Teens financial expectations...what are 'everyone else's parents' actually giving their teenagers??

[Maisie36]

My son gets £35 per month pocket money, plus his phone. He has a bus pass for school, and during term I give him £20 per week for lunch. However when it comes to weekends and holidays apparently all his friends parents dish out £10 a day for food! This seems unlikely to me, it adds up to a rediculous amount but im told I am I just being tight! What are 'everyone's else's parents' actually doing??

[AndersArms]

Reading this with a 6, 4 and 1 yo and feeling scared about how much money I will need for teenagers...

And I would bloody love £120 pcm just for me on top of phone, gym and glossy box that doesn't have to pay for essential clothes and toiletries too!

[Mrsblackfrancis]

Ragwort we live in a smallish village which is fairly affluent so I suppose we are in a bit of a bubble.

Both duh & I grew up dirt poor - him more than me, we had enough to eat but money was very tight (no days out/holidays/one or two outfits that weren't school uniform) DH often went without food and lived a very chaotic life due to extreme poverty.

The reason I mention this is that we both feel exceptionally lucky to have the life we have now (not flash or outlandish but own home, new cards, a few holidays abroad each yer and money in the bank) as it's so much more than we ever dreamed we would have.
I think part of that is that we want our DD to have what her friends have as neither of us did growing up and we get a lot of pleasure out of seeing her live the kind of life we could never have dreamt of.

BUT we need to make sure that doesn't come at the price of turning her into a spoiled brat -next year once her highers are over she will be getting a part time job and we will be expecting her to work through Uni.

[TheOtherGirl]

Our DDs get roughly £50 a month each + tennis club membership + their mobiles + bus fares + all toiletries + school lunches + most of their clothes (if I'm honest).

I have been known to nearly always slip them £10 if they're meeting friends in town. And if they want more money they do chores around the house for £££.

[IHaveBrilloHair]

£15 a week, railcard and phone paid for, she has free school meals.
I expect her to pay for non essential clothes and toiletries above supermarket prices.
I will sometimes give her extra, like for her bf's birthday, or to spend at a gig.

[BuzzKillington]

We don't give pocket money, but do dole out money rather a lot. Also pay for phone, food at school, clothes etc.

Our 15 year old has a job! He's a qualified referee. He earns about £25-50 per weekend (1 or 2 matches), but likes to hold onto his money

[IHaveBrilloHair]

Basically, excluding alcohol of course, I spend on her similar to what I do on myself.
I expect her to share for e.g. her nail vanishes, as I share mine, or let me use her nice conditioner occasionally, as she uses mine.
I go out for very expensive meals which she's whinged about, but we're talking 3-4 times a year, whereas she's always at Starbucks, so it all evens out.
With just the two of us in the house the dynamic is a bit different.

[lljkk]

DD is 16. Got a job 6 weeks before her last birthday, actually.

Pocket money = £16/month, no strings attached.
Could earn more if she did jobs.
We also pay for the phone (? £7), bus fares, lunches
I will pay for a day out, but those aren't many, and I limit the amounts.
I pay for shampoo, but not makeup or body mist.
We are in heavy negotiations now about "I need clothes" request... I will pay some she doesn't need anything

[lljkk]

ps; DS17 is in the Army so we pay for the odd meal out when he visits! That's it.

[wonderingstar01]

My DD (16) gets £50 from me for essentials which she can use for her phone, Netflix, whatever she wants. She also works Saturdays and earns £250 a month from that job so pretty much buys what she needs from that. I only buy her something when I have a good week at work!

[MollyHuaCha]

Goodness. Which Saturday job pays £250 a month?! In my area the 16 yr old are earning £4.05 an hour.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

I'll start by saying that my two aren't really sociable. They are 17 and 16. They get their phone plus £50 a month (just gone up from £40). They take a packed lunch for school. They might get a couple of pound each for buying crap at the weekends. Same during holidays, I'll leave a few quid in a bowl, sometimes a fiver. They pop any change back in the bowl and I'll top it up.

I wouldn't be funding them to go into town and eat shit every day during the holidays. I'd give them a bit extra in the bowl if they had something arranged such as cinema or town but not for everyday. That's what the money they get every month is for if they want extras.

I wouldn't treat myself to lunch out with my friends every day.

[Frequency]

14 year old gets:

£5 a week off Gran
£5 a week off me.
£10 a month on her itunes account off Aunt.

I offered her more but made it clear that meant she'd be responsible for buy all non-essential cosmetics and toiletries (eg all the hair colours she loves and fancy conditioners and shampoos and sprays etc) she opted to stick with her £10 a week.

Her lunch account is topped up as and when she needs it but that's not often due to personal issues. I'd limit it to £15 a week if I needed to.

Her phone (a gifted iPhone 6) is £20 a month and is paid by me one month and her dad the next month.

[Aducknotallama]

My ds is 16, he gets £100 a month allowance, phone paid and the gym. school bus is free. He gets £10 a day during the holidays but is rarely but 7 days a week. He can't get a job as is at school Mon-Sat and has fixtures Sat afternoons and Sun mornings. For this he does chores, dog walking etc.

[WillowWeeping]

My 13 yr old gets £100 a mth allowance

We recently moved to the allowance when I realised I was spending a fortune on clothes and she had no concept of money.

Out of that I expect her to buy all non essential clothes (I buy underwear, school uniform etc) toiletries (I buy basic skincare, deodorant, sanpro etc) and social stuff (I pay for school related clubs & riding)

She's expected to use £20 to pay for a top up on her phone and pay for Starbucks when she's out and about but to be honest if she has friends over and wants to go for pizza etc I tend to give her a bit extra.

[Katedotness1963]

My boys are 16/18. They get $200 per month. We pay for their phones, buy toiletries and they get basic clothes and shoes twice a year. Their school bus is free and they have packed lunches most days.

They would both like after school jobs but we have a problem with transportation and a language barrier.

[longestlurkerever]

Yanbu. It's good for him to realise that eating out every day isn't sustainable unless you're earning your own good money. As an occasional thing yes but like you say he turned down your offer of lunch and asked for money instead which is a bit rude when you think about it.

[dementedma]

DS is 15. He gets £20 a month and his school lunches paid. We also pay for his phone.
I expect him to look for a prt time job next year when he is 16. I buy his toiletries as part of the normal shopping, nothing fancy.

[LaughingLlama]

16yo dd gets £50pm from us.
I pay 7.50 for her sim only contract. She walks to Sixth Form, gets lunch money some days and told to make a packed lunch other days - depending on whats in the fridge.
She does ask for more or an advance some months but ita rare i relent.
She buys most of her clothes and toiletries but i do buy her san pro, school shoes/tights and odd lots of face wash/cotton pads.
Once a blue moon i might treat her to something. We had a shopping day ladt Sunday and i did treat her to spme new jeans - but that is a rare one off really.

[MajesticWhine]

My DDs get £25 a week. They spend this on non essentials: make up, clothes, Netflix, coffees and food. School lunch is provided at school. On top of that I pay for their travel cards and phones. If they have a nice birthday party to go to I help out with the gift. I think they do very well and I am a total sucker.

[Chasingsquirrels]

15yo (yr 10) ds.
£20 pm - £10 cash / £10 bank transfer. His dad (separated) also gives him pocket money.
He can take lunch from home, I think I've probably put £50 max on his school lunch card since he started yr 7.
Phone contract (£5pm).
Clubs and activities (Explorers/YL/Jogging club/Archery - these seem to have exploded recently as he has moved from Scouts to Explorers & YL and taken up Archery), probably £300 a year for subs, plus any camps etc.
We buy all clothes, toiletries etc.
He pays for his own social life, such as it is outside of his above activities.

[LaughingElliot]

I do think that £10 a day on food as a regular habit for a non earning teen is ridiculous. Once a week maybe, but daily is just so wasteful.

[ThreeMenInAGoat]

My 14yr old dd gets £40/month (£30 from us £10 from Grandma)

We pay for school dinners, phone and school bus and clothing essentials eg uniform and underwear (and the odd pair of jeans - I bought dd some jeans recently, last week she said she needed some black jeans, I said no, I had bought her a pair of jeans recently - ‘but you said you’d pair for essentials’ she cried, ‘yes’ I replied. End of conversation, and so the learning begins....).

She is expected to pay for meals out with friends, clothes, makeup etc. Budgeting is a vital lesson to learn. TBH I thought we were being quite generous, I’m not sure giving teenagers £100+ per month is going to teach them too much about budgeting but each to their own and all that.

[ByTheSea]

DD2-15 gets £15 a week but contributes £3/week to her mobile contract bill as it is that much more than I was willing to pay. I pay for the rest of her contract. She gets money for food at school as well in that I top up her catering on Parentpay whenever it gets low. I don't limit her to an amount per day but she doesn't abuse it. I always seem to be dishing out extra money for this or that but she buys makeup and some clothes and gifts for friends with her own money.

She supplements this by busking some weekends and also gets the occasional paid set/gig at pubs where she will make £10-£30. She makes a lot more per hour playing music than having a min wage job and enjoys it as well.

[Theworldisfullofidiots]

15 year old.
£25 per month plus extra if going out occasionally.
Taxied everywhere.
Drama paid for - about £450 a term.
Phone paid for.
Sometimes I buy her friends bday presents if I see something.
Buy her clothes.

[Oblomov17]

Ds 13 seems to want to eat out all the time. All of them do. They seem deluded about how much money we have!

I talk to him about this. It seems to make no difference.