How do you handle money for your young teens?

My boys started mowing lawns for the neighbors when they were 8 and 10. By the time they were your son's age, the each had 7-10 lawns to mow and made $200+ per week. They mowed May though October and made more than enough money for spending money. When my youngest graduated, he had about 15k in his savings (he was the saver).

My son is planning on working along with someone else mowing lawns and doing yardwork this summer, and I hope he can make it work out nearly as well for him! 


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Our kids (almost 15 and almost 13) get an allowance. It was $1 per year until they reached 10, then it maxed out at $10. I pay them every other week. So they get $20 every other week. Now, as to what it's supposed to be used for is another question. DD (13) is good at saving. Then when she wants to go to the mall and buy something just because, she has the funds for it. DS (15), not so much. We still fund a lot of things but we will let them know when they need to use their own money. Say ds went to the movies last night then wants to go again tomorrow night (or something like that), then we might say we've funded one activity this weekend you need to use your allowance this time. Yes, I know it doesn't sound consistent but dh and I don't always agree on this.

LOL---I swear the grandparents never gave out as much "bonus" money when they were the parents, right? 

I was so happy that my son saved his own money for his trip, and the day before he left, I spotted my dad slipping him some bills.   I said "Dad!  He has a bunch of money saved already!" and my dad just said, very dryly, "Now he has more."


Well, heck, I have money saved but would like more, too.  Cough some up for me, buddy!   


And their grandmother keeps a jar on her desk full of change that actually says right on it "Money for the Grandkids", and when it gets full she dumps it into a ziploc bag and tells them to split it. 


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I just fork over cash until I get tired of it and finally say no, and my ungrateful children stomp off and tell me how terrible I am for never letting them do anything.

We've tried the allowance thing, but then it seems there's always something a kid actually needs or needs to do after they've run out of money, so I end up just giving them more money. I'd like to have them do more chores to earn the money but they're never here, and if they are, they're generally actually doing homework or practicing an instrument.

So I just end up making it rain twenty dollar bills most of the time.  They can learn to budget like I did, in college, by having to live on ramen when they've foolishly spent all their grocery money on beer and clothes.

#lifeinmyperfecthome #parentingwin #momofteengirls

For my kids, I gave them lunch money and kept food in the house that they could use to pack lunches. So, if they wanted to spend their lunch money on something else, then they would pack a lunch so as to not go hungry. Of course, I had to be sure they understood that skipping lunch was not an option. Both had after school activities and needed to eat a good lunch. Also, the lunch money was almost five dollars a day. So it would add up if they packed their lunches often.

Going to games every night sounds a little excessive to me. When is he getting his homework done, chores around the house done and family time is important too. Also if he is hanging around at the games with that much time on his hands away from home, I would be worried about him getting into trouble. There is all sorts of mischief kids could get into when there is too much unsupervised time on their hands. Notice is said COULD not that your son would, but at that age they still need supervision. Being at games is not a supervised situation. Maybe, kids have changed and things are a lot different but at that age for me and for my daughters was when the most trouble could happen cause we were more worried about what friends thought and fitting in with the crowd than what was the right thing to do. Believe me, I taught middle school kids and found them to be terrible at decision making when it came to behavior. But, on the other hand, they just were great with a little supervision.

Honestly, this is how it was with my kids, too. And it worked. They are grown, working, budgeting, independent young adults now. 

I grew up working from an early early age and received no money from my parents. I hated it. All I did was school and work and very little time for the extra curricular activities (sports, dance, piano) that my friends were enjoying. My life was like that from 13-23. I wanted my kids to have a different path. 

When my older daughter was in 9th grade I swear I had to hand her twenty dollar bills every single week for something and I got tired of it. I started giving her $100 a month. She opted to get $50 every two weeks so that she was less likely to run out. I gave her responsibilities like buying most of her own clothes since I felt like I was giving her a generous amount of money and I knew there would be a lot of months where she wouldn't need that much money. When she got older she got a job when she was feeling like she wanted more money. It worked out really well for her and we're doing it with our daughter who is an 8th grader too. The bottom line is that they do need money for various things, but I got tired of being the person paying for all of it. I do feel like my daughter has pretty good money management skills for the most part. She has made some dumb purchases, but she also learned to be someone who knows how to find cute things on a clearance rack. She is willing to buy things in consignment or thrift stores.