pocket money

[scarymary]

at what age do ABers think that giving your child pocket money should end.  My son is 16 yrs old and doing gcses at present, so he believes that i should provide for him till he is 18. He refused to lift a finger or get a part time job !

[acw]

My parents gave me an allowance for a long time because they didn't want me to work more than one shift a week.  The deal was that I had to concentrate on my studies in order to still get money.  That wasn't bribery, I would have studied anyway to be honest, but it allowed me a more balanced lifestyle at your son's age. 

 

However, I WANTED to work more shifts because I really enjoyed my job and I wanted the financial independence from my parents.  My parents actually only gave me a small amount of money.  Mum said she'd buy my school uniform and what she deemed to be "necessary clothes", i.e., one pair of jeans, one jumper, a decent coat, etc, but that if I wanted CDs, videos, fashion clothes, nail varnish blah blah blah, I had to buy that myself as it wasn't NECESSARY.  You could try that with him.  It seemd fair to me at the time. 

 

Alternatively I suggest tell him if he wants to be treated like a kid that brings the whole package.  And remind him that if he wants money like he had when he was 14 he can go to bed at that time, not go to older certificate films, not go out late, be watched while he does his HWK etc etc.  It'll really annoy him and might shift him into gear!

 

Good luck.  I haven't been a non-teen for that long and I remember being a total pain in the you-know-where.  I hope your son isn't! :-)

[Lillabet]

I think it depends on your individual circumstances. My parents helped subsidise me through until I was 21 as I went to university and they earned too much for me to get what little grant was left then and the amount of loan you got included a calculation of what contribution your parents were expected to make.

However I also funded myself. When I was at 6th form they paid for my bus pass and gave me enough money for lunches and books. I paid for all of my luxury items myself. I had a Saturaday job in a shop and babysat regularly from when I was 14.

If he goes into employment at 16 then he should, in my opinion, fund himself and pay for his keep. If he goes to college and you don't earn over a certain amount he may be entitled to this allowance: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/financialhelp/ema/ which should cover his costs and allow you to stop subsidising him. If you earn too much for this then he should contribute. If he doesn't get a part-time job then he can contribute around the home. How about a certain amount for jobs such as mowing the lawn, washing up etc.

Otherwise I wouldn't give him any more. Stop as soon as his GCSEs do. That way he has fair warning this will happen. Plus he has that really long summer to find work. Tell him you'll help him out if he really needs it such as money for bus fares to go to job interviews but otherwise he is old enough to help support himself. Otherwise how will he manage in the real world?

[dirtyharriet]

I stopped my son's pocket money as soon as he hit 16. He refused to do anything around the house and was totally disrespectable. He wanted to be treated like an adult so I agreed and told him adults earn their own money.
He now does a paper round.

[butter1]

I stopped getting pocket money when i was 17 - my brother was 18... bit unfair really if you ask me!!

[acw]

Lillabet - I am starting to think we are secret twins!!  My parents gave me an allowance til I graduated too and I now rely on my Grandad for basics, although I do earn around �100 a week for myself too.  I didn't admit it before because i usually get inverted snobbery abuse for admitting my parents can afford to help me out. 

[Bangkok]

Pocket money for school bus fares went on until 16, I had my first part time job at 13, I worked as a gardener, a electrical salesmen, a furniture salesman, for a forestry company (cool, chainsaws and tractors at 15!), for BT as a filing clerk in the summer (confession, one phone book will never be the same again, sorry), petrol station night shift attendent, babysitter.  However, at college and subsequently, Mum and Dad have always helped out at appropriate times.  However, I was always willing to try and earn.

If he doesn't help out, then he doesn't get to share.  Studying for GCSEs is not a life consuming task all year.

[hopalong]

Do nothing for him.  Don't make his bed or breakfast dinner ETC.  Dont do his launderly.  Until he lifts a finger.

[dmsjps]

I know how you feel scarymary, I'm in the same situation with my son. The older he's got, the lazier he's got. Even his friends take the mick out of him for not having a job. He's studying for his A-levels and he did have a paper round plus a part-time job weekends and the odd evening at a restaurant, so he earned about �240 a month, but he packed everything in and has since blamed everyone else for him not having a job. The real reason is that he'd much rather be out socialising, which I'd have nothing against if he earned himself some money as well; you have to grow up and start being responsible sometime!

When he had a job we put him through his CBT, paid for his licence and bought him a moped so that he could look for other work if he wanted, plus it would give him the freedom to see more friends instead of just the ones in the village, but we insisted that he paid for half the insurance. He didn't use the bike, wasn't interested at all, so we told him he would have to pay the full amount of the insurance until it was paid off (�30 a month as we'd paid a big deposit). That's when he packed his jobs in, so he obviously couldn't pay that either.

He's not rude or abusive or anything like that - he's really friendly and sociable with us - but he's just living in a dream world. Hearing the responses you've had to your question, I think I'll stop subbing him so much, but he isn't entitled to the �30 a week allowance most of his friends get so I felt sorry for him. I wouldn't mind if we were well-off, but we're not: we really struggle financially because of all our commitments - and no, we don't go out boozing every night (or even every month, come to that!), and we don't smoke, etc.

Anyway, sorry to hijack your question, but I'm as interested as you are to hear what people have to say.

[FP]

My son got a part time job at 16 whilst at 6th form, working in a supermarket for 3 evenings a week and some Saturdays.  He also worked most of the school holidays.  He didn't get pocket money from that age, but obviously we continued to support him.  

Since starting Uni, he has spent his holidays working hard on building sites, farms and factories  in order to supplement his loan and we help him when we can and if he is really stuck for cash.

He was never pressurised into working, and just assumed that this was what you did if you wanted to exist in this world   Never has he taken our support for granted.

He always took an active part in any financial discussions we had as a family from quite a young age and was aware what money was available in our household and what we could or could not afford.

[Jules001]

up until the age of 13 we didn't really give our son pocket money as such, if he needed anything he asked and we gave him the money for it. When he turned 13 he took on a paper round (weekly free paper) and this provided him with enough to top up mobile, cinema etc. When he started 6th form, he wasn't entitled to the new EMA grant , so we pay �60 a month into his account, this is used for his bus pass, lunches (it's his choice to buy lunch each day rather than take his own), mobile costs and socialising. We still sub him for clothes. I will be expecting him to get a temporary summer job when his exams are over though.

[Emily Ball]

Thorny issue this one scarymary. I'm guessing you want your son to stay on at school and do his A levels so that he can apply to go to university and ultimately have a well-paid career. If that is the case, then looking at it from your son's point of view,  as you are the one who wants him to stay on, then you should be prepared to subsidise him until he's 18. I don't know where you live but part-time jobs that fit in with studies are not that easy to come by and most 16 yr olds would see a paper round as a job for 13 or 14 yr. olds. A bit too infra dig for them! From my own experience , children between 13 and 16 are the biggest challenge to parents  and are the most likely to turn your hair grey before time. They are at their laziest , rudest, most volatile,obstreperous and argumentative. If your son's only shortcoming is laziness you are indeed fortunate. But to be fair to them, they are in hormonal overdrive, they are in that sometimes very painful state of being neither child nor adult, they are still growing and need many more hours of sleep than you or I and because of all this going on they can be very self-absorbed   a great deal of the time. All of which is not helpful to you I'm sure at this point but it might mean you have to grit your teeth and put up with it for a while. You must get him to help around the house however.( I got very fed-up with badgering my sons to tidy their bedrooms when they were his age , so one day I scooped up as much of their stuff as I could off the bedroom floors and chucked it all on the front lawn for passers-by to gawp at. They got the message after that!) 

[FP]

PS  My son was at boarding school until 16 years old and all the kids had a recommended amount of pocket money per term (not a great deal)  put into a special 'Account' and requested withdrawals when they needed money!!  I would add that this was a state boarding school and not a public school - we are not rich!

[magicdice]

i didn't get my first job until the GCSEs had finished (two weeks after i'd turned 16), but my parents gave me pocket money until i got my first paycheck through. then they stopped it, on the grounds that the �120 i was getting every month was more than enough for me given that they'd been giving me �30 a month. i quit my job a month ago, to focus on my A-levels exams which start in TWO WEEKS! and they've started giving me pocket money again - �30 a month as before, as i've saved money to cover my spendings. i really appreciate that they're giving me money, as it means that i could just about afford to quit my saturday job and have more time to myself for revision and things. although when the exams are over, job or no job, i won't be getting any more help.

[secretspirit]

I got pocket money til I was 16 and then I got a saturday and school holiday job in a shop and it ended then. I had to buy all my own school equipment and pay for my clothes and social life on that money! Since I left school at 18 I've always worked full time and had a good work ethic, my own house etc (I'm 24 now).

Just to contrast my younger brother left school at 16 and wasn't pushed to do anything by my parents and then didn't get a job for months. He now allegedly has his own business but spends most of the time making excuses not to work, he earns so little because he only works so few hours despite a high demand that he doesn't reach the tax paying barrier and just scrapes enough money to pay Mum housekeeping once a week. He's 23 and has no ambitions to work harder or earn any more money to enable him to move out.

I think it's a case of being cruel to be kind and stopping the pocket money now so he has no choice but to get a job.

[suitcase]

i think kids should get what they want but they have to learn that money doesn't grow on trees so if they want an expencive pair of trainers they should pay half them selves that will make them more independant and more recpective of the money maker of the house