyone that's really helpful!

£5 sounds like a good amount to me.

This is interesting, as I've always felt our pocket money allocation was mean, but it sounds like it isn't too different from other people on here! We give pocket money monthly by direct debit (both DC have debit cards) so there's no scrabbling about for change or forgetting for weeks, which used to happen. They get their age per month (ie 11 year old gets £11) but we pay for phones, clothes, cinema trips etc - the pocket money is literally to spend on sweets, coffees, etc if they go out with friends. They also like to use it to save for small Christmas gifts for us/each other. Once they're older, we plan to increase it to include a budget for socialising, phones, clothes etc but at the moment it's a little extra so they don't need to ask permission for every little purchase. We don't link it in any way to chores: those are just part of living in a household and are done without payment - and if there was resistance to doing them, I think we'd use other consequences to enforce rather than withhold money.

My mom used to get me to do an hours work and then pay me minimum wage for that hour. So would be roughly £5 the time.

My 11 year old gets £13 a month. Tha5 might seem an odd amount but there is a reason! We set her up with a debit card account and a savings account. She has a standing order every month to save the £3, leaving her £10 a month to spend as she chooses.
For this, she has to do a set list of chores in a week. Any jobs missed, I reduce my standing order by a small amount. No work, no pay!!

Should add I pay £5 pm for her phone, and we buy her one magazine a month too. Anything over that, she pays herself.

My dds 10&11 get £20 each a month, this is to spend as they like, they do have a few jobs they need to do otherwise it gets reduced.
I pay monthly to top up mobiles.
They both to save for a couple of month then go shopping and buy presents for birthdays/mothers day etc.
Dd2 uses £3 of her £20 a month to sponsor a blue cross dog ❤️

I agree with some pps that chores are something you do for free because you live in the house. I don't pay my kids for them unless I get them to do something above and beyond the norm (arranged in advance). Otherwise they can choose to duck out of their chores and sacrifice the money, and I don't think chores are something you should duck out from.

I give my 11yo £20 per month by direct debit. It's quite a lot, but I expect him to cover games, toys, any extra sweets, Christmas and birthday presents for close family (just little ones), and some of his books and stationery.

Everyone is going to have different ideas on this. One thing I think is important is to work out what you expect them to pay for themselves, as well as how much you will give them.

Ds is 11 and has his own bank account with debit card. I send him a standing order of £20 a month.its up to him how he uses that (atm he saves £10 in his savings and keeps £10 for sweets but he can change that how he likes). I chose this point as a useful learning point to give him his pocket money this way - I'm shocking at money management as I just wasn't taught as a child and I want him to be able to do it now with small amounts