How much money do you give your teenager?

[daffsntulips]

DD is 15 and we currently give her £10 a month, pay for her phone, buy essential clothes and pay for extra-curric stuff.
We feel she ought to have more but how much?
What do you do?
Thanks

i give £20 but i often get snacks for them as i get them for my yougest so dont like to leave them out and i pay for online games and PAYG phone too so the £20 is just for if they go out with friends they have enough on them for a milkshake or something but i on top of that buy all their clothes and make up and give them separate money for clothes shopping cinema ect so they can spend or save it if they want a specific game or something at the moment my eldest DS15 im trying to encourage him to get a saturday job but he CBA as they call it, his lazyness is driving me nuts but then again hes doing real great in his exams so maybe now isnt the time to get tough may wait till hes finished them first

Dsd(16) gets £20 a month from us (not sure what her mum gives her) and it's been that rate since she was 13, we said if she wanted more money she needed to get a paper round/job.... She cba!

Ds (11) currently gets £16 a month, this will be £18 at 12 and £20 at 13 like dsd... He also has £2.50 a day school dinner money and his dad (my ex) pays for his phone contract...

Dd (17 months) has £5 a month paid into get savings account...

I am thinking of stopping dsd's when she is 18 as she ia definitely able to get a job then! If she goes to uni she will have to support herself like I did, I had 3 jobs while studying as a lone parent!

when my DS was 14 i banked his child benefit for him so that he could learn to budget and it was to pay for all non-essentials. - we paid for school clothes, school bus , winter coat, strong shoes etc but he had to pay for non essentials, cds, dvd,s comp. games, non essentail sports clothing, cinema etc. it appears to worked rather well because he budgets very well at uni.

We do something similar to Mollymole. We give our DD 15 yr old daughter £500/year and it goes straight into her bank account. We pay for her phone and her essential clothes (eg winter coat, new school shoes etc), toiletries and bus fares but she has to pay for anything else. She then has to make the money last until her next birthday and if she spends it before then....tough. We've done this since she was 13 and each year she's managed to make it last. She feels very grown up using a debit card when she goes out for lunch with her girl friends or buys clothes, and it saves her having cash on her which I know kids have taken advantage of in the past (borrowing and not paying back!).

13 year old - £15 a month .I pay her phone, but she's really sensible, so that's not much), most clothes and toiletries, clubs and school meals. Make up, jewellery and frivolous clothes are her problem. Art and craft bits are open to negotiation, often half and half (DD2 and I borrow bits)

Went up £5 to mark her becoming a teenager (actually mostly to fund her crafting, Ebook habit and tendency to like buying family little gifts).
Live in the sticks so cinema and shopping trips with mates are rare enough that I don't mid donating. I suspect if we lived in a town I'd say £20 a month, but she'd have to fund buses and film tickets - every week would be quite different to once a school holiday.

Crikey you are a generous lot!! my dd16 does 2 paper rounds earning £20 per week she also does an occasional shift at a local pub for £20 and does babysitting. She pays for her phone, bus fares and all non esential items, we pay most of the rest she also pays half towards any holidays that she goes on, not family hols obviously.

dd14 also gets £5 per week on her paper round and does 2 shifts washing up for which she gets £4 per hour plus amazing tips she earns around £100 per month doing that which gets paid into her bank. She swaps childcare for horseriding.

ds 8 does a supervised paper round and earns £4.50 a week which he can spend as he wishes

ds6 helps his dad do small jobs for £3 a week which he saves!!

I haven't done pocket money for years and all the children have more money in the bank than me and both older girls use their visa debit cards like pro's.

We live in a small village but thankfully it has 2 pubs and a shop and we also get a weekly local paper and as a family we seem to do most of the work round here. I hope we are passing on a good work ethic to our children and a good attitude to money.

Dd 14) gest £12/month, essential clothes and one extra-curricular activity, but has to pay phone herself.

When we moved house further from friends etc my sister and I (then 15 and 13) were offered £20 a week or a phone contract and the remainder of the £80 as allowance.

Best thing my mum could have done IMO. We set up bank accounts (no overdraft obvs) and both chose the phone as well as the money. Pay as you go was too expensive then, although now it may be cheaper, so we both took out £30 per month contracts. The £50 was to cover school lunches, bus fares and socialising, as well as any clothes/shoes deemed inappropriate, unnecessary or unsuitable!

When our contracts expired we reassessed. My phone had just about died and I wanted a blackberry, so I found a £25 per month contract and get £55 a month. My sister swapped down to a cheaper "sim only" deal and I don't know how much she gets, but would guess it isn't much more than me. However, she has a serious Topshop habit to fund!. Around the same time I got a PT job, and I now have 2.

3 1/2 years ago £50 a month was a fortune but now £55 a month is a pittance. (that could be something to do with my foreign trips though)

My mum also has made me pay for half of any school trip, over £100. I paid to go to Germany in year 8 and Skiing in year 9 from money I received for my bat mitzvah. Year 10 I went to Berlin, which I earnt money for by doing chores around the house for £5 a week (nice little earner for my mum there really!) In the sixth form my dad paid my half of a Russia visit as my Channukah/17th bithday/Chanukkah present, I have raised (through working 2 jobs, car boot sales and selling knitted dolls my gran made AOT) £3645 by myself to go to Kenya for a month, and I owe my mum £450 for a trip I took to Washington in Feb 11 with school. When my student loans start I'm going to pay her back in monthly installments.

I just turned 18, and received the contents of an account my dad set up 11 years ago. With very little advice from Mum, I organised a meeting at the bank and decided how to become as independent financially as I could. I'm sure I wouldn't have felt confident enough to do this without the earlier financial awareness.

£20 is generous, but consider raising the amount you give DD - in line with increasing the amount she has to spend it on. It feels good to know that you have money to choose how to spend.

From my experience, it's best to try not to get in a habit of paying for their direct debits (such as phones, gym, contact lenses etc.), otherwise it'll never get transferred to their account.

They need to have a good understanding early on of what is going in and out of their account

DD gets the child benefit, so £80 or so every 4 weeks.

I also put in her account another £80 a month - this is to cover her weekly bus ticket (a tenner) and school lunches at £2 a day. If she wants to save some money up she rides her bike to school and takes sandwiches, she still gets to keep the £20. This covers activities as well when she is not at school, such a train fares to other cities, lunches out etc.

She buys all her stuff out of this other than essential clothing. She does work for it, I worked out that she does about 4 hours work a week which I think is fair. She cleans (and I mean does it proplery) 2 cars thoroughly each weekend. She is also responsible for cleaning the bathroom every day, and takes her turn in doing the dishes and mopping etc.

I pay for her blackberry and club subscriptions, however it is her responsibility to save and buy her Duke of Edinburgh and sports kit etc. Unless she catches me in a good mood and cons me into taking her shopping.

I think it's all right, she knows the value of working for money. As soon as she is 16 she is getting a job in a supermarket I hope, she knows plently of friends who work at weekends in Tesco and take home over £400 a month.

DS2, 16, gets £30 pocket money, £20 for lawn mowing and £30 clothing allowance. He can earn a bit extra by volunteering to do extra bits for us. I drive him about a lot as there is no public transport around here. He will need to get a job after GCSE's to supplement what we can provide. He will do OK - he is very acomplished at charming an extra fiver out of us here and there. Granny (85) often send him £1 and abar of chocolate!

My just turned 16 year old has been working since just after he turned 15, so while he lives board free he is responsible for his own expenses. Phone, clothing etc, if he wants more he asks for extra shifts.

Being on the other side of the globe, I have no idea on the real value so what would 15pound buy?

DS1 who is 14 gets £20 a week pocket money.
He also has a part time job where he earns on average nearly £40 which he has to put strtaight into his saving account.

He is also on report at school so if he gets a great report he gets an extra £10 a week.

His phone is on contract.We buy his clothes but if he wants something we consider is expensive I will pay what I think is reasonable and he will pay the difference.
We pay for his skiing and riffle shooting sessions.
We pay for Explorers.

He is expected to help round the house but not for financial gain. He has to do jobs because he is parat of the family and I don't see that stacking the dishwasher, hoovering the carpets, cleaning out the shower etc should get him an extra few quid! As he is told, he uses things, he cleans them!

DS2 is 11 and gets a £1 a day on school days which he put 80p into his money box and keeps 20p so he has a £1 to spend on Fridays.
He will start getting pocket money in September.

DD 17 gets £150.00 per month and out of that she pays for everything, including her phone contract, bus fares, lunches etc, she also earns a fair whack from babysitting and a tea time job and has saved up over £500 to pay for a holiday.

I sometimes treat her to clothes and if we have a family functions such as a wedding I will buy her outfit.

She has had an allowance since she was 14 and it was the best thing we did, her budgeting has improved and she has a greater understanding of money, she hasnt gone over budget for a long time.

She even treats me to coffee some time :)

My DC have been getting a monthly allowance since they were 11 and have had to learn to budget for any non-essential items they want.

DD2, now 16, is on £80 per month but she pays for her phone, all her cosmetics and all clothes except those for school or special functions. If they are family functions I pay, if they are school functions I split the cost. Example, her prom dress cost £150, she paid £100 out of her savings and I gave her the other £50.

She has invited her two best friends from school for the coming half term and has saved up £200 for entertaining them while they are here (planning a trip to a local theme park and a shopping trip with a meal out, they are going to be spending the rest of the holiday kicking around at home revising obviously because of GCSEs). I am happy to pick up the cost of feeding them as they are at a boarding school which DD is leaving at the end of this year and I know she's really going to miss these two girls.

Oh, and she often buys me a coffee if we are out shopping in the holidays, and last holiday I wanted to see a film but said I couldn't afford to go as I had a huge garage bill to pay. She came with me, bought both tickets and ice-creams for each of us and it wasn't even a film she particularly wanted to see! She said I deserved it because I hardly ever go out and am so generous to her, bless her!

I think it depends what it is for. Could you sit down with your teen and make a note of everything they have needed over the past few months and work out what they feel they could take on as a responsibility?

I would always sway towards giving them more money and for it to cover more. I think that way they learn to judge themselves whether something is needed to be bought rather than just seeing if mum or dad will agree to buy it.

There could be things that need to be bought with the money before luxuries. Depending on your income the 'luxuries' element could increase as they prove themselves ot be more responsible with the money?

I'm not sure how helpful ti is to compare with other parents and teens as I have a friend who gives their child £30 but it is for luxuries only, and 1 who gives £120 but it is to cover lunches, buses, friends birthdays and luxuries.

It also depends on how responsible the teen is and how much they have been brought up to be responsible with money. If their used to £10 for a magazine and a trip to the cinema and then suddenly they're given £100 to cover everything I would expect some hiccups!

Blimey people were getting £5.00 per week in 1987, how on earth are teens managing in some of the figures here ? I was thinking £50 a month spends but i'd still expect to kit them all out twice a year with clothes.

DS1 (17) gets $50 a month (about 35 pounds), but I pay his gym membership and phone which is another 100 pounds. He earns extra money babysitting and gardening/chopping wood etc. which he needs as he has a fairly active social life! I buy all his toiletries, clothes etc. he takes a packed lunch to school and the school bus is free.

DS (15) gets £20 cash and £10 into a bank account - which he only draws out if he wants to buy PS3 games etc. I pay for his phone contract, clothes, gym membership, school lunches and football subs. If he wants to go to a concert then I will usually pay for the ticket.

He has just started 'babysitting' his younger brother which he earns money for.

I expect top grades at school and help around the house with no complaints in return.

I've given mine monthly pocket money since they were all about 7 and opened their own bank accounts. DD1 is 14 gets £60 a month - £4 goes before it gets to her because she sponsors a Dogs Trust dog (they all sponsor an animal) and I usually put aside £20 for her for clothes and put the other £36 in her bank account. I pay for school clothes, bike repairs, and regular activities, she pays for everything else - I put the clothes money aside as otherwise some months she would just spend it all on books and I got fed up with her dwindling wardrobe! DD2 is 12, and gets £25 a month - I buy her clothes atm, and she is looking forward to turning 13 next month and having it bumped up to the same as DD1 :)

I was chatting with a friend earlier this year and the subject of pocket money came up - her son is the same age as my dd2. She was a bit taken aback at how much I gave my daughters, but then said that she had given her son money at Christmas to buy all his Christmas presents for friends and family. My kids all spent all their own money on presents - so they each have to buy for 3 siblings, 2 parents, 5 grandparents, whatever friends they want to buy for, and this Christmas we had relatives from Canada over so they bought presents for their cousins too.

I just love not having to deal with the "can I have this?" questions when we're out!

DD's (16) and (14) get £20.00 a month. All toiletries and clothing are bought for them along with birthday presents for friends. Their money is used for socialising with friends e.g. cinema, ice skating, bowling, train fares etc., I pay them extra if they do the weeks ironing for me which is £4.00. I have no complaints from my DD's and they still say they love me :)

my ds 14 gets :
£12.50 per week school lunches
£5.00 wk bus fayre
£5.50 wk clubs
Xbox live @ £15 per 3 months
away with scouts 1 per month @£30 per trip
summer camp 1 week with scouts @£90
All in all its approximatley £130-160 a month.
He doesnt get pocket money and doesnt want a mobile phone, also any trips out with friends. i also pay for all clothes, shoes, kits for clubs of which he has scouts, leader scouts, badmington and fire cadets (luckily they pay for that uniform!), walking boots camping equipment etc as and when required.
I just assumed it was normal to give this ammount? and be expected to fork out like i have a mary poppins purse lol. He does have to earn his money by helping out with house work and helping out with dd2.

mine get lunch money but from 14 on all mine have had jobs and earned their own money

DS(15) gets £40 a month, his mobile phone contract is paid by his grandma and I buy his clothes and toiletries. He also does some dog walking and earns £2.50 per walk.

just read the whole thread and am aghast to be frank

I think a lot of these children are in for either

1. a huge shock or
2. a life time of debt

some adults will have an awful lot less than this to spend on themselves