Do you think this monthly allowance is reasonable?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

Dd (14.5) gets £50/month. This includes going out, non essential clothes and friends’ presents.

We pay for anything to do with school, essential items such as underwear and pyjamas, big items such as coats and we pay for her phone.

Dd is moaning. She loves clothes but I’ve pointed out she needs to learn to budget and leave some money for the end of the month.

Just trying to work out if the amount is reasonable.

Bloody hell! In the late 1990s I got £15 per week for all clothes, spending, travel etc. But we were poor and I got my clothes from the local market and if I wanted a band teeshirt from HMV I’d save up for a few months.

@lookingforadvice21 that amount spent on clothing for teens is ridiculous! Most families would not be able to afford a £500 designer item!

Teens are lucky these days there are lots of trendy retailers selling clothes at reasonable prices. I don’t want dd to feel she has nothing to wear, seriously she has a full wardrobe of clothes! But I do want her to realise that you can’t buy everything you want and if she wants a more expensive item she has to not buy other things or save up. What sort of life lesson are you teaching them if they think money grows on trees?

Love to know where these places are that take 14 year olds these days!

Trouble with this thread is that you get answers from people from all sorts of backgrounds. If you move in circles where your child (e.g. )meets friends in a coffee shop 2 or 3 times a week and spends £20 on friend's gifts (as suggested by a PP) then £50 won't go far. If none of their friends have much money and socialising is hanging out in each other's houses maybe going out to buy a drink from Poundland and you spent a few pounds on each others presents then it goes quite a long way. I don't spend £50 on myself in a month, so I don't expect my teens to do so. £50 is tight if she has to buy most clothes though - I'd be tempted to extend your list of "basic clothing" - and she can "top up" things like basic tops if she wants.

I agree that it's hard to get a job until you are 16.

Utterly mis-typed. Of course I got £5 per week in the 1990s and not £15.

Since it's hard to get a job at that age, and you can afford a bit extra, how about offering extra chores for cash?

Mow the lawn, hoover the house, clean the bathroom, wash the car £5 each, or whatever is reasonable for the amount of time it would take to do the chore.

You could also offer cash for study, like compete all the optional extra exercises from your book this week and get £5. It depends what what study work she has to do already of course.

The way I currently look at it is that school plus homework is getting on for a 8.5-9 hour day five days a week plus half a day at weekends..

That’s ‘work’ enough or me (with a bit of pitching in at home).

If £50 is what you can afford, it’s fine. Otherwise I’d imagine it’s a bit on the low side.

Can you sit down with DD and go through what you each think is reasonable in terms of expenditure- how many times a week going out, what it costs each time, what she might spend on clothes, how many presents she’s buying etc. Once you’ve got a total figure, work out between you whether it’s feasible for her to earn some of if herself, whether you can give it to her or whether she’s going to have to cut back. This process will be helpful for her and I think will end up at a fairer figure than just pulling a number out of the air.

FWIW, I was getting £25/week at that age, in the 90s. This was at boarding school so I probably had more expenses- had to cover all toiletries even toothpaste, tampons etc, any food outside meals and so on.

It's what Dd got.
Non essentials, going out, gifts for friends at birthdays/Christmas.

We paid for most clothes tbh, even non-essentials really. We also paid for her phone, etc. And if a big expense came we would help towards it.

It was very much in line with what her friends were getting.

@traumatisednoodle

I think the EMA is a useful guide £30 per week. So that's what the government thinks is reasonable.

But you have to bear in mind that amount is designed to cover all their costs, not just socialising and non essentials. It's supposed to cover travel, food during the day at college, phone costs, clothing (not just non essentials) and more.

My daughter has £100 a month to buy non essential clothes, make up and to pay for going out. We pay for school food, phone, toiletries and essential clothes and shoes.

Until I changed job recently I only had about £50-£75 to myself at the end of the month once all the bills for accommodation, transport, food, phones, tv licence, insurances, council tax, medication, private counselling, etc were paid.

So although it doesn’t seem much to herself, in the real world for an adult, sadly that’s the reality for many of us.