How much allowance for a 16 year old?

When my teens hit high school I transition them to a yearly allowance, given twice a year (this year, for my remaining teen, it is $1,500/year.) Out of that, they pay for their clothes, accessories, entertainment, birthday and christmas presents, food when they go out with friends, etc. They contribute nominally to their car insurance when they start driving. I pay for sports equipment, shoes and jackets. And gas when they are home. My older kids are now 24 and 20 and have aged out of it, but it worked well for them -they are great at budgeting and have a solid understanding of finance. My youngest is still in high school and he is pretty frugal. One of the other side benefits of this arrangement is they never whined for money. They could negotiate for a "raise" over the 4 years of high school if they felt they needed more money and could verbalize why. 

Hi there, I don’t have a perfect answer to this, as we’ve tried multiple ways in the past, but we’re trying this for now. My daughter is a senior in high school, and this summer I thought about the skills I wanted to teach her before she goes off to college and into the adult world. One of those skills was money management.
 

We decided as a family to set her up with a special allowance account, separate from her  savings and college fund. We give her $100 per month, on the first of every month. She uses this to go on Bart into the city, have coffee with friends, and buy herself things. If she runs out of money, she runs out. This $100 is not tied to any chores. She has regular tasks that she is expected to do outside of allowance money. If she really runs out of money and wants to earn more, we have big projects that she can do, like weed the yard, deep clean the bathroom, or vacuum the cars.So far, so good. We may reevaluate and change as we go forward, but we’re trying this for now. 
this feels comfortable and really minimizes the nickel and diming with calculating money and chores etc. And I hope it’s helping her to see how to manage money on a larger scale, because rent money and monthly budgets are not so far away, especially with college dorms and bills. Good luck to you.

When my daughter was a freshman in high school I heard someone on NPR suggest this and Iit worked really well for my daughter. Not so much for my son- waiting until now- his senior year to do it.

The author suggested that you figure out how much money to spend/give your child for all kinds of things- all their clothes, spending money etc in a year and give that amount to them all at once to spend. I did it for 6 months the first time and she did keep within her budget and learned so much. This means if you would buy them designer clothes or expensive ski gear anyway- give them enough money that they can buy those things themselves and really learn what it costs. Within a year while shopping together at a clothing store my daughter had gone from asking me if I’d spend $75 on a top for her to telling me she loved this top but she’d wait for it to go on sale!! That was such a lesson for her. In contrast my son was constantly running out of money and asking for an advance so we stopped. Trying again now that he’s a senior!