How much monthly allowance do you give your teenager?

[mismomary]

Our eldest DD is 17 and in sixth form. Last year we started her on a monthly allowance but it's not working. She's really down about money, says she hasn't enough to buy Christmas presents for friends or clothes. We give her £80pm and pay for phone, gym, and basic toiletries. (Rule is if Tesco stock it she can have it). Clothes I buy the basics.

She's been trying to get a job but struggling, has applied to local pubs and supermarkets etc.

I'm starting to think we have got this allowance totally wrong and she should be on more like £200pm or more. We can easily afford this but don't want to be over generous as want her to learn to budget and value money etc But perhaps we've gone too far the other way.

I'd be grateful to know what you give. Maybe we are way off!!

My 16 year old dd gets £60 month for birthday presents for her friends, money to go out for coffees, books, make up etc she tutors maths in our neighbourhood, so tops it up that way. I cover her for supermarket toiletries and clothes a few times a year. Like lots of other parents I want her to value money so don’t want to give too much.

£20 a week is quite good but of course not much.
what will she give you when she starts working and still leave at yours? If you give her more now…what will be the incentive of her going to work if she then have to give you all to you?

keep the £80, she needs a work and then she can participate in the house bills…

DS 17 gets his standard £20 per month that he's had for a few years, plus now he's in college gets the cost of his bus (£30 per week) into his hand and it's up to him if he walks or gets the bus.... any socialising comes out of that.
I pay for clothes, toiletries, extracurriculars, phone etc

DS 17 gets his standard £20 per month that he's had for a few years, plus now he's in college gets the cost of his bus (£30 per week) into his hand and it's up to him if he walks or gets the bus.... any socialising comes out of that.
I pay for clothes, toiletries, extracurriculars, phone etc

Wow how times have changed. I got zero unless I did jobs around the house and I actually had a part time job at 16. I got to keep the money I earned and that was it. I would get slipped a fiver here and there but I didn’t get any pocket money at all.

DD is at college, doing A-levels.
She gets £200 a month and bus fare/ phone paid for. We pay for driving and singing lessons, and a tutor.
She earns an extra £30 a week doing maths tutoring for two local kids.
She is very careful with money. She packs lunch for college most days and has lunch out once a week. She buys clothes now and again and outings with friends tend to be cheap- cinema, mini golf, galleries etc.
DD does not spend her whole allowance and puts most of it into her Stocks and Shares ISA, which she manages herself. I know she is saving to go to a festival and camping with friends this summer too.
She has two voluntary jobs (tutoring refugee children and at a local museum.) She’s a dream at home, cooks once a week and helps with dogs/laundry. I’d rather she focused on her volunteering, uni applications and studies than got a job at this point.

Upper 6th - We pay for phone and car purchase (they pay running costs including insurance) Part time job and savings. We give £200 per month

Haha when I saw the questions what does he spend his money on I instantly thought Nandos...obvs. 😀
There's always teenagers having a nandos!

Get her to sit down and write out an itemised budget she can put on weekly monthly and annual expenses so she can include friends birthday Christmas social clothes etc. You then review it with her to make sure it is reasonable and then you divide the total annual amount by 12. The onus is still on her to budget as she only has Christmas presents once a year but there will be a monthly amount she needs to save. Once amount is agreed look at some responsibilities she can take on to earn her allowance. Maybe she cooks a family meal on a Saturday evening or she is responsible for hoovering and dusting the house once a week whatever and how much you feel appropriate for the amount of money but just so she is not getting money for nothing.

I’m really short changing my 13 year old then, she gets £5 a week for doing the washing up 😱

I know I'm going back almost two decades, but I started giving my son £50 per month when he was 10.
I bought all toiletries, school uniforms, underwear, shoes etc, but if he wanted any other clothes, sweets, games etc, he was responsible for buying them.
This was all started as a way to teach him how to budget, as well as me being fed up him asking for a PlayStation game (£35-40) every week while we were shopping in Tesco.
By the time he was 17 and at college, his allowance had risen to £125 per month, on top of his child benefit (so probably around £190 total).
He's now 29, amazing with money, always looks for voucher codes or buys in sales, and is amassing a very healthy savings account.
So, based on my latest figures being 12 years old, I'd say that a 17yr old (in education) today would probably need at least £300 per month to do what we did back in 2013.

£80 both sixth form ones at boarding school overseas (by choice!) and one can walk to college. My mum gives them equivalent a month and their dad’s mum gives them £50 a month. Eldest doesn’t get topped up as the school they wanted is very expensive. Youngest I’ll pay for hair cuts / travel if they ask which is rare.

Our girls, now 42, 40 and 38 all got Saturday jobs. They would go into town and walk along the promenade asking at the hotels for jobs . They would go into the 2 main shopping streets asking in the shops, the cafes and fish&chips shops for work. They all landed work through sheer persistence. By the time they went off to Uni they had covered most job opportunities between them such as shop assistants, waitressing, serving fish and chips, lifeguarding, working at the Maize Maze which for my eldest included painting murals showing scenes of our locality and walking donkeys on the beach. The youngest even had a small job reviewing clothes at the headquarters ( happens to be in our local town) of a well known clothing chain store. She was allowed to choose an item of clothing each time.
I do know it is very, very hard for youngsters to get jobs now but, in the day, persistence paid off for our daughters.
We did help them though when they went to Uni and when buying their first homes.

My 17 year old gets £200 pm. We pay for phone, driving lessons and most clothes, etc (not party stuff). They have to buy their school lunch. They manage very well. I’m not keen on them having a job, I’d rather they study, so they have jobs at home which I make sure they do.

My daughter was in a class at college where almost all of the other students got ESO of £30 a week. Don’t know if this is still a thing. Anyway she was livid that because we weren’t on benefits she couldnt get it so we paid her the £30 a week ourselves. This was when she was 16/17 and she’s 35 now so a long time ago when £30 meant something!

My 17/18 yr old got 15 a werk and if she wanted to buy school lunches it came out of that. All phone, transport, driving lessons and essential clothes paid for by us - she had to use it to buy stationery and presents for friends, and she got job in the pub.
I dont really see why she should get given money to do things we cant afford to do ourselves.

My DS turned 16 in August and started sixth form in Sept. I was thinking of giving him the child benefit (£112 pm) however I'm paying spotify, mobile phone, gym membership and around £1k per year transport to six form. So his money has,stayed at £25 per month but he had a lump sum for each GCSE over grade 4. Yesterday he went to a school fair and sold his old Lego, and hes set up a Vinted account to sell more of his old books and toys. He tried to look for a job but no luck yet. They all want more hours than he can do. I might put it up but I paid a £250 deposit for a school trip to Berlin yesterday 🤣

We tried giving my twins pocket money years ago and it never happened, and they are now 17 in yr 13. We live in the back of beyond so they can't get public transport so no regular job, although both do ad hoc things for people to earn small amounts. We pay for essential clothes and meals out etc but if they want anything else they use their own money.

We bought their phones (refurbished from ebay) and pay for DS's payg (about £30 pa). DD has a £10 pm contract for Xmas each year. We have bought them each a car and will insure it when they pass, and have already spent over £1K on lessons (both failed first time). So we pay for stuff, but don't give them an allowance.

They aren't really into stuff and we always discuss anything before they buy. Occasional trips with friends involve buying food and drink but it's not that often. I can't imagine what they would spend £100 pm on if not driving lessons and phones?

Dd has a friend who works a lot at weekends and spends it all on (cheap) clothes and handbags etc. She saves nothing. I think a lot of youngsters nowadays can't see any hope of getting on the housing ladder so just blow it all. And jobs are hard to get. I just don't know the best way to support them in this weird new world....

My chikd is now 30 but i used to hand over the monthly family allowance x

Mine both get £10 a week from me and then £35 a month from grandparents. This is enough for the 16 year old but the 13 year old burns through it pretty quickly. Agree it’s not actually much. Youngest likes to go out with friends but eldest’s is autistic and doesn’t socialise. She tends to save it and suddenly has money to buy something nice.

Jobs seem hard to come by here. Especially turning 16 at the end of the summer holidays meant she lost out on the jobs market. Not many places take under 16s unless it’s a family friend’s business and you are let in to sweep floors in hairdressers or wash pots in food places. 16 year old also has hobbies which link to their future career which I pay for and which mean that she doesn’t actually have the time for fitting in a job. That and a volunteer role once per week as well.

13 year old actually puts a lot of hours in volunteering at her hobby some evenings and weekends. Hoping it gets her the experience she needs for a paid job at 16 at the same place if one comes up. Definitely has a good work ethic. She’s just listed loads of clothes on Vinted as well. She buys off Vinted too. They both do.

I buy all their uniform, toiletries, phones, lunch monies etc. Youngest is too nice though and always wants to buy presents for friends birthdays and Christmas. We e tried many ways to get her to save but it just goes.

I can’t really afford much extra though as their hobbies add up and I’m a single parent. I actually offered to put 16 year old’s up when she started college but she refused to let me.

I guess you pay what you can afford. Both my kids have friends who don’t get pocket money but who get cash handed or transferred when they go shopping or to meet friends. Others do have pocket money but never got to know how much.

£150. We paid phone, hair appointments, expensive clothes/shoes like coats and boots. This covered food outside of home, travel to college and fun money, online shopping (vinted etc)
Never linked to chores, bu

But DD always helpful around the house and did whatever jobs she was asked to do.

DD is also 17 and in sixth form. I give her £5 per week plus her bus fare and lunch for sixth form and we also provide most clothes and all toiletries. If she wants something herself she can get it as she has a small job, just 3 hours a week at £12 ish an hour but it covers her occasional lunch out and small gifts for friends etc.

Edited to add: most of her friends have jobs as well, the one who doesn’t have a job her parents pay for everything and this has made
her into a bit of a “princess”, for example, she refuses to get a bus anywhere and last time they went out and her parents couldn’t pick her up she got a £25 uber home and tried to talk the others into sharing it with her (they couldn’t afford it as only had their £1 for the bus). Her attitude to money does not go down well with them! They have been friends for years and will always include her but it is noticed in their friend group.

Yes, my youngest, now 38, had college students in her class who received that benefit. What made the system even less fair was because those on the benefit, if they turned up each day and worked hard , were given an extra money for doing so. My daughter always turned up and always worked very hard, she too was livid.

All the major supermarkets take under 18s and there are vanishingly few that aren't part of major chains these days.