Pocket Money

With their increasing requests for cash, plus the need to educate my 11yr olds about how to manage money responsibly, I'd love to know your ideas & experiences of giving pocket money or allowances to older children. What do you expect them to buy out of that? Do you ask for a service in return?

We are just about to start our 15 year old son with an allowance, but decided that we would buy toiletries, unless he wanted something fancy as he may decide that that was optional and he could save his money! We have fingers it will work well.. He has also opened a bank account with a debit card which will not allow him to go overdrawn.

My younger son gets pocket money, and a list of daily jobs, which if he does not not do, he loses 33 cents each time. Ay jobs or help he gives on top of these earns him 'tokens' which he uses for time on the Wii or Playstation, we think this helps to give a balance on the 'computer gaming "time.

Great; thanks for the ideas.

I'm glad you like it. It's quite a bit to hand over 100€ or more per month, I have done the sums, but it's ultimately less than if we pay for everything as they ask for it.

They have said to me in the past that their french friends seem to get everything they want, but that they have no idea of how much anything costs. No1 son had a very hard 1st year in his etudes superieur but ultimately by careful budgeting got to the end of the year with 2€ in hand. I smile to myself when we have conversations about comparing mobile forfaits.

What a great idea Claire. I think we might try something like this in the coming years. For now ours are 11 and 12 and they get 10E per week, again on the if they remember to ask basis. They often save and spend their money jointly, buying bigger items that they couldn't afford separately like HP Hogwarts Castle in Lego. Just yesterday they managed to get enough together to get an XBox with Kinect and they are really proud of themselves.

To earn their money they empty the bins, put the big bins out a few times a week, empty and load the dishwasher, make beds, tidy their rooms, hoover occasionally. Sometimes I get them cleaning the bathroom and dusting as well.

The youngest also negociated a 20 Euros reward for 20/20 at school the day before he came home with 2 !!!! He is now disappointed if he only gets a 19, so if it motivates him to try harder then I don't mind.

We gave a small amount of pocket money until the children were 15 , by small I mean 5€ per week. It was up to them to remember to ask for it on a Sunday if they forgot they skipped a week. We expected normal chores around the house to be done without complaint in exchange for this, tidy bedrooms, putting own clean washing away etc.

When they hit 15 they went onto an allowance of 100€ per month, they were then responsible for their own purchases, mobile phones, DVd's , games, toiletries, clothes & shoes and back to school paper, books pens etc. If they couldn't manage on that amount they could come back and renegotiate, provide reasons, discuss etc. Most of the time they are fine, once No1 son renegotiated as he thought he had too much!!! They save for larger purchases, they are now well aware that it's best to get shoes, jeans etc in the sales so keep money to one side for that. It has provided a good grounding in money management. Of course there are disaster at the start that's the point. They both spent a months allowance on sweets but then found out that they owed us for shower gel or toothpaste. It's part of learning. With the lack of summer jobs in france for younger teenagers this has proved the solution for us.

As an aside, last summer when the 17year old worked 6 weeks on the maise castration he told me he didn't want July & August's money as he was earning his own and it wasn't fair. Proud moment.