In fact, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, I find giving kids (small) allowances can really help keep spending in check and reduce stress. If you replace the word “allowance” with the word “budget”, it makes more sense. For example, you can sit down with your teen and plan out a monthly or yearly clothing budget. Once agreed, grant that money to your teen as a “clothing allowance”. You don’t actually have to hand over the cash each month/year, just keep track of the running clothing balance as purchases are made. Let your teen make the decisions (for the most part unless some family value is being violated with a purchase) and have the one requirement be that they must stay on budget.

It turns out kids are a lot more careful about their spending when they feel they are spending their own money and not Mom or Dads. The collaborative and formal arrangement of the budget/allowance also virtually eliminates the all-to-common arguments around purchases. The situation changes from the teen begging the parent for a purchase (“Mom, can I have that? Why won’t you buy it *for me*?”) to a less emotional assessment by the teen of the current balance (“Do *I* have enough to buy this?”).