Kids purchasing Christmas gifts

Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad? For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and buy
those himself?

At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?
--
ColoradoSkiBum

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad?
For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and
buy
those himself?

At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?

At 13 my youngest has pocket money or money which others have gven her as
gifts, she's too young to earn money. Even my older daughter who does have
a part time job and earns, doesn't have that much money. She no longer gets
pocket money though, so her own income goes for all her entertainment needs,
and lots of items like clothing. I give both girls £100 for Christmas
shopping. It's their responsibility to draw up a plan of how many people
that's got to cover and to budget for gifts, with the proviso that it covers
family first and then firiends. This is the first year that Louise has had
enough income that she can contribute towards the gifts from that to
increase what she spends, but I still intend to give it to her. It comes
out of child support which both my ex and I pay and which I don't use for
buying presents, just as buying birthday presents for family and friend's
birthdays throughout the rest of the year does.

Wendy

In a previous article, "ColoradoSkiBum" said:

Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad? For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and buy
those himself?

I am a real soft touch and when my kids were 13 I paid for their
family gifts. They paid for gifts for friends.

Personally, I do think you should make sure that he gets something for
his mom, but there are people here who will say that it's not your
job, his father should be doing that. There is something to that.


At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?

They just sort of segued into it. My older daughter went out and got
a job the day she turned 16. My younger one is 16 now, but feels that
a job would interfere with her studies. Since she's taking very
challenging courses (three Advanced Placement courses including
chemistry, and other courses including pre-calculus) and she's getting
extremely good grades, I support that decision. She gets an allowance
of $60 a month (which isn't a lot) and budgets herself very well.

Vicki
--
Just to think I used to worry about things like that.
Used to worry 'bout rich and skinny
'til I wound up poor and fat.
-Delbert McClinton

In article ,
ColoradoSkiBum wrote:
Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad? For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and buy
those himself?

At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?
--
ColoradoSkiBum


I still help my son (who will be 17 on Monday) with gifts for family
members, including his dad & SM, his grandmothers, his uncles (on my
side only). He doesn't have a job, and not much allowance to save. I
can't really afford to pay him for jobs around the house, either (that
is *if* I could even get him to do them). He pays for any gifts for
his girlfriend, or his friends. He does photography, so my
contribution (besides paying for his photography classes) is frames
to put the pictures in (they're pretty inexpensive, so I'm willing to
help out this way). I want to make sure that these family members are
not forgotten by him on Christmas since they always think of him. On
the other hand, I don't really want to do the whole thing for him--he at
least has to have a hand in it by choosing and printing the photographs
for each person.

When he was younger, I gave him money to buy gifts for family members
or we sat down together and made things. He always liked Fimo, so he
made some pretty interesting Christmas ornaments for people. Is
making things an option for your SS? Is he crafty at all? Craft
stores sell supplies for soap making, candle making, candy making--all
kinds of ideas. If he is crafty, maybe you could contribute the money for
supplies if he made the gifts.

All that being said, it's still an uphill battle to get him to think
about other people. He still thinks the world revolves around him and
he'd much rather spend whatever money he has on himself than on
Christmas presents for his family. I guess that's why I insist that he
not be empty handed at Christmas, and I'm willing to help out. I am
hoping the lesson will sink in eventually, and I think it might
be--he's been sneaking people into his room to get their approval on
what he bought me for Christmas--with his own money.

I'd draw the line at gifts for friends, and let him know that he has
to save his allowance for those.


Deb R.

"Vicki Robinson" wrote in message
...

She gets an allowance
of $60 a month (which isn't a lot) and budgets herself very well.

Vicki

Vicki, do you give her the entire $60 to budget through the month, or do you
allocate it per week? My BS15 fritters money away, and I have thought about
giving him a larger sum less often so that he can see how much he really
has.
Karen

In a previous article, "Karen" said:

Vicki, do you give her the entire $60 to budget through the month, or do you
allocate it per week? My BS15 fritters money away, and I have thought about
giving him a larger sum less often so that he can see how much he really
has.

I have, for years, mailed my kids a monthly allowance check, and then
cash it for them. My older daughter used to be completely profligate
with money. (She was **much** younger then.) She would spend her
allowance immediately, on whatever was close to hand, and then bug me
for an advance when she saw something she wanted more. So I finally
decided that this had to be more formal, to help them respect the
process, so I mailed them allowance checks, once a month, taught them
how to endorse them, and then we'd go to the bank to cash them. It
was like a paycheck, and of course they couldn't have an advance
because you get your allowance once a month in a check that we cash at
the bank. How can you get an advance on that? If I run short of
money at the end of a pay period, can I ask my boss for an advance?
Don't be silly!

Now they're in our automatic bill paying system, and the bank sends
them a check once a month. Well, the younger daughter is.

Come to think of it, I'm 6 days late with the elder daughter's monthly
allotment!


Anyway, though, it worked just fine.

Vicki
--
Just to think I used to worry about things like that.
Used to worry 'bout rich and skinny
'til I wound up poor and fat.
-Delbert McClinton

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 21:16:13 -0700, "ColoradoSkiBum"
wrote:

Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad? For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and buy
those himself?

At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?
AS I've mentioned before, my kid has an allowance that includes
clothing and everything else.

However, this is brand new in September and t hi syear at least we
will certainly add to that.

So my answer would be, if you didnt discuss before, exactly what his
allowance would cover, then yes, you should add funds.

In our case we review allowances quarterly, discuss what they cover
and what we cover (ie prior we paid for lunches bt now his allowances
includes lunches and so on). Give him more warnign that you expect
him to pay for gifts. At this late date if he has not saved anything
its kind of late.

My kids by gifts for immediate family (which would include bio mom and
sister) and one or two very close friends.

Barb

ColoradoSkiBum wrote:

Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad? For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and buy
those himself?

At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?


I think it depends on your family approach. I think if
you want him to do gifts out of his allowance money, then he
probably needs a bigger allowance. Otherwise, he'd likely have
to spend nothing for weeks to manage a few gifts. On the other
hand, I don't think there's anything wrong with giving him a
budget for Christmas gifts. Or maybe you can adopt a combined
approach where you provide a budget for family gifts and he
handles friends' gifts out of his allowance.
I do think it's important that he be able to give
gifts, budget for them, and choose them for the people
close to him. I just don't think that it's essential that
the money be his allowance money or money he earned by
working for it to be a valid experience. Depending on
how responsible he is, you may have to exercise some
oversight or help him budget.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Vicki Robinson" wrote in message
...
They just sort of segued into it.

My older daughter, Louise, said out of the blue tonight that she really
didn't expect me to give her money to do her Christmas shopping, but that
she was grateful for the money if I was sure I could afford it.

It's thinks like that that tell you they're growing up.

On Friday, I had a job interview and had to do a presentation for it which
I'd been working on all week. She sent me a text message in the morning to
wish me luck and rang at lunch time to ask me how it went. It made me so
happy that she cared enough to think about me.

Wendy

ColoradoSkiBum wrote in message
...
Should I give my SS (13 this month) money to buy something for his dad?
For
his sister who lives in Florida? What about for his biomom (also in Fla)?
Or for his friend? Or, should he save up his allowance ($16 a week) and
buy
those himself?

At what age did/will your own kids start buying gifts for friends and
relatives out of their own money?
Dh says that his parents always paid half of all presents from when they
first got pocket money (age 5). I think that's a good compromise.
I didn't get pocket money, but when I managed to convince my parents (age
~10) that I wanted to buy the presents myself, they used to give I think £10
for me to do this.
I think discussing it with your ss might be a good idea, as he might want to
feel the presents were from him not you. I would have at that age.
Debbie