Spending money

[Rosebud2005]

How do you get your teens to regulate their spending? Ds still has a go Henry card but I’m getting him a bank card instead. It was always good as you could limit money, etc but these days he’s spending above what we even give him. I don’t know how that’s happened. Anyway I don’t care if he’s spending his own money, but I put lunch money on and his allowance. How do I get him to think about not spending the lunch money on anything other than lunch?

How old is he?

15 in a few days

Is there anyway that you can pay the lunch money directly to the school? At our school we prepay lunch money and the children can't access it for anything else.

What sorts of things is he spending on currently and does it all add up? No regular unexplained withdrawals?

Well we can but he goes out with his friends at lunch. We could have insisted but didn’t see the point. To be honest he was never a slender until this year. Just things like again going out work friends, McDonald’s. The one main thing he pays for is these in-game expenses. Buying coins etc. I don’t mind to a point but it’s not like it’s very useful lol. He enjoys it. He really doesn’t go out much at all. Won’t get into activities of any kind so like a lot of our teens just lives in his room half the time when he’s not at school. So for spending - school, gaming, meals out.

I think I'd have a chat with him in that case about what you think he should be spending his money on but at 15 he won't be the first or the last child to spend his dinner money on something else

No probably not x

Mine were terrible for spending their lunch money on other things.

That was fine - if they asked for more lunch money I made them take a packed lunch. Once the money was gone, it was gone.

I know sometimes they would skip lunch as they had spent the money but the odd skipped meal won't hurt them.

That's exactly how I treat it too Frenzi

They regulate better when they have to earn it.
Then the money starts to have value, means trade-offs in their life to make.
How much spending money are you giving him?

Well his grans always gave him money themselves but one passed away recently. We always gave him £5 allowance a week as they already gave him money but had chores given to him he could be payed for like cleaning his room, putting his clothes away, etc. he’ll only do the ones relating to his own room.. bins, dishes, kitchen, dusting etc has been left completely to me which I would cash much like some other people doing their share and don’t

My DS had a set allowance and if he chose to use his money on lunch 'out' that was up to him, there was always a packed lunch option. He also got a paper round at 13 but I appreciate that's not so easy now. He is very good at saving though, just showed me his on line savings accounts - over £15k, he is at Uni and still manages to save - we top up his maintenance loan to what the recommended allowance is so not giving him loads. He wants to buy a car and have money for a house deposit so he has got something to aim for.

Could you give them a bonus for saving?

Get him a Monzo card for lunches and his existing card for other spending?

Onyourway Hubby suggested just using the gohenry for lunch and his new bank card for allowances

I'm not sure how he's spending 'above what we're giving him' as U18s can't get credit - which is what an overdraft is, the bank lending money.

However, in terms of him choosing to spend his lunch money on something else, surely all teens go through a phase of this ?
Walk instead of spending bus fare, or spending lunch money on the bus instead of walking. Or spending lunch money on sweets or Pringles, or - dare I say - a packet of cigarettes?
Isn't this precisely why we, as parents, give them pocket money ?
So they learn that "When it's gone, it's gone" or "If you put by a bit each week it can grow nicely" etc etc?

It's one of the reasons I dislike the move away from most schools having cash in schools - it takes away that learning curve that most teens need to go through. (Yes, I know there are advantages). Choosing to spend your school lunch money as your parents intend, or in another way is the first real budgeting you do in many cases.

Instead of giving him spending money, encourage him to get a job at McDonald's. His money will mean a lot more to him if he has to earn it. And it will be good for his resume (it is hard to get a job after uni if you have zero experience working).
He should also have to help with the bins, kitchen etc just for being part of the family

Instead of giving him spending money, encourage him to get a job at McDonald's. I don't think McDonald's employ 14 or 15 year olds.

@ancientgran my first job was at McDonald's at age 14.

If ds has no money for school lunch we either give it to him but it comes off his next allowance or he makes his own packed lunch. Once they have gone hungry/find out they have no allowance the following month they learn.

If he didn't learn and continued to increase "debt", he would lose the privilege of managing his own budget (which would mean no PS5/coins or whatever) until he convinced me otherwise.

Another tactic that worked with ds was to go through his card with him and add up all the bits and pieces of money he has spent in the last 6 months on coins etc and see if he thinks the £100 (or whatever) he spent on coins and has nothing to show for it was worth it, whether he would rather have £100 in his pocket now and what he could have bought with that instead.