Pocket Money

[Lex345]

I know this is "how long is a piece of string" kind of thing, but how much pocket money do you give your DCs?
I pay for phones, spotify, x box live and sporadic treats when I can afford to as well-but I give £100/month to DS16 (at college), £10/week to DD14 (who also has a paper round) and DS12 £8/week. Is this about average?

My 13&14 yr old get £20 a week, a phone contract, Xbox live. I pay for their activities. They don’t need more yet as don’t have much of a social life. Ds spends his on sweets/pens and dd saves hers.

Timely thread. DH and I were just discussing. DS 14 gets £35 a month and his phone paid, I think it's a bit light now he's socialising a bit more etc.

Interesting, im wondering if perhaps I am being a bit mean with DD then, perhaps need to up hers a little. Thanks for sharing!

DS (16) gets £100 a month but has to pay for any lunches at school if he wants to buy and also the bus. He's at the same school as dd but I do the school run on her timetable and if he chooses not to come with us then he gets the bus. We pay for his phone on top. We only put it up from £45 a month when he started sixth form though.

Dd (13) gets £30 a month. This is just for pure personal spends though. It'll go up to £35 per month when she turns 14. We pay her phone too.

Mine got £40 not so long ago. And Saturday jobs, which is research proven to develop study skills and ability. Can't remember source, sorry, but it was a competent study.

Wow, some of your kids get loads. I give 12 year old dd 15 a month (this month I gave her 30 as she helped to look after her brother when we went away) but I buy most of her clothes, pay for her phone and give her a few quid spending money when she goes out.I have been thinking of just giving her a much higher blanket amount to get all clothes (besides uniform) and trips out with her friends etc. she doesn’t go out much but I guess/hope she’ll socialise more in a few months to a year.

actually I will definitely do this, having just re-read your posts I think I’m being a bit stingy! 🤣 I should add that the kids get quite a lot of birthday money that they spend gradually on things they want, too.

@BrutusMcDogface its so hard to balance isnt it-because on the one hand you want them to have fun but I do think its important they learn budgeting skills too. DS16 learned the hard way last month (first time I have given him the whole month in one go), but I feel like its a safe space for them to learn budgeting (obviously would never let any of them go without essentials-we pay for all essential toiletries, clothing etc)

I think I will up DDs a bit though. To be fair she does work hard for not very much money on her paper round.

Wow - some of your kids are loaded haha. Makes me look stingey! My eldest (15) gets £15 a week but does all the families ironing and helps me out with little jobs like sorting out food shop delivery and taking little ones swimming every week. And other teenager (13) gets £5 a week. They get £10 a month each top up on their phones but anything else they pay for. They are really good at saving for things they want (a good quality I think) and the eldest is looking for a weekend job but struggling at mo as everyone wants them over 16 where we are.

Just to clarify - I obviously take the little ones swimming, she comes along each week with us to help out in changing rooms just to make it easier 😂😂

My 17 ds has no motivation to do anything but hang out with his mates and sit on his computer all day. He is in his final year of A levels and just doesn’t have a plan. His predicted grades are not good and we worry that he will wake up one day and all his friends will have gone to uni. We are really supportive helping him with his personal statement, taking him to careers fairs putting together revision plans but he just doesn’t have any momentum. Lockdown had a real effect and we were devastated to find he’d been self harming so we took our foot off the accelerator, gave him support and space to talk. We have given him as much privacy as possible and Kept a calm house and it seems to have stopped so we were relieved it didn’t manifest into something far more serious. He has always been the kid at the back, a bit peripheral but he has some good friends and is a lovely human but it seems like there is a disconnect in his brain. I have to remind him to do everything- shower, brush his teeth, wash his hair. How he is going to keep down a job or turn up on time for anything I have I have no idea!