Pocket money

At your age, you might be getting pocket money – an ‘allowance’ that you usually get once a week from your parents, for you to spend on whatever you wish. Or you might decide to save it up.

How much should I be getting?

There’s no real answer to this! Children will all receive different amounts of money, depending on:

• their age – some people are paid per pound by how many years old they are –though they might get the amount each month rather than each week
• what their parents can afford – with things costing more at the moment, some parents can only afford a small amount, while others might not afford any
• and what they do to earn it – if you do a lot of chores around the house your parents might want to reward you by paying for your help!

Sometimes parents and children disagree about how much a good amount is. You can try to negotiate to get more money but sometimes you just have to accept that the money you are given is what they can afford. If your parents think that you can only cope with a small amount, why not show them that you can manage your money?

Managing your pocket money

If you learn at a young age how to manage your pocket money, you will learn a valuable life skill. A good way of doing this is by keeping a spending record, on which you can write:

• what money you receive
• what you spend it on
• how much you are saving

The website Money Stuff has a great one you can use.

Earning your money

Some parents give pocket money to their children even if they don’t do anything at home to help. However, many ask their kids to do some chores to ‘earn’ the money they receive. Things you might do include:

• light housework (vacuuming or dusting, for example)
• gardening (weeding, sweeping up leaves)
• cooking (this will normally be helping with cooking not necessarily preparing things on the cooker which could be dangerous)
• tidying (keeping your room tidy, washing-up, stacking the dishwasher, washing the car, etc).

If you ever want to negotiate more money from your parents, you could always try asking them if you can help out at home more to earn more.

What you can do with it

The beauty of pocket money is that it’s yours to do with as you wish. Many kids spend it on sweets, toys and games – things that perhaps their parents wouldn’t buy for them apart from at birthdays and at Christmas.

However, you could always save your money and put it towards something you really want but that costs a lot more than your weekly amount.

Another way of using your money is by donating it to charity. Some children choose something they feel very strongly about – animals, poverty, and the environment, for example – and give when they can to them.

Find out more…

Money Stuff has some helpful information on pocket money.