Tweens and Access to Money/Spending

[Notenoughdollarbucks]

Hello, can I ask how much access to money your year 6 children have please?

DD11 is constantly asking for things. A new book, some skin care, bits and bobs for her hobby (non essential), what I call plastic tat like fidgets or little plastic figures. Whatever the latest fad is.

For reference is she has a mobile which I pay £10 a month for sim only.
I fund her expensive hobby, and buy all clothes and although she can’t have designer stuff, she has lots of choice and is bought things she wants as well as just what she needs.
we pay for all days out and food treats etc
she then gets £5 per week pocket money if she does her jobs (make bed, tidy room, clean out pets, makes her own packed lunch).
obviously we should and do pay for all the above and it’s never really discussed and certainly don’t make her feel like I’m doing her a favour. They are just costs relating to having a child.

The trouble is we’ve had a few occasions recently where she’s had a day out somewhere with a friend or she has a big event coming up, or wants to buy something and can’t. Realistically to buy something for £30 is 6 weeks saving pocket money.
and all her friends seem to get masses of birthday and Christmas money so always have loads of savings to access.
We have a small family and gifts at birthday and Christmas are always modest. Think £10 or £20 budget (although we as parents budget around £100).

For comparison I took her and 3 friends to an opening of a hobby related new shop, who had an Olympic athlete along for a meet and greet. It was a fun experience but the other girls all brought along their Christmas /birthday money allowing them a generous spending allowance.

Most of her friends seem to come out of a birthday or Christmas with between £100 - £200 spending money! Mine have none at all.

She has homework nightly (SATS annd extra tuition) and does her hobby 3 nights a week and all day Saturday and occasionally Sunday if there’s a competition. So there is limited time for us to give her jobs to earn more. And I don’t want her to give that up, it’s healthy, outdoors and provides friendships away from school.

Her friends also seem to sell bundles of their old toys. And DD complains that hers all go to her younger sister. But I don’t want to have to buy them twice ?!

any insight please? Thank you

My 11yr old has her own bank account and debit card, I send her £23pm, this is frittered away on sweets and toiletries. She also puts her birthday / Xmas money in.

If she wants something when we're out she will transfer me what she owes.

None, she doesn't go anywhere really independent of us - or at least nowhere where she'd be spending money. We live rurally, so no shops, etc.

When she goes to secondary school, if she was to need money for spending on incidental essentials, like a snack after school or a drink, then we'd discuss access to spending money then.

What you're describing is wanting money for luxuries/shopping. These are things that can be discussed with us and if we deem it appropriate, we'd consider buying (a new book) or would let her know it's something we'd consider as part of a birthday present, for example ('skin care' though by that I mean from Boots, not all this stupid expensive shite they see on TikTok). Hobbies/sports I see as sort of our job to support within reason, so we do buy her new equipment, shoes, etc. as needed.

Having £100-200 spending money for a trip out from birthdays/Christmas is definitely not something I've experienced with friends (and I think we are very comfortably well off). If she wants spending money, could you discuss this with her and at next birthday/Christmas, everyone only gives money within the family rather than presents? That would still be over £100.

Otherwise, I think it's about setting appropriate expectations. I'm an adult with a good salary. I don't spend that much regularly on shopping trips, skin care, random tat. Just because friends do doesn't mean it's sensible and she needs to learn that now. That said, yes, I'd let her have a go at selling secondhand items rather than passing them down. I think that's a nice way of her learning the value of things and being resourceful.

@mindutopia thank you. The approach you describe it what we’ve always done. And we have happily always bought books and things like that. The skin care stuff is basic from home bargains (like a 99p face mask and a fancy sleep eye mask to take to a sleepover ) and not tiktok nonsense (she is not allowed social media yet).
It’s just that she’s on ‘the want’ a lot at the moment and I’m not sure what’s reasonable.

interestingly I’d say we were probably more comfortable financially than some, but we just as a family don’t go crazy with gifts at birthday and Christmas. And she hasn’t any cousins or extended family really. We tend to spend the budget on ‘doing something together ‘ like a nice family trip. Her friends seem to have uncles and step grandparents who give cards with £50 in them 🤷🏼‍♀️

Both of my kids are still very young (under 5) so I have no experience on this from the parenting side. However when I started secondary school, if I wanted to earn extra pocket money each week, we'd have a system where my Mum would write down a list of jobs that needed doing that week around the house, garden etc and assign a price to it i.e.: Hoovering - £2, take bins out - £1, etc.

Each week I'd decide if I wanted to earn any extra on top of my usual pocket money, like if I was meeting friends and going shopping I would normally do a lot more of the jobs. But it was always up to me, there was no pressure or guilt from my Mum if some weeks I didn't do any of the extra jobs, though I always did a few even if I didn't have plans out of habit mostly and to keep a higher amount of pocket money coming in regularly.

It was also on my terms, so it was down to me to find the time to do the jobs around school, hobbies, homework, etc if I wanted the money. None of the jobs were hugely time consuming on their own (max 10 mins). If I'm honest, looking back on it now, it also helped time / task management skills from a young age too. It's definitely something I'd consider introducing to my own kids once they are old enough to be wanting things outside of the essentials we as parents would provide x

Thank you @Lottie917 that's a great idea