Don't tell her, give it to her as an 18th birthday presentI thought about putting the $50 per week into a savings account for her which she can access when she's 18 if she needs a rental deposit/pay for a car (or whatever) but that seems to defeat the purpose of her learning to manage her money if we do that.
When I think back to how I was bought up I have absolutely no idea where I got my sense of money from. Anything we needed (well, wanted really) my parents paid for. Movies with friends, holidays, driving lessons, new clothes, school fees, tafe fees, new shoes, hair cut, hair dye, phone credit/bills, they gave me my first car and I didn't pay insurance and rego on it until I moved out - a good two years. And I will be honest, I didn't pull my weight and do my fair share of house work either. Not as much as I think Mum deserved from us, anyway. Our only general "chore" was to show respect towards Mum and Dad, be honest and up front and always let them know what we were doing, who we were doing it with and where we were doing it.
Same goes for my brother, who is a notorious tight arse. Getting a dime out of him is like squeezing water from a rock and he can take DAYS to decided whether he actually NEEDS to buy something or not and it makes me shudder to think how much money he has stashed away for a 17 year old. As for me, my partner and I saved up and bought our first house when we were 19 & 20.
I remember when I got my first job I blatantly refused to let mum pay for anything anymore. I wanted to do it on my own, and that was that.
But in general we were always made aware of the cost of groceries, the cost of monthly phone bills, electricity bills... we were always made aware of how much things were costing and sort of involved in it. I'm not sure whether it was on purpose or accidently, though.
Anyway, I'm not really sure what point I'm getting at now haha! I guess in my mind I think that so long as your daughter is made aware of how much things are costing, appreciates what your doing for her and why you're doing it doesn't hurt for there to be a form of "financial back up" from parents to give teenages who are trying to get out there a bit of a boost to get ahead, because it's not easy.
And Lets face it, she could just sit around driving you nuts bumming off your 50 bucks for the next 2 years, expecting you to driver her to and from wherever and not bother to take those first few steps toward independency.
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