How much pocket money?

Why there's no correct number

Three reasons, and none of them are a dodge.

It depends entirely on what you can afford. That is the whole of it, not a footnote. A figure that's comfortable in one household is impossible in another, and a website has no business telling either of them what to do.

It depends what the money is expected to cover. Pocket money that buys the occasional comic is a different arrangement from pocket money expected to cover school trips, presents for friends and bus fares. The same number means completely different things.

Published averages go stale and make people feel bad. You'll find surveys quoting a national average. They date within a year, and their main effect is to make roughly half of the people reading them feel they're getting it wrong. We'd rather not add to that.

What families actually do

There are broadly three patterns, and all of them are normal.

A fixed amount, weekly or monthly. The most common approach, and the simplest to stick to. Predictable, easy to remember, and it makes running out an experience rather than a negotiation.

An amount that rises with age. You'll see a rule of thumb repeated everywhere: some fixed sum per year of the child's age, per week. It's not a rule, and the figure people quote drifts upward over the years as prices rise, so treat any version of it as a starting point for discussion rather than an answer.

Nothing regular at all. Money for particular things, when it's needed and possible. This is extremely common and it is not a failure. Children in these families learn about money constantly, often more sharply than children handed a fixed sum without comment.

Does the amount actually matter?

Less than almost anyone expects.

What teaches a child about money is making a decision and living with it. Choosing between two things they want. Discovering that the money has gone. Waiting three weeks for something and finding out whether it was worth it.

All of that works at 50p. None of it works at any amount if the adult steps in and buys the thing anyway.

So if you're stuck on the number, you're probably solving the wrong problem. Pick an amount you can sustain without thinking about it, and put your attention on letting them actually decide.

Fixed, or earned for jobs?

This is the argument most families end up having, and there's no settled answer.

Paying for jobs makes the link between work and money obvious, which is valuable. The common worry is that a child starts expecting payment for ordinary family contribution, such as declining to lay the table because it isn't on the list.

A fixed amount regardless gives them something to manage and plan with, which is the budgeting half of the lesson. The worry there is the opposite: money that simply appears.

Plenty of families run both: a small regular amount that isn't tied to anything, plus the option to earn extra for bigger jobs that aren't anyone's basic share of the housework. That splits the difference sensibly, and it's what we'd lean towards. But families differ, and we're not going to pretend there's evidence settling it.

What changes with age

Younger children need it more often. A week is an extremely long time when you're five. Smaller and weekly beats larger and monthly, because the connection between the money arriving and the decision being made has to stay visible.

Older children can handle a longer horizon. Somewhere around eight to ten, monthly starts to make sense, and monthly is where budgeting actually begins, because it's long enough to run out halfway through.

Responsibility can grow with the amount. A common move is to hand over a category rather than just increase the sum: from now on, this covers your own magazines, or presents for friends. That's a much bigger step up than a rise, and it teaches more.

As for when to start: usually once a child can count reliably and understands that money buys things, which for many is somewhere around four to six. There's no rush, and starting later costs nothing.

If money is tight

This section matters more to us than the rest of the page.

No child's financial education is ruined by not getting pocket money. The lesson is the decision, not the sum, and decisions are free.

Things that teach exactly the same skill and cost nothing:

• Letting them choose between two free things: which park, which library book, which of two treats already in the house
• Handing them the decision on something you were buying anyway: “this much is for cereal, you pick which”
• Planning a birthday or Christmas budget together on paper, with real numbers, even if they never touch the money
• Talking out loud about your own trade-offs. Children learn most of this by overhearing it

A child who has watched money being managed carefully has had a financial education. Quite often a better one.

Questions worth settling between you

More useful than a number, and it takes ten minutes:

• How much can we do every week without it becoming a problem in a lean month?
• What is it expected to cover, and what stays ours?
• Is any of it tied to jobs? Which jobs are just part of being in this family, and not for sale?
• What happens when it runs out? (Deciding this before it happens is the single most useful thing on this list.)
• Can they save it up for something bigger, and will we help them keep track?