Almost every family lands on a pocket money arrangement without ever really deciding one. It emerges — a bit here, a fiver there when someone remembers. That is fine, but it means the arrangement is teaching something nobody chose.
1. How much
There is no correct figure, and any article claiming otherwise is guessing at your household budget. What matters far more is that the amount is enough to make a decision with. If a week’s pocket money cannot buy anything your child wants, they will simply hoard it without thinking, or ask you for the rest — and neither teaches much.
A useful test: could they buy something they actually want after saving for three or four weeks? If yes, the amount is doing its job. If it would take six months, it is too low to be educational.
2. How often
Weekly for younger children, monthly as they get older. The reason is simple — a seven-year-old cannot plan across four weeks, so monthly money gets spent on day two and the remaining twenty-eight days teach nothing but frustration.
Moving to monthly around ten or eleven is a genuine step up in difficulty, and worth naming as one. It is the first time they have to make money last.
Whatever you choose, make it predictable. Pocket money that arrives when someone remembers teaches children that money is luck rather than something you can plan around.
3. Should it be linked to chores?
This is the one parents argue about, and both sides have a real point.
The case for linking
Money comes from work — that is how the world operates, and pretending otherwise is its own distortion. Children who earn tend to value what they have earned more, and it creates a natural conversation about rates and effort.
The case against
Some jobs are simply part of being in a family, not paid labour. Link everything to money and you may find a child declining to help unless there is a fee — which is a hard habit to unpick later.
The arrangement most families settle on splits the difference: a baseline amount that arrives regardless, because they are part of the household, plus paid extras for jobs genuinely beyond the ordinary — washing the car, helping with a big clear-out.
That teaches both things at once. Some work is just what you do for people you live with. Other work is worth money, and you can choose whether to take it on.
The bit most people skip
Whatever you decide, say it out loud to your child. “You get this much, on this day, and here is why” takes thirty seconds and turns an arrangement into a lesson.
And then — the hard part — let them spend it badly at least once. A child who blows three weeks of savings on something that breaks by Thursday has learned something no explanation from you could have taught.