Is this a reasonable allowance for 15yo

[Randomeemoh]

Hi there

I am thinking of adjusting my 15 yo son’s allowance to £25 pw (from £10 pw) to help him learn how to budget. Does this seem reasonable?

He would need to cover all non school clothes / shoes, travel and spending money for days out with friends, presents for friends and family, and other non essential items.

We would still buy school uniform, music lessons, basic toiletries, basic school supplies. He would still get Christmas and birthday on top so could opt for presents or money then. Once GCSEs are out of the way we do expect him to get a part time job, but would keep giving him

Just wondered if this seems reasonable. He is expected to keep his room tidy, do the drying up, and help round the house when needed from time to time.

thanks!

It doesn’t seem like enough to me.

He shouldn’t have to use it for clothes and shoes! £25pw is reasonable if it’s for being social with.

I also think £25 is ok, (but not great), and definitely shouldn’t include non school clothes. . So I guess it depends if you can afford more or not. You can’t give him what you haven’t got. But equally, if you can afford it, I’d up it to £50.

To cover his socialising and some little bits here and there. But to cover clothing and gifts? Not enough.

If he wanted a pair of jeans that would be about 2 weeks worth of pocket money. Or a t shirt. If he wanted branded stuff even more.

I would increase and say that’s for clothing and spends and if there is something you particularly need we will give you more.

DS is older at college and gets £100/month and we pay for
phone
bus pass
most Clothing
packed lunch/snacks
toiletries

My 16yo gets £40 per month. I pay for travel that I deem essential / important; I pay for all clothing / shoes I deem essential / important; I pay basic SIM; I pay for food (including lunch at school); I pay for toiletries I choose and deem essential: DC buys anything I consider frivolous, including sweeties and any expenses created by hanging out with friends. In other words, as the parent I provide the necessities within the budget I have. I buy basic deoderant, but I do not buy body sprays and I do not buy makeup or hairspray or ...

DC are still budgeting. They saved up several £100 to buy something they really wanted.

What does your DS think? I would work it out in collaboration with him, and obvs taking your household income into account.

Not enough if he’s buying clothes and shoes with it. Id up it or you cover basic clothes and shoes so a few outfits and a pair of shoes and he can add on if he wants to using his allowance money.

I agree with this OP ..
My youngest is 15 , well to be honest she gets a diff amount each weekend 🤷🏻‍♀️..
like yesterday eve she went ice skating so she had 35 , we live in Ireland, 14 for 1 hour skating & 21 for McDonald’s & drink & sweets ..
With nothing on though she would have 20 on a sat if she was going down town with her Friends for a walk, & 💯 is not expected to budget for clothes or shoes out of it !.

This is interesting. We have started giving DD 15 80pm to cover clothes, shoes, make up and snacks etc. she buys a lot on Vinted and sells stuff too so brings in a little bit. We have noticed she is much more careful about buying things now it’s her own money!!

we give her money for going out if it’s planned and we are aware - so she may go out for dinner with a friend.

she has friends with no budget - they use their parents credit card and Amazon account and even she has said she wouldn’t want that!

I give my 15 yo DTs £100 a month but I will buy larger clothing items and shoes separately.

I do not buy makeup / Starbucks / sweeties / ridiculous junk food / Primark and Amazon nonsense, they have to use their own funds for that. Both have part time jobs as well.

We have our 15 year old £50 a month and he could earn more through chores. We covered all clothing, shoes, phone and toiletries. He’s now 16 and got a part time job and still gets his allowance and we still cover the same stuff.

I think it depends how much you can afford too. We do a similar amount for our DD but cover clothing basics (in & out of school), toiletries, phone contract etc If she wants branded items she can use her allowance, ask for them for birthdays or Christmas or she can have the amount we’d spend on basics then top it up from her money. Makeup, perfumes etc are up to her to buy.

It does give them an idea of the value of money and has curtailed the frivolous Shein spending.

It’s enough but if you want to teach him budgeting pay it monthly. He presumably already has a full wardrobe so he doesn’t NEED much.
I paid travel for mine and gave them €70. All toiletries come in a monthly subscribe and save order from Amazon.
Christmas stockings have a lot of pants, socks, vests in. More practical than pointless shit.

If he's going to be paying for all his own stuff, then no £25 a week will not be enough. He'll need at least double that amount, possibly triple.

Think about how much you currently spend on his shoes, clothes, snacks, bus and train fares, trips out etc in a typical year (everything that you currently pay for but that you now want him to budget for and pay for himself). Then divide that total by 12 and give him a monthly allowance.

Going against the grain, my teens get £45 a month. Yes a month. They buy their own clothes, personal stuff and pay for their own socialising.

I pay for basic Sims for phones (£6 a month ones), school uniform and essentials eg one pair of decent shoes.

They not only manage fine with this budget but they also manage to save a little.

The older 2 shop mainly on Vinted or in charity shops which helps. One has a weekly Gregg's habit and a book habit but manages her budget well.

I should probably pay the youngest less, they "shop" by raiding all the outgrown clothes from their siblings and then spends their allowance on crap!

Not going to get reasonable shoes/clothes for that.

My teen gets £50 pm but I pay for everything except sweets/chocolate. I pay cinema, lunches, all clothing, bowling, snacks and meals out, cards and gifts he chooses for others. At 18 he will get £100 pm and pay for socialising. Whilst he's in education I will pay for all clothing, travel and phone SIM.

Same - although marginally less! DS now has a PT job and has asked us to put his old allowance into a pension 🤯 DD has a paper round that tops up a bit and she buys clothes for. Vinted. No one needs to constantly be buying clothes anyway.

Mine gets £150 and that covers everything including gym, phone, clothes and trainers.

DS2 is 15 and gets £100 a month.

This is just for socialising, we pay for everything else

You must be spending more than that on him today?

to make it a really useful exercise you should talk to him about how much you have spent on him over the last month / season / year and talk about how much of it is discretionary spend versus necessary and how much you expect to spend In the next few months.

then discuss how much he wants to spend on gifts, clothes, eating out, socialising, gaming and so on.

and then negotiate with him an amount and agree to review it every month. He can then discuss his proposal for the month ahead and you can provide feedback based on what you expect is coming up (for example if you know he is about to grow out of his trainers, you can discuss how much you will pay and have a generally grown up convo)

FWIW if he was in a particular vulnerable cohort of students he could be entitled to a bursary of £1,200 a year at 6th form to cover food travel and books. As well as UC and accommodation grant.
and you would be receiving child benefit too. Which is around £26 for the first child.

Budgeting is interesting. I sat down with my older teen and we wrote everything out and worked out how much to budget per month. So we said if he buys a new phone very 3 years and spends £200 on it and maybe new headphones every 3-5 years then how much per month should he be putting into a "tech replacement" pot to make sure he can replace things if they break? Then how many pairs of trousers, tops and shoes does he buy annually? So how much needs to go on a clothes pot? And so on including things like X box subscriptions. He then set up a Monzo account with pots and started a higher interest savings account and puts money in to long term savings each month and then his pots for things.

This is my older teen who has a job in addition to allowance. I appreciate that my younger teens who don't have jobs can't save to this extent with their £45 a month allowance.

I'm amazed at how much some of the teens on this thread get. Mine all have a perfectly good social life and buy clothes, books, birthday presents for friends etc on far, far less!

40euro a month for mine but same I buy everything here to include snacks and things too, I let him use his cash for his own stuff like gaming or temu shops or whatever. He has bought clothes online himself with his money but I dont feel right about it. Maybe stems from my own childhood but I pay for everything for all three of my kids and then give them 40/60/80euro each (3 kids diff ages) for their own spends which I think is fair. They do a lot of stuff in the house for it it has to be said.