pink drinks from Starbucks<\/a> or saving up to buy something on Amazon, New York City tweens and teens come face-to-face with dozens of eye-popping storefronts (not to mention the heavenly scent of pizza sizzling and croissants baking) multiple times a day. With long commutes, friends from far-flung neighborhoods, and small apartments, allowance is a way to fund their entry into much-needed third spaces, says Catie Hogan, a personal-finance expert and the author of the Cents of Humor newsletter. \u201cIt isn\u2019t just regular currency,\u201d says Hogan. \u201cIt\u2019s social currency.\u201d<\/p>\nHow much allowance a kid receives depends not only on their parents but also, in many cases, on the norms in their friend group and on how many stores are on the path between school and home. In Manhattan, chockablock with Duane Reade, CVS, Target,\u00a0bakeries, and bodegas, the pull to shop can be especially strong. I talked to Upper East Side parents who let their kids buy Butterfield Market sushi every day and heard of deep-pocketed teens who not only splurged on after-school pizza slices and Refreshers but also treated all their friends to the same (which sent one mom into a mild panic that her budget-minded child was considered a freeloader).<\/p>\n
What is \u201cenough\u201d for a New York City tween or teen to not feel left behind? Among users of Greenlight, a family finance app that lets parents automate allowance delivery, the average annual allowance given by NYC parents in 2025 was $831, or roughly $16 a week. (The national average was $347.) But in talking to parents, I heard of kids receiving as little as $5 and as much as $200 per week. I heard about kids becoming overdrawn on their Apple Pay accounts, listing their baseball cards on auction apps to boost their snack funds, and investing their allowances into the stock market (with unknown returns), while others had to complete a list of chores to buy one soda from a vending machine on a Saturday.\u00a0Christine, a Park Slope mom, uses Apple Cash to give her 11- and 13-year-old daughters $15 and $20, respectively, every Sunday. \u201cI want them to be able to get little things with their friends and not feel left out,\u201d she told me. \u201cI also don\u2019t want to give them so much that they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, I have so much money I can buy whatever I want.\u2019\u201d They get bonuses for completing chores beyond their everyday responsibilities. Recently, Sara, a West Village mom, told me she\u2019s considering increasing <\/strong>her 17-year-old son\u2019s weekly $20 allowance to $40. \u201cIt seems excessive, but it will all go to food,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of kids\u2019 social lives involve eating food after school or going out for lunch. And if your friends don\u2019t want to go to 99-cent pizza, you don\u2019t have much choice.\u201d Even with the increase, she admits that, to her son, it still doesn\u2019t feel like enough.<\/p>\n\u201cThe right amount is never a number \u2014 it\u2019s a concept,\u201d says Ron Lieber, a personal-finance columnist for the New York Times and the author of The Opposite of Spoiled, himself a Brooklyn dad of two. \u201cWe want them to have just enough so that they have what they need and some of what they want \u2014 but not so much that they don\u2019t have to make tough choices on the regular.\u201d
Lieber follows a dollar-per-child\u2019s-age guideline for his 10-year-old daughter, with the amount divided into spend, save, and give buckets. \u201cIt\u2019s $10 a week \u2014 $4 to spend, $3 to save, and $3 to give,\u201d he says. Right now, she spends her money at Sephora or on boba tea (\u201cwhich we\u2019ll usually pay for if a friend is over for a hangout,\u201d he says). But he anticipates the amount changing \u201conce she\u2019s in middle school and has a digital device of some sort next year.\u201d\u00a0The goal, he says, is to make allowance an ongoing conversation that evolves along with your kid.<\/p>\n
Aurora, Christine\u2019s 11-year-old daughter, is happy with her allowance. \u201cFifteen dollars is enough for me to get Dunkin\u2019 Donuts every day after school, if I want to. But it\u2019s not so much that I have too much money,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a kid in my class who said he gets $100 a week, which I think is absolutely insane. Like, who needs $100 a week?\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethany, a Battery Park City mom of three, has given her now-17-year-old son $100 a week since tenth grade. She explains where most of it goes: \u201cThere\u2019s no cafeteria in his school where he can actually get lunch.\u201d She estimates he spends about $15 a day eating out. \u201cHe mixes it up, so it goes from, like, pizza to a Chick-fil-A. Sometimes he\u2019s going to the bodega and getting himself a bacon, egg, and cheese for lunch, or he\u2019s going to one of the food trucks and getting a chicken-and-rice situation.\u201d Anything left over is her son\u2019s to keep (and spend) as he likes.<\/p>\n
Still, Bethany says that at times the system has gone awry, particularly because in addition to allowance, her two oldest children also have access to her credit card, ostensibly for emergencies.\u00a0She told me about a day when her 15-year-old, whose allowance is $30 per week, had a half-day of school and so went out to lunch with her friends, got her nails done, and then got frozen yogurt. She used Bethany\u2019s credit card rather than her own money. \u201cThat\u2019s when I was like, \u2018Okay, we can\u2019t do all this.\u2019 That was over $100 in a day. That\u2019s insane.\u201d She also recently instituted a rule about Starbucks: It can only be consumed once a week. \u201cIt got completely out of control. There was a time when I looked at my credit card statement, and I was like, \u2018Oh, my God, you were there three or four times this week.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
For several parents I interviewed, the question of how much allowance to give had less to do with their kids\u2019 desires than with unpacking baggage from their own childhoods. A few told me that when they were teenagers, they never had enough money to shop with their friends and that they wanted their kids to have a different experience. \u201cI didn\u2019t get an allowance myself growing up in Queens in an immigrant family,\u201d said Jay, a Manhattan dad of a 16-year-old. \u201cThere was no such thing.\u201d Jay started giving his son $100 per week when he turned 13; he increased it to $200 per week this past year. The amount helps his son stay in step \u2014 sort of \u2014 with his private-school classmates, some of whom, Jay says, \u201chave open access to their parents\u2019 credit cards.\u201d\u00a0The money is enough to fund Starbucks runs and bowling outings and occasional jaunts to the Hamptons with friends.<\/p>\n
But it isn\u2019t just about keeping up appearances. For many of the teens, receiving an allowance has provided an opportunity to learn a lesson or two (and sometimes, it\u2019s the exact lesson that getting an allowance is traditionally intended to impart). Owen, the Park Slope 12-year-old, told me that he is steadily learning how to save. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely disappointing to, like, go home and count my money and then see that I didn\u2019t gain any and all that week I\u2019ve spent it immediately. That\u2019s kind of upsetting,\u201d he says. \u201cBut recently, I\u2019ve been really working on not spending any money at the deli, and I\u2019ve saved $20.22.\u201d And many allowance-wielding teens and tweens are also discovering what it means to be generous. Jonathan Webb, the owner of the Showroom Bakehouse, has noticed something about the kids who stop at his Park Slope shop for Belgian waffles and pastel de nata: They are very good tippers.\u00a0\u201cFor $5.20,\u201d he says, \u201cthey\u2019ll leave $6 and tell the person working, \u2018You can keep the rest.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Leiber says one of the most valuable learning experiences allowance affords is an early money blunder \u2014 something Jay says his son is already getting a taste of. Recently, he withdrew $1,000 from his personal brokerage account to buy Pok\u00e9mon cards. \u201cI was not okay with it,\u201d Jay admits, \u201cbut he said, \u2018This is the money that you give me as an allowance. I should be allowed to do whatever I feel like.\u2019\u201d The cards are still sitting in Jay\u2019s basement. His son contends they are accruing value; Jay remains fairly certain they were a big mistake.<\/p>\n
The names of the parents and children in this story have been changed to protect their privacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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