Reasonable pocket money for 17 year old girl

[Steppy]

My 17 yr old sd boards for 5 days a week and lives at her mums for the rest of the time. She visits us (her father, stepmum and step brother and sister a few times a year but has not stayed with us for 7 years.
We pay the school fees and her mum £3600 for her 'keep' during the holidays. Is this enough? She comes on holiday with us for one week at Christmas. She is a lovely bright girl.
Recently she asked her father for more pocket money. We asked her to write down what she was getting.
This is what we found out.
She spends between £320 and £370 per month on toiletries, perfume, going out and make up. We presume her mum pays for hair, clothes, eyebrow tints etc etc!! Her mum says she spends £14,000 a year on her.
We find this amount extraordinary. Are we behind the times?
We have a 14 yr old son who gets £25.
As our 17 year old will be going to university next can anyone give us an idea of what our budgte should be for her as we will be paying.
All suggestions appreciated!!

At 17, (couple of years ago) I was giving my DS2 £30 a week, to match what his friends were getting on EMA. That stopped as soon as he left school.

Wow...I got the fares to college, and that was it at 17. If I needed new clothes then my mum paid for them for me - but I couldn't take the piss and waltz into Topshop and spank £100 on tatt... . But the emphasis was that I should get a pt job asap!

Which I did, so that I could spend away as much as I wanted to (bar the £150 I gave to my mum x month as 'housekeeping'). But as soon as I was earning, that was it. I paid for everything I needed (bar food and bills which is what the housekeeping money went on) - toiletries, clothes, trips, bookss, CD's, cinema etc. Soon taught me how to be very, very careful

This was before the EMA so I can understand maybe giving them the same if they don't qualify.

I have spent money on the DSs in other ways; bought them each a car and a motorcycle, pay the insurance and tax on them etc. That's as much for my benefit as theirs, I got fed up being a taxi (and now they can do that for me! )

(Er, very much used cars, btw, not new!)

I was going to suggest around £150 a month - any extras to be found by working.

Then I read the OP and my jaw dropped ...

Seriously, I'd think it was just wrong to give her so much unearned money.

Who will foot the bills when she has left university? She won't have learned anything about money or how to manage it, she'll be on a low graduate starting salary and she'll rack up debts to be paid by ... You?

You could introduce Anyfucker under a psuedo name surely? I'm sure she'll behave.

She has more disposable income than I'd know what to do with.

She sounds like a spoiled brat!

17YEAR OLDS GET A JOB.

In a recession, that's not so easy...

Maybe she needs to know about the recession?

Had discussion with dh last night. Seems like parents should expect uni to cost between £9000 and £12000 per year depending on which uni as some are more expensive than others. This is based on about £7000 for halls, fees and other things academic with the balance for day to day living.
Meanwhile 14 yr old ds is having payrise from £15 to £25 per month to include phone xbox live toiletries and the odd pizza but we are going to start budgeting with him now so we don't have the same problem with him later.
12 yr old dd is no problem - asks for very little and is a joy!
Thanks goengland - your comments really helpful.

Dd is only 13, but gets £12 a month (to include toiletries and anything but the most basic clothes, but not transport or school lunches). I imagine by the time she gets to 17, we might just stretch to £25.
(She has chronic health problems so can't imagine she could every combine a job with studying for A-levels).

That's far to much for a 17 year old to be spending. She uses that for going out with friends,basic clothes and extra toiletries she needs. She does get money from her Grandmother when she sees her which helps, Sometimes she tops up her phone and sometimes I do.
DD2 is at university. We have ppaid for her accomadation ( halls), But she has funded everything else out of her student loan.I sometimes send her little bits and pieces but I we have never given her mony. Except she did inherit £500 from her grandfather which she has used for the deposit and advance rent on the house she has just got fornext year, Well she has actually just moved into it, She is sharing with friends. She has just got herself a summer job whre her university is so she won't be coming home much in the summer and she will be usingthat to pay all her rent during the summer. We will help her a bit with rent in September but we will expect her to pay some of it.

That's an incredible amount for a 17 year old. I thought I was generous and my DS gets about 80-90 allowance pm plus I pay for haircuts, buy showergel / deodorant with the family shop. Also buy him essential shoes and some clothes.

I would be really concerned about giving a young person hundreds per month as it would be a long time before they can ever earn enough themselves to be better off unless they walk straight out of uni into a job with a magic circle firm.

Even if she can't work in term time I would suggest a summer job.

At the risk of sounding (very) like my parents she needs to learn the value of money!

My soon to be 17 year old gets £105 a month (the odd £5 is towards phone calls to us - bit like the old 'here's 2p for a phone box just in case!) out of which she has to fund school dinners. She also pays for her phone and most of her own clothes. We pay for school trips, school books, family holidays and anything else we all do together. The rest of it she has to budget for herself. At first she ran out of money endlessly, but she has quietly saved over £300 towards Uni in the last few months. A great life lesson methinks....

I didn't realise what tightarses dp and I are! Dd1(18) gets no allowance at all. She funds her own lifestyle out of her part-time job. We pay for phone top-ups, fares, birthday presents for friends and prom dresses, things like that. University is going to be a shock to us come September! We've worked out it will cost us about £100 a week to top up accommodation, food etc. Eeek!

hocuspontasyour are not tight arses! I think we are though when our DD's get part time jobs they have to fund everything themselves including phone top ups. DD3 18 has been trying hard to get a part time job so we do still give her an allowence. Anyway DD2 is at uni and As I've said before we paid the rent for her halls and I did buy her some of the books she was asked to get. She got a tution loan ( which anyone can get now)so that was sorted but everything else she paid for out of her student loan this included stuff for uni and all her living costs. They have to learn to budget and we just couldn't afford to give her £100 a week.

Steppy DD2's halls cost £5000 for the year and that'sin Kingston which is calssed as London and also the most expensive halls I have come across, So I don't think you would pay £7000 a year for halss unless it was a catered one and then you wouldn't have to spend much on food. Aslo now students can get a tution loan as well as the maintence student loan. Yes I knoew that makes them have more debt when they finish uni but they don't have to pay anything back until they are earning at least £15000 a year, It also maens that parents don't have to pay the tution fees up front.

I am not sure how you can assess "reasonable" pocket money for a 17 year old girl unless you have some idea about market rates for pocket money and allowances among her peer group. She is unlikely to be the only one in her peer group with that sort of money - she is presumably going out with friends who also have that kind of spending power.

I think you need to do some more research! Though agree that spending definitely needs to be brought under control.

wtf seriously?

i got nothing but my general keep from my parents. never saw my child benefit and got a part time job at 17 to pay for driving lessons. i spend an average of about £0 a month on make up and beauty treatments! i buy mascara twice a year and shop perhaps once a year. i'd NEVER ask my parents for anything except perhaps a small loan if i needed something and ddint have the money and id always pay them back! i even pay for my own dental treatment.

tell her to get a grip. you give her more than any other teenager should reasonably get and she will go through life expecting you to bail her out when she enters the real world and realises she cannot control her spending and isnt able to fund the lifesytle she is accustomed to.

by the way, im 18.

Thanks everyone - this has really helped. Now need to decide budget and what is/is not included when at school and when at university under;

Accommodation (board & lodging)
Food & Drink, household
Fees
Books, course materials etc
Transport (Car/petrol/maintenance, train, bus)
Phone
Clothes
Toiletries including make-up!
Hair & beauty
Socialising (Drink, Food, cinema, clubs etc)
Holidays
Birthdays/Christmas
Teenage stuff (itunes, x-box etc)

We need to state clearly what we expect to pay for and what is expected to be worked for.

Now need to check my household budget cos I think I'll have to be grounded for overspending this month!!