Pocket money

[bobisbored]

Our boys are 15 and we currently give them £40 a month each. They can spend it on whatever they like but we have said we expect them to save some of it. They are spending most of it on crap at the corner shop! DH thinks they have too much. We are in the Midlands. They don't really go out anywhere with friends as our town centre isn't very safe! We buy their clothes unless it's something designer that they want rather than need. How much do you give your teens?

£25 A month for each of my 2. They rarely spend it though

£10 a week. I stopped with my 16 year old once he started getting ema at college. Also when he got to about 14 I stopped buying his clothes (unless he asked for an item as a birthday / Christmas present) and gave him a clothing allowance instead. He could then choose between eg lots of cheaper items or fewer but better quality / designer items. They also had their own debit cards from 11, and were allowed to shop online, so they’ve learned through that about spending / saving / budgeting / comparing prices. I think with just a few local shops to choose from they would have been more likely to fritter.

My teens get the child benefit split between them 4 weekly (about £65 each) but that’s pocket money/clothing allowance (I buy the basics) if they want to buy friends a birthday present etc

Dd 16 gets £40 per month from me, £40 per month from exh, £20 per month from her older brother, £5 per week from her older sister. I pay phone contract and for all her clothes. She spends her money on what she wants usually games.

Why do her siblings give her money?

DS1 (15) gets £15 a week. He usually spends some on food to eat with friends ( some of you probably read my post last week...) and the rest either goes on extras for one of his hobbies or he saves it so he has more during school holidays.

We pay for mobile phone contract, school uniform and basic clothing ( coats, jeans, joggers, trainers etc) if he wants something fancier than sale/ASOS own brand then I expect him to save up and contribute towards it.

He's pretty good with money generally

17yo dd gets £50 a month. I also give her £2 a day for lunch and pay her mobile phone and bus to school. I buy her most of her clothes and toiletries.

demented because they are much older than her with good salaries and spoil their baby sister I suppose. I've no idea how it started, they used to buy her toys when she was smaller then as she grew out of toys they gave her money, now ds has a standing order and dd transfers money weekly. It's just something they do.

Was just about to start a thread myself!
DS (almost 14) is now wanting endless money for socialising, buying crap, gaming etc.
I am loathe to give an allowance as he is basically lazy and never does any jobs asked of him.
We also pay his mobile contract.

But realistically he is too young to get a part time job (not helped by living in middle of nowhere) and until he's old enough have resigned myself to agreeing on allowance.

My question is, what jobs do you get your teen to do around the house and what do you do if they don't get done? (My thinking is after a week's effort it would soon slide!)

@user122397743 , my 15 year old doesn't do much routinely but I expect that if I ask him to do something he'll do it with no too much of a grumble..

Includes occasional dog walk, helping with stuff around the house - emptying bins, bringing in the shopping etc. We've recently started leaving DS2 (10) with him occasionally and I expect him to be happy with that!

Thanks Don't...
Do you give the money on a specific day and is it cash or into an account?

I pay by monthly standing order into their bank accounts

I don't routinely ask dd to do anything tbh but if I do ask then I would be far from impressed if it wasn't done or there was any complaining. It hasn't happened yet though but I suspect dd knows she has it pretty good as her closest friend has a list of chores to complete every day.

I pay by standing order monthly as well.

@user122397743 - we use an osper card and the money goes in automatically on a Friday. We've only recently started giving him a set amount, before we'd just give it to him when he asked but it started to get a little out of hand - he tends to spend it on food and was wanting more take aways than I would have liked!

Osper has a charge. I wouldn't pay for that when you can get an account with a debit card from age 11

@fleshmarketclose - DS is the same, he has friends who have a lot of chores so I think he doesn't whinge as he knows he has a good deal

Yeah there's a long story about that @dementedpixie ! I don't like the charges that Osper use - annoyingly they've just massively increased ours! However getting a standard account isn't currently an option so this is the best we can do

@dontknowwhattodo80 yes helps enormously when they can see at first hand that others have it tougher Dd's friend's mum leaves a long list of chores that have to be completed every day before she can even look at her phone, dd considers it inhumane so doesn't tend to complain if I ask her to do a job for me.

Ok, so maybe around £30 per month seems reasonable?

Thank you for posting this as been thinking about this two for our two nearly 13 yr olds. Up until now they only get £12 a month pocket money but we've then given money for trips to the cinema with friends etc and buy stuff. So thw pocket money was just to save for extras but keep trying to work out if this should change to a higher amount that they then can pay for their own outings with friends etc. Dh thinks they get enough money for this already but I don't think it's anywhere near enough