Do your tweens and teenagers have a clothing allowance?
Why not?
It’s a wonderful tool for teaching them:
- Personal responsibility
- The consequences of choices
- How to manage their money
- Is that a want or a need?
It takes a year of trials, then you, the parent, are set.
What’s a clothing allowance?
I served as a volunteer Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society budget counselor many years ago.
My children were young then, and didn’t pay any attention to their clothes.
I did. Money was tight during those years. They wore many hand-me-down clothes.
Since I spent one day a week as a budget counselor, I adapted those skills to my own family.
I read books about managing my money, and eventually discovered Larry Burkett.
I listened to his radio program on the same topic every week. Our kids did, too, when I drove them to school ten years later.
Burkett emphasized the need to train both ourselves and our children. I listened closely.
A clothing allowance gave them the freedom to learn how to make financial choices, while still under our care.
Clothing allowance details
We began our financial practice with the kids when they were young.
If they got money as a Christmas or birthday gift, we let them spend half of it. The rest went into their piggy banks.
When they hit their teenage years, I calculated how much I usually spent on clothes in September. I then added 10 percent to the number because they were new at managing their money.
I instructed them to go through their clothes and school supplies to make a list of what they needed.
They counted how many pairs of socks they owned, for example. Did their school clothes fit?
Were their shoes or sandals worn out? (We lived in Hawai’i when we instituted the clothing allowance.)
What did they actually need?
NOT what did they want?
I then had them write up a list of what they would need for the new school year.
We discussed their list, and then I gave them the news.
“I’m going to give you ___________ (a sum of money). We’ll go to the store and you work through your list. You can buy anything you want off your list. I’ll give you back whatever you don’t spend.”
They were shocked but excited by the idea.
The boys were eleven and thirteen.
How was the shopping?
Fascinating–to me.
They carefully looked at prices for the first time. They pondered the selections and put back items when they concluded, “My old backpack will work.”
Weighing what they needed versus what they wanted meant shopping took longer.
But it also brought surprising results.
They decided they’d buy t-shirts at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet rather than the store.
Our second son was a keen shopper. To my surprise, he bought five t-shirts for $10 and then spent $20 on a pair of sandals. (These are 1994 prices.)
He really wanted a specific type of sandal, which this mother would never have wasted money buying.
Later, we learned the reason why.
“Everyone in my class wears sandals like these. They don’t care about our t-shirts, but the sandals made a difference.”
Whatever type of local sandals they were, they helped him fit in with his classmates.
Later, he told us the clothing allowance was a face-saver and made all the difference in the world to him.
Who knew?
Did it work?
Absolutely.
Ultimately, all our children received a clothing allowance when they reached junior high.
They loved it.
It taught them how to manage their personal funds. (Okay, I confess, I always bought their underwear. Everyone still gets socks for Christmas.)
The boys all easily earned the Boy Scout Personal Management Merit Badge.
(Download a free version of the Personal Management 2025 booklet.)
They learned how to budget, enabling them to save money for themselves if they managed their finances effectively.
It taught them what they really valued — style over quality, even!
And also how to save — especially those years when they grew four inches and needed longer pants!
A clothing allowance of their own meant I didn’t have to say no all the time,
If they wanted a clothing item, I’d ask, “Do you have any money in your clothing allowance?”
Then we’d discuss why or why not.
And I could always pay them to do a household chore.
We weren’t cruel, but we were firm.
Closing thoughts
A parent’s role is to raise adults, not large children.
Allowing our kids to “experiment” with money while they were home meant we could help when they made mistakes. (I also got needed Christmas gift suggestions!)
It also meant that when they left for college, we knew we could trust them. They’d had practice managing themselves.
And that was more valuable than anything else.
Tweetables
How to manage a clothing allowance for teenagers. Click to Tweet
The value of a clothing allowance beyond buying clothes. Click to Tweet
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