Monthly Allowance & Bank Account for 14 year old Boy

[wackyraces]

Was thinking of opening a cash card account for my soon to be 14 DS1 for his birthday & pay in a monthly allowance.

Who is the best bank to open an account with?

How much is allowance is reasonable, I was thinking £25 per month as he already earns about £12 a week from paper round & £5 per month from taking my mums dustbin in everyweek.

And what do I say this money is for?

Advice would be very welcome as a dont want to come across as out of touch when telling my son if that makes sense

what an interesting thread this has turned into! I am almost 50 (yikes) and as a teen I got 50p a week pocket mooney if I was lucky. For that I had to cook Saturday Lunch (which was dinner if you see what I mean) as my mum went to work and so did my dad on (sat mornings) and watch my smaller sister - this from age 11! When I was 15 I got a saturday job and stayed there until the end of term before A levels. I loved that job (in Boots) and got £7.25 a day. I did extra in the holidays. I stayed there through the first year at Uni in the hols and thereafter worked sats and mons at a west end store throughout my degree. My mum and dad had to ocntribute £50 a term to my grant but hardly ever could actually afford to so i realy needed the money. As a teen I also did a wierd job for my dad winding coils with insulating tape (for car engines i think) and also worked in a factory taking labels off tins that had gone out of date and relabelling them to be sold on market stalls. I loved doing all of this - it gave me money that my mum and dad could never have given me as they were such low income. They bought me one outfit a year plus any uniform I needed and one pair of shoes a year. And that was it, honest, and it was the norm i am fairly sure back then. As a child we went on holiday 4 times. My kids get 3 hols a year (2 of them are dsc and get hols with both sets of parents which again i struggle with teh excess of somehow, so many kids have nothing after all).
So I would like my kids to be able to be self sufficient too. To be able to work and to be able to handle money and understand that it doesnt just come from a hole in the wall. My dh comes from a much more privileged family and never worked at all until he left uni and didnt actually start work until eth age of 28 as he did post grad stuff. Each summer vac he travelled around Europe for his degree course and basically lived off his parents. He has a stange attitude(to me) to work and money and I struggle with that sometimes, I am so working class !! I dont mind people being richer than me (I choose not to work full time having previously been a high flyer but jumped off it)but i do worry about the ethics of 'giving' so much money to kids.

I worked in a pub when I was 15 in the late 80's and earned £35 per week. Looking back I was chuffin loaded!

How much pocket money should I pay my 8 week old? I don't know what the going rate is for babies but I've got a feeling I'm not paying it!
I suggested to my parents that I was thinking of having the child benefit paid straight into her savings account and they were horrified at such extravagance. I thought that a lot of people probably do that?

we couldnt manage withour spending the chb on household things

Sarahjct...putting the child ben away in a savings account is a great idea if you can afford it..it'll come for university fees/wedding etc when she's older.

It doesn't have to be an account in her name, although she wouldn't pay tax on it if it was in her name of course (I think the tax limit is about £100/year interest??)

Or an ISA account in yours or dh's name?

If I had my time over again, I wouldn't have been as extravagent on toys etc when dds were small - we bought them way too much and a lot of things were just given away afterwards having never been played with.

DS 12 has his own cash card and £12 a month, he gets his phone paid but it's payg and he doesn't use it that much. We give him extra for snacks at school etc and I usually buy him a Top Gear Magazine every month.

Bumping this up again.
For those of you whose dcs have cash/debit cards, can they use them for internet purchases or is it limited (like my sis's Electron card)?
My ds is disabled and doesn't have as much opportunity to hit the shops, but he does rack up the bills on my credit cards with his internet purchases, then refuses to reimburse me.
Can anyone recommend an account?

I think with Natwest & HSBC bank accounts you can use their cards on the internet. Have a look on their websites as I am sure I have seen it.

best of luck

Um, I don't recall stating the conclusion of our money wars - whether he paid me back or not.
But, um, thanks for your advice.

Helliebean, does your DD pay her own rent?

That is, after all, the biggest outgoing by far.

And if she doesn't, student loan gives her about £85 a week spending money, even including all those many weeks outside term time.

I wish I had that much to spend just on me!

Slacksally... I pay daughters Uni rent but she has student loan and pays for food, drink, and living! It is just over £1,000 a term but she has to feed herself on that and pay for books and general living expenses. For me, it was by far the best way to do it, rather than give her an allowance, and use the student loan to pay for rent. This way, she has to budget or she doesn't eat!
She tops it up by working in the hols.

We stopped paying DD1's allowence when she got a part time job. Then when she went to uni we paid her rent( she was in halls and rent included utility bills) and tuition fees.
She is now in her third and final year. We pay her tuition fes and part of her rent. She uses her student loan and job earnings for all other stuff which includes eletric and water bills.She is getting married next year so is also saving for her wedding.

THis threas is really interesting. I rememeber my allowenece at 13 Which paid for everythig bar school uniform and winter coat. However we didn't have itunes (We used to tape of the top 40!) and mobiles to pay for. ATM my kids are 7 and 9 and I am already teaching them the value of money. If they get money as a present and decide to put some in savings, I will match what they put in. This year they got £15 each from my brother, and put £5 each intothe bank, so I doubled it to £10.

They also worked out with £10 each, and a game taken BACK To GAME and some additional points we got for buying a ds in the first place, they could do 'buy one get one free' and BOTH get a new DS game for £10 each!!! RESULT

What a mixed bag of responses! I was hoping for some guidance, but am still no clearer.

I have a somewhat troublesome teen, who supposedly gets £10 per week. I really have a problem with this as she is rude and stroppy 90% of the time, only showing her most amiable side when she wants something! Its me me me, can I have can I have can I have almost constantly. Last summer she got herself a seasonal job for about 4 hrs a week which she enjoyed, esp on pay day, but lost it through being slack and late/not turning up.

I despair! I WANT to give her allowance but baulk at doing so for NOTHING in return, not even a pleasant face or word!

Teens! My under 5s are SO SO much easier!

DS (14) gets £3/week, when I remember to pay him (he nevers asks for it), and DD gets £2. We pay for clothes, books, cinema, school lunch. They earn a little from singing in the church choir. Both always seem to have money.