how much pocket money, and what do they buy themselves?

[fryalot]

Sorry, I know it's been done before, but can you all give me a brief recap:

She's 14.

How much money should we be giving her and what should she be expected to buy out of that? I am keen to get her to think about budgeting and want to give her a bit more responsibility for herself.

Specifically, who should be buying make-up and paying for hair cuts?

tia

I'm just interested Rusty.. and don't take it wrong, but could she just not work more, and you could ditch the allowance? I know there is studying to do but I know my DD would be on MSN or something if she didn't work, rather than studying if that makes sense! It sounds like your DD has the right idea about working ... they love the extra money (or at least mine do!)

Anyway, getting back to Squonk's original query - I think your idea about getting DD to write down her ideas is a good one - I did this with DD - in fact I remember we were sitting outside a cafe on the front at Rhyl, fending off seagulls who were trying to eat our chips.
Her first draft was rather over-optimistic in both the amount she thought she might get & the number of things I would still buy for her, but we eventually came to a mutually acceptable compromise.
I opened a Nationwide Smart account for DD - at the time it had the best rates of interest - she still has it, but they will probably be writing to us pretty soon pointing out that she now needs to move to an adult account.

Halifax here.. and it works OK.. but watch out when they are 18 and have to change their account. Bank chap used pressure selling to try and get DD to take on a credit card even tho she didn't want one!

The 6 hours a week is what her 6th form college recommended helliebean - they 'strongly suggested' that students should not do more (or less) - in fact she only has 2 weeks to go until she finishes school, after that the allowance is about the same amount as we'll be giving her to top up the student loan.