Pocket money/allowance

I have 3 children, currently aged 8, 13, 14.

The way I’ve done it so far is to give each child 3x their age in pocket money a month. This covers EVERYTHING that is a want rather than a need outside of Xmas and birthdays. Toys, sweets, magazines, Xbox points etc, for the older ones trips to the cinema or meals with their friends.

I also pay for a £10 SIM for the older 2. They buy their own phones or get them for Xmas.

They get it paid weekly onto a gohenry card. The older 2 have just set up proper bank accounts, and will now get it monthly.

I have just decided to increase this to 5x, to also cover clothes (other than uniform). They are also expected to save enough of this to cover irregular costs such as friends birthday presents and Xbox / football club subscriptions (c. £30pa).

I know it seems like a lot, but I went through how much I was actually spending on the random treats / magazines / books / party gifts etc, and it’s less overall. I think it’s very important that they learn to manage their money as soon as they are capable. Plus it completely stops all nagging. If they have the money they can buy it. If not they can’t. Full stop. It’s amazing how often they decide they don’t really want something that much when it’s their money they’re spending on it...!

The eldest is a spender. He’s always spent all of his money straight away. He also decided to spend £25pm on a contract for a new iPhone. That comes out of his allowance.

The middle son is a saver. He doesn’t spend on anything other than occasional sweets and has hundreds saved.

The youngest blows most of hers in smiggle every now and again. But has saved some to buy some specific doll accessories she wanted.

Yellow_mango wrote: »

I have 3 children, currently aged 8, 13, 14.

The way I’ve done it so far is to give each child 3x their age in pocket money a month. This covers EVERYTHING that is a want rather than a need outside of Xmas and birthdays. Toys, sweets, magazines, Xbox points etc, for the older ones trips to the cinema or meals with their friends.

I also pay for a £10 SIM for the older 2. They buy their own phones or get them for Xmas.

They get it paid weekly onto a gohenry card. The older 2 have just set up proper bank accounts, and will now get it monthly.

I have just decided to increase this to 5x, to also cover clothes (other than uniform). They are also expected to save enough of this to cover irregular costs such as friends birthday presents and Xbox / football club subscriptions (c. £30pa).

I know it seems like a lot, but I went through how much I was actually spending on the random treats / magazines / books / party gifts etc, and it’s less overall. I think it’s very important that they learn to manage their money as soon as they are capable. Plus it completely stops all nagging. If they have the money they can buy it. If not they can’t. Full stop. It’s amazing how often they decide they don’t really want something that much when it’s their money they’re spending on it...!

The eldest is a spender. He’s always spent all of his money straight away. He also decided to spend £25pm on a contract for a new iPhone. That comes out of his allowance.

The middle son is a saver. He doesn’t spend on anything other than occasional sweets and has hundreds saved.

The youngest blows most of hers in smiggle every now and again. But has saved some to buy some specific doll accessories she wanted.

Reading this really took me back. We did this for our DDs who are now grown up and left home. DD1 is still a saver. She's great with money and saves to buy quality. DD2's money 'burns a hole in her pocket' in that she loves spending and everything she buys seems to be disposable (Primark etc).

All I'd add is that taking your child through the process of how you calculate the allowance is good financial education in itself. We sat down with the girls and wrote down everything we spent on them (cinema, swimming, out of school clothes, hairdresser, treats etc) and then divided it by 12 for a monthly allowance. We still bought gifts and school uniforms.

Kentish_Dave wrote: »

When I was young pocket money in our family was enough for some sweets, or comics.

One of our group of friends got far more but had to pay for his own clothes, shoes, books etc, and the rest of us didn’t like the idea at all. It seemed to allow adulthood to intrude into childhood too early.

Ours were at secondary school and able to go into town without us and shop before we introduced the allowance.

I like the idea of doing 3x their age.....I have previously done 50p per year at school and that's worked well but it does get a bit complicated/competitve so i've been giving my younger two (who are 6 and 7) £5 a month and eldest (9) £10 for the past year or so. Once he gets to 11 I'll be taking him to get a bank account and I'll transfer his money into there instead of giving him cash.

maman wrote: »

I can see that it's an easy rule of thumb for a child to work out but would that just be for treats of the child's own choosing like sweets and comics?





When children start travelling to secondary school that often coincides with them going out with a group of friends to the shops or the pool or other places you might have always gone as a family. Would you consider giving your child the money you currently spend on his leisure clothes, haircuts, swimming etc to manage himself at some point?

At the moment they get such a small amount of money that yes, it's just for treats. I never got ANY pocket money to speak of growing up so it's a bit of a foriegn concept for me. I used to get my school clothes bought by my Mum and then my Dad would give me some cash to get home-clothes when I saw him in the holidays but this only happened when I reached about 14.. I feel like if I gave my boys money to get their own clothes (even at 14+), they would have
1 nice pair of trainers and rags! lol :rotfl: I will have to play it by ear but I know I wont need to make any decisions about this sort of thing for a couple more years.