'How much pocket money do you give to your kids?' poll discussion

harryhound

Watch out for the teenagers, when they hit the "We want to be rebels but we must conform with the fashion pressure from our mates" stage of development.

We put our 2 on an allowance that had to pay for everything; plus lessons in book keeping and a fortnightly accounting/payment cycle.

This had some interesting results:

• A trades union attitude to try and get more money out of the old skin flint in the first few periods - that failed and famously resulted in a counter offer of 1p for every aluminium drinks can collected from the verges of local roads. We had bags of the things and several other trophies, including a full container of petrol.

• An annual budget negotiation at this time of year, based on the rate of inflation plus references to the chancellors efforts.

• A switch from school dinners to making your own packed lunch with healthy ingredients from the larder of mum and dad.

• Large proportions of their budget spent on teenage obsessions - Boys obsessions (but got a work experience placement in same field:T) - strange multicoloured hair styles - jewellery ..............................

• Minor grand parent disapproval.

• A daughter aged 15 virtually running the local Little Chef: Interesting talk about "hypocrisy" because it seems you could buy one of those airline sized bottles of wine at a Little Chef, so legally a 15 year old cannot be left in charge of the front of house.
• Some burger flipping jobs BK being a poorer paying but happier ship than McD

• Requests for assistance from dad's cobbler tools to help repair footwear.

• Price competition (or a cartel) if a domestic project was on offer (such as house painting): Interesting discussion of a national minimum wage rate (which was only a proposal in those days).

All in all it was one of the best things we did as far as raising the kids to be responsible adults went. It avoided the winging teenager attitude and replaced it with a "its your world, your future is in your hands attitude".

It would not have worked so well if there had been a bigger age gap or a single child.

The down side could be the independence ("It is my money from my job I'll spend it as I see fit")

For those who manage to follow "The Archers" on the radio - there is a sub plot on the go at the moment with farmer Tony's 17 year old daughter "Pip" reaching for her independence. He thinks she is 13 and she thinks she is 25.
(What would you do if you discovered your 17 year old daughter, getting ready for a party, had a bottle of vodka in her bag?)

There is a pretty good chance that your teenagers will go through this stage, in my case I only had a teenager for one year, in her mind she flipped from 14 to 24:D
He took longer to make up his mind.

The great thing about money is that it simply follows its own logic - it has no emotions, so you can talk about it rationally.
This keeps open the channel of communication and makes those more difficult issues easier.

There is an upside, especially if you add in a round the world gap year. The student who goes to university has a level of maturity - a bit like the days of national service. - they have already (hopefully) got most of the nonsense out of their systems.
".......those are pot smoking kids who are going to fail their first year exams" (and sadly they did - never mind perhaps they married celebrities - get real)

mama67

My 2 boys get £5 per week pocket money for doing basic chores (unloading dishwasher, setting table, putting wheelie bins out) and keeping their rooms tidy etc. They are expected to pay for phone topups and any sweets they want.

They also get £20 per month clothing allowance, from which they are expected to pay for anything they "think they need" , especially name brands over and above basic clothes/shoes and school uniform. This also covers the expensive deodorants etc that they want.

Birthday and Christmas money is usually saved up for big ticket items such as games consoles etc.

DS1(14) now has a parttime job as a football referee having passed his first level last summer. From this he pays us a petrol amount for taking him to his games(couldn't get there without us taking him also his descision); saves half of the balance and then has the rest for things he wants. On a good weekend he can earn £30.

DS2(11) does extra jobs for us such as cutting the grass which we pay him for until he is old enough to have a weekend job.

I must say both have been very good at saving up for things and trawling the internet for the best deals, they even go through my cashback site as well.
A few years back they saved up and between them bought the Wii package which cost £200 at the time; this was just from birthday/christmas and saving pocket money.

DS1 is going to Belgium on a school trip at the end of May and we have paid £300 for this he has saved his spending money from his refereeing money that he gets to use as he wants.

Kimitatsu

I have two boys 11 and 13, they both get £5 a week pocket money - directly linked to the basic chores they have to do. If they dont do them they dont get paid the entire amount.

They both have the option to earn more money by doing extra chores around the house, especially when they are saving up for something.

We pay for school trips, clothing unless they want something specific that we feel they dont need (brand names spring to mind) and they both have a sim only deal. However, there is a penalty system in place so if they get detentions for not handing in homework they get fined, if they have a major dose of attitude they can be fined etc etc. Have to say having opened both of them a bank account it has been amazing to watch them scour the net for the best deals for something they REALLY want and the improvement in behaviour has been quite astonishing. We put up pictures of the things they are saving up for on the fridge as an added incentive.........

StayPositive_2

We have 4 teenagers: 14, 16, 18 + 19, and used the family allowance to give them 50p a month for every year of age and a clothing allowance every 6mths which is purely for clothes. Currently we only give to the younger 2, so 14yr old gets £7 a month + £160 every 6 months for clothes, 16yr old gets £8 a month + £200 every 6 months for clothes. Had our older 2 gone to college they wouldn't have qualified for the EMA but we would have continued to give them pocket money as we'd still have been eligible to receive family allowance for them, instead both got apprenticeships so were paid to learn (very nifty :-) ). All of them budget their money well, including saving, giving to charity, buying presents etc. Having apprenticeships meant both the older 2 paid for all their own driving lessons, bought their own cars, pay for all their car insurance, petrol etc. They've also all done paper-rounds, baby-sitting, dog walking etc for other people at varying times to earn extra money, and we have recently started paying the younger 2 £6 each a month to clean the house each week (we home-ed and used to all do it together each week and have a choccy bar when we finished so they're well happy to be paid!! - all other chores are unpaid tho).

indebted

It's brilliant to get everyone's ideas on this.

We've never given pocket money, simply paid for most of the things (within reason) they wanted to do socially but drawn a very hard line at expensive clothes, which must come from own earnings, Xmas/B'day money.

DS has NO work ethic at all and would scrounge from anyone. DD is pretty good at hanging on to her money (rather spend ours or not at all) and would like to work but we want her to finish GCSE's first, then get something part time for 6th form.

She now has an ever increasing social life which we seem to be paying more & more for, so thought I'd see what the going rate was for giving spending money, and perhaps instil in her that if you haven't got it, you can't always go. I'm finding it so hard to say no as she studies/works so hard AND is desperate to find a job.

Kimitatsu

My DS1 would like to find a job but as he is only 13 and we live in the middle of nowhere then it is a difficult expectation to realise!

So instead we pay him to do certain jobs such as mow the lawn and relate it back to the NMW so that he gets paid for the work that he does. I understand about school work and a job but 3-4 hours a week will still give her some idea of a work ethic and still be able to get her exams with good grades.

chaosweddings

My ds gets £5 per week depending on the chores he has completed.

To get this £5 he has to bring his dirty washing down, feed the cat, unload the dishwasher, leave bedroom tidy each day and empty all the bins.

he is really good at saving though, he has saved £225 for our holiday to florida in october, and has also asked for the new xbox for xmas, so if he sells his other console and puts that maney towrds the new one he can have it.
We pay for all his clothes unless he wants a new pair of footy boots or football shirt, he puts money towards them

rebecca.t

When i was 17-18 i got £100 a month. My parents would give this to me on the condition that i worked 2 shifts a week as a lifeguard & attended my college lessons. This was all the money i got and had to buy own clothes, pay for holidays, outings with friends etc.

Age 14 - 16 i got £10 to £15 a week depending on chores and i had to do a paper round too.

It sounds a lot but since leaving home at 19 i have never been in debt (Except the odd £100 on a credit card that i quickly pay off), have known the importance of saving rather than getting everything on loan, and have always been sensible with money.