My 17.9 year old daughter has been campaigning for a review of her allowance. I say "campaigning" – I mean "throwing tantrums". She has to pay for her own clothes, including for school, for public transport amd for all her entertainment. For our sins she goes to a school where most of the other kids' families are quite a bit better off than us, and just hand over whatever cash their kids ask for, so I prefer that she doesn't feel liek a poor relation all the time, but also don't want to raise a spoilt brat (too late, you say …)

What is a reasonable amount, and or philosophy ??

Pay for her school clothes / money to get here to and from school, cut her allowance completely and make her go out and get a saturday job.

I'd wait until she's 17.10

"17.9"? You mean 9, presumably?

Personally, if she's throwing tantrums, she'd get bugger all until she learned to behave properly. Not behaviour I'd want to be rewarding.

(ObDisclaimer, I Am Not A Parent)

Offer to double it, but explain that in .1 of a year's time when she turns 18 and is thus considered a completely independent adult that you'll be charging her rent.

I got £40 in 1994, £65 in todays money, but justclothes and entertainment. I got a job if I wanted more.

Wait, teenager? 17? Shouldn't she be paying you board?

Get a job? I worked from about 12up, and that was my pocket money. My dad would help me out with things that I'd saved for, for example, when I'd saved £300 for my first proper mountain bike, he went with me to the shop to pick it up and paid £150 extra so I could have some Rockshox indy XC's, likewise, if i saved up for a festival ticket, he'd get me a case of beer etc. that seems the best way to me, as she learns the value of money, but doesn't really go without. Also it makes it much easier to get a job later on when you have work experience in several menial jobs (by 21 I'd worked in an office, a shop, a petrol station, a farm, been a bar man, a waiter, a cook and spent a summer working in IT.)

(Edit: that makes me sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet a bit… Well I am, I'm awesome! But my fiends with teenagers follow the same system)

what age is she? 17.9 seems a strange typo..

edit: oops unless you mean nearly 18 of course.. but the throwing tantrums is a bit scary surely at that age?

no pocket money, as soon as your old enough to get a job, thats when you start paying costs towards the house.

edit – agreed with meehaja, sounds like my childhood.you can always tell the difference at uni/college etc between people who worked for stuff and people who had been given stuff.

I didnt get an allowance.

Parents paid for school uniform. I walked to school and then when I was 16 I got a saturday job and paid the rest myself.

+1 for meehaja's suggestion.

Teach her the value of money and reward her by topping it up every now and again. Might actually cost you more in the long run but will make for a better rounded kid who knows a lot more about the world

This thread is useless without pics.

If you mean she is nearly 18 then yeah, WTF is she getting an allowance beyond her safety and educational needs?

This thread is useless without pics.

She has to pay for her own clothes, including for school, for public transport amd for all her entertainment

before everyone tears into you, ^is good!! it might help people responses if you let us know how much peace and quiet cash you're giving her at the moment?

**** me, when I was 17 I was serving in Bosnia. Tell her to get a part time job if she wants money

perhaps if you offered her a cup of tea she wouldn't be so unreasonable? 😉

Oh she isn't one of those poor unfortunates who's turned up back at school after summer without Louis Labouton trainers is she? And next thing you'll doubtless be moaning when she gets bullied. But what else can you expect. A young lady needs certain essentials to make her way in the world

Frankly I think you're a monster.

Bringing up childern when you dont have them is always easy 🙄

In reality asking on this forum will just get a load of superior sanctimonious responses which in the real world wont work.

As a parent myself I find the difficulty not in ensuring my own childern realise the value of money but in trying to steer a course through the reaction by other parents to their offsprings.
For example my youngest is 12 and likes to play on his Xbox. The majority of his friends have games with 18 ratings and this doesnt seem to concern their parents or the fact that they spend very long periods of time playing them (I know this to be true) These are professional, apparently intelligent people!
I wont allow them but it causes a great deal of argument and upset.
Peer pressure is the biggest issue for children today and the amount of pocket money you decide on unfortunately will be partly dicated by this.
Good luck

I think that the 17.9 means 17 years and 9 months.

Could be wrong though.

Classic Farmer 😀

Surely the only way to work this out is to budget what she has to spend, then decide how much you want to give her to fritter away on clothes she doesn't need, burgers and entertainment?

I'd guess a tenner a week is reasonable, get a Saturday job if she wants more. Don't take any guilt trips about rich parents – I know some lasses who have Dads worth £millions, but they tend not to be splashing loads of cash or being funny about those who can't.

You might suggest that more money comes with more responsability. I had to get a job if i wanted more money, although it was a huge ball ache. Did go to boarding school but if i wanted spending money during term time i had to work all summer. Saved up bout £700 each summer and that did nicely for the whole year since i did'nt have much to spend on. If you were to up her allowence i'm not sure that wouldn't teach her she will get rewarded for having tantrums. I'm only 25 though, it taught me alot about work ethics and the value of money/working hard.

Prior to starting at 6th form, I was on a fiver a week pocket money (in 1993).

When I started 6th form, I got that plus enough to pay for my bus pass and a quid or so extra to round it up to £35. I wanted/needed more, so I got a part-time job.

Thats good advice tbh from Tron.

Too many people especially younger people do not have any knowledge of budgeting, this could be a good way of educating her to budget.

A situation I will be facing soon as well. Currently they get their essential clothes bought for them, the odd treat and £5 a week pocket money. They have a requirement to save at least £5 a month by putting it into a savings account to try and encourage the notion of saving at least something.

When I was that age I got a pittance for pocket money although essential clothing was bought for me. Anything else I wanted I had to save up for. I got a part time job and that taught me the principle of going out to work and how to manage my own money. This doesn't work for everyone or every circumstance but it worked for me. One of the most important things I think we can teach our kids is the value of money – and all that that means.

Heh heh !! I expected a certain lack of sympathy:-) By 17.9 I mean "almost 18" – and yes – that photo is accurate, at least as far as personality is concerned. Luckily she inherited her looks from her Mum, not me.

Agree about the job but we live in soggy Holland and getting a Saturday job without speaking Clog-talk is not easy.

Post a picture and i'll tell you what i'd give her.

DrJ – pay her the amount she wants to learn dutch.

1) she gets to learn a new language.

2) you get some results for money you're paying

3) once she's got enough Dutch to get a job you can stop paying her.

4) put a timetable together – ie. she's got until Feb/MArch to learn 'x'.

everyone's a winner…

When I was 17.9 (which wasn't all that long ago) I was in a similar situation with friends parents earning a lot more money than mine, although I was lucky as it meant I got £20 a week ema for turning up to school 😛 I got a sunday job, had to pay my mum £20 a week board, but still had plenty of money for everything I needed (and enough to mean that uni is comfortable so far 😛 )

THEY DRINK TEA IN HOLLAND

In 3 months time i will have a quiet word with her and i won't expect you to make me a cup of tea at breakfast when we finally meet 😉

All these joys to come! I'm preparing my son that he'll have to get a part time job as soon as he is legally able to!

[edit] I assume that her clothes for school are not uniform, as you live in the Netherlands, so therefore she wants more money to buy branded stuff. Have they not encountered Primark in the Netherlands yet?

tough situation for her if she doesn't speak the lingo….

I do sympathise with her to a certain extent – if her experience is seeing all her mates get exactly what they want when they want, she probably feels like she's on a shitty deal.

However, by the time she's 25, she'll be thanking you for instilling some values and a work ethic while her trustafarian mates are still living off daddy.

Don't make her work. Work is frankly sh*t, especially for 17 year olds, and she'll waste enough of her precious life doing it after college/uni. So give her a break 🙂 I got a job when I was 16, but it was so massively and utterly depressing I gave it up – I preferred to do without the money! After all, time is one of the most valuable things in the world once your food and shelter are taken care of.

Why not have the 'review' she asks for? Make it like a budget meeting at work. She has to put forward a case, stating why she needs it and what benefits YOU'll get for your money. Then you can state your side of it and whatever budgetary concerns you have.

My parents always hid the finances from me, presumably so that I didn't blab about how much they made, but that meant I had no idea how much money we did or didn't have, so didn't really understand why we couldn't have things.

If her friends have more than her – tell her to suck it up. That'll be the same all through life, you've just got to get used to it, and the sooner you do the sooner you'll learn not to splash out on credit cards all the time.

Oh, and make her take Dutch lessons if you live in Holland FFS.

I only left college a year and a half ago but i got £30 a week. My parents reasoning was this is what i would get on EMA if my parents didnt earn what they did. I wouldnt say they are rich but are well off financially. Being 60 with no mortage is obviously quite nice!

Regardless though of how much they make I have friends whos parents dont relaly pay for anything for them. My girlfriends parents said she had to pay her own way through uni whilst they waste moeny on new tvs every year or so and always buying new or near new cars. It sickens me when someone treats younger people/their children in a certain wya just because they were treated like that. Grow the **** up frankly.

That said I think molgrips is pretty on the mark with the having a review. I'm not saying spoil here because all us 'kids' need to be loaded but making kids work when they should be learning is not a good idea.

Dunno about an allowance, we were poor and I had to get a job when I left school
But on the tantrums, when the wifes 18yr old son started having 'i want' tantrums I recorded one on my phones video, and later when he had calmed down i played it back to him, I think the sight of himself acting like Kevin the teenager shocked him out of it, they don't realise how they are acting most of the time I think,
I also said that I'd put it on YouTube if he kept it up, which went down well 😆

Only you can know what is both reasonable and that you can afford.

For reference I give my eldest two (15 and 16) an allowance of £100 pcm(plus their mobiles go through my company), and their mum (my ex) tops up as and when. Out of this they pay for most things.

My youngest gets £50, and usually spends it in lump sums every other month or so.

I'm not one for kids working (I didn't, so don't see why they should), I'd rather they enjoyed their life. The eldest two are very active sportsmen, playing in local cricket and football teams.

And they've all got bikes too.

Kids are expensive, fact – but I'm glad I've got them.

I think I got £50 per month whilst I was at sixth form college (Sept 1996 – June 1998) which seemed reasonable.

My parents paid for the bus to and from college too and I had a job at a pub some evenings and the local garden centre every weekend which brought in several hundred per month too.

It used to do me fine between school holidays when I'd work all the hours I could manage at Argos. It kept me in skateboard decks, Etnies, snakebite and black and mailorder punk albums anyway.

I feel sorry for kids now, those sort of casual jobs a re a lot harder to come by.

When my 15 year old wanted some extra cash over the summer holidays, I did a list of all the jobs around the house that I didn't want to do, and offered her £5 an hour to do them. This didn't include the general tidying etc that I'd normally expect her to do, but did include shredding, filing (I work from home), typing up stories that my grandad wrote etc. She had to keep a proper record of the time she spent, and I paid her accordingly. Worked really well.