I Want It All and I Want It Now! Teens & Spending

By Mary Snyder

Most any teenager can knock the bottom out of a fifty-dollar bill faster than you can say OUCH! But, as a parent you have a responsibility to help your child develop good spending habits, if only because you don't want to be footing the bill when your child is thirty and broke.

Teenagers are influenced by marketing and have the additional peer pressure to buy all the right clothing, accessories, and just the general cool stuff that makes them a teen. All this buying has little to do with any particular personal choice and more to do with wanting to fit in. Teens want and need to fit into their social group. The last thing a teenager wants is to be different than the accepted norm. How can you, as a parent, help your teen to carve out good spending habits without depriving him of his all-consuming need to be 'in-style' and without ruining his life (according to him)?

First, you must teach your teenager the value of a dollar. This can be a fairly simple process or a huge obstacle depending on how you've approached spending in the past. If you have always given in to the majority of the wants and then you jerk the rug out from under these spending habits, expect to weather a brutal storm. If you have raised your teen to understand that he can't have everything then you have a much easier road to travel. Here are some steps to get your teenager on the way to creating and living within a budget:

Create a Teen Budget
Sit down with your teenager and determine a workable budget. Consider how much you spend on clothing and what you are willing to fork over for an allowance. Ask your teenager for his input and respect his advice. If he's willing to forgo a portion of his clothing allowance to have an additional five dollars a week in allowance, do it. Your goal is to teach him how to manage money, not to manage his money for him.

Clothing Budget
Split the clothing budget into four equal parts and give your teen his quarterly clothing allowance and send him out to shop. Yes, you will have to bite your tongue when he blows the whole amount on a pair of ratty looking jeans and outrageously priced tennis shoes, but stick to your guns. He will learn the hard way and it's not like he will go naked. You are teaching responsibility and bailing him out with a few clothing purchases only enforces the idea that Mom and Dad will take care of him if he blows it. Remember, you don't want him returning home thirty and broke.

Allowance
The allowance you've set for your teen is directly related to his household chores - he doesn't do the chore, he doesn't get the cash. Don't waver. This is your opportunity to teach him responsibility and a work ethic. If you continue to give him money for almost completed or partially done work, what message are you sending? When your teenager misses out on a couple of outings with friends or can't buy the latest CD, your point will be driven home.

Additional Budget Fillers
The time will come when your teenager approaches you on the brink of despair because he's out of money and desperately wants to attend a function with his friends, don't give in to his pleas of "just this once"-offer a solution. Find a household job you've been putting off that he can tackle. This could be anything from cleaning out the garage to painting a room depending on the amount of money he needs to earn. This will keep you both on track and help to drive home your point of work equals pay.

Bargain Shopping
When your teenager has had a few months of living within a budget you can offer some help by teaching him to bargain shop. Show him how you can find name brand jeans at half the price at an outlet store. Teach him how to shop the sales racks and how to determine a good sale price. Before you know it your teenager will be making such outrageous statements as "I just can't afford that" and "That's just not worth $20." Shocking, but true.

Teens can and do learn the value of a dollar, but it's up to the parents to teach those values. It's our responsibility to show our teens how to survive in the world and one of those lessons is how to budget and manage your money. Remember, this is the child you want to take care of you in your old age-teach him well.