Do you give money for food each time your teen is out?

[AIU]

Random one but having recently added up how much I have given my teen I've realised I cannot keep this up!

My son is 14, during the holidays did the odd day at home but mostly out with friends, at the park, football, cinema and into town. I would give him a little money each day but obv buying food and drinks etc when out all adds up. At the same time it's not cool for him to take a packed lunch, occasionally he would leave after lunch. He would normally take snack bars and a bottle of water but he is also diabetic so balancing food is a little more difficult for him and he needs to eat a lunch ideally. What do your teens do? Or do you just give money everyday for lunch and if so how much?

It is mostly 16 for a pt job and even then, finding a job is hard enough. Ds is 17 and earns extra money as he just started as a KP about 6 weeks ago. He also receives £20pw from his nan on top of his £100 from me pm so I think he's doing pretty well.

He gets DLA to help with the extra costs of living with a disability and in his case, that’s paying for food to keep his levels right. I don’t think it’s really fair to say he can’t have at least some of it especially when his siblings are having money spent on them for activities. Socialising is his activity at 14!

If he is out with friends locally and chooses to eat out, I expect DS to use his pocket money (£11 a week) There is always plenty of food and snacks in the house so he can eat before he leaves or take something with him but he chooses not to. I can't afford to pay for lunch out every day of the holidays.

Sometimes if I haven't been shopping and there is nothing easy for him to prepare himself when I am at work, I will give him an extra couple of quid for Greggs or a meal deal, but this is occassional, not the norm!

I remember when I went out at his age with my mates, my mum would give me £2.50 and I'd get bag of chips and a juice and keep the change and save it up. My DD is nearly 10 and goes along to the park with her friends. There is a wee Chinese next to it and across is the shop and a wee cafe. I generally make her eat before she goes out but will give her £2 if she's going out for a drink. She saves her change and on a Saturday will get chips from the Chinese. Or go to the cafe for some chips. It makes me laugh and reminds me of my younger days. X

@Idratherbepaddleboarding I would love to give him his DLA but unfortunately that goes towards bills, I actually pay for quite a lot of his equipment myself that isn't covered by nhs - a dexcom alone is £140ish a month, glucose tablets £18 a month, extra money for suitable snacks over what I would normally buy etc it soon gets eaten up, throw in a cost of living crisis on one income, loss of income due to having to go and pick him up from school (at one point this was weekly) prob 1 time a month now. I probably don't even break even some months.

I can't afford to eat out everyday, I do pay for the other kids to do activities occasionally - actually everything we did in the holiday was things I have a pass too so didn't cost apart from food so the first week we had an ice cream and a costa, the second week a tesco meal deal and a milkshake. So that was about £7 a week per child.

No, at 14 mine had a paper round putting £30/wk into their pockets.

Plus they could earn more doing jobs around the house. Just giving them money was never a thing.

Mine had a basic rate of pocket money but then could earn more for jobs. They also could make their own packed lunches if they could be bothered and thus have their lunch money.

Everything except toiletries, school clothes, coats and shoes had to be budgeted from this.

No, I've never done this.
Am really surprised how many people have this much money to spare.

If my dc wanted to eat out, it was a special treat. Same as it is / was for us.
They can eat before they go / when they get in, or take food with them.
I mean, if they chose to use some of their pocket money, that was up to them, but they didn't get enough to do this regularly - it would be if it was something the friends arranged as a birthday celebration or something.

My teenagers have £30 a month allowance, phones paid for, gym/hobbies paid for. So if they want food whilst out and about it needs to come from that £30. I do buy plenty of pizza and ice pops during the summer so they can have friends over and eat here. Last summer was lovely working from home, looking out of my window and seeing a garden full of bikes. Maybe try and steer things that way?

Plus I’m lucky my dc seem to have made friends either poor enough to understand or rich enough to treat everyone in the group.

I do sometimes but my son was saving it up to buy drink at the weekend! He would just skip lunches. He's 16 now and this means I give him as little as possible when out

We also pay for phone, music lessons, driving lessons, travel pass, essential clothes and lunches at college. Figure that the £100 spends we give him plus pocket money from his Nan and Saturday job is enough to socialise with.

Lol mine are aged 26-37... they used to get pack up and it was fine! McDs was a treat and Nando's a meal out now!!
I'd have needed £20 a day, £140 a week to fund a fiver a day each!! 🤣🤣🤣