Determining an allowance can be tricky and even awkward at times for a couple of reasons (I promise it really does get easier as time goes on).
At first, it’s like a dance – you want to get the best and fairest allowance possible, so you want to avoid going too low but most of the men you’ll find on sites like Seeking Arrangement are successful businessmen and won’t want to ‘overpay’ your allowance if they can get away with giving you less.
However, beware of the men who are going to treat it as if it’s a business deal or something and start to try to bargain with you over nickels and dimes – these aren’t the men that you want to be seeing anyway. They’ll only see you as property they’re paying for as opposed to seeing your allowance as an investment into a developing relationship.
But say you find a potential sugar daddy who seems to be the real deal. How do you go about negotiating the best allowance for yourself? There’s just two simple steps to negotiating your best allowance…
Know what you want before you ask for it
It’s definitely always best to know exactly what you want before you even start. One way to get an idea of this is to start with your monthly expenses. For example, when I lived in New York, my rent and bills came to approximately $3,000 per month so that’s what I wanted. Whenever I was speaking to a new man, I would tell him this right off the bat and most men who wanted to move forward with me were happy to cover this.
I was also working at the time but it freed up my wages on dinners or trips with my friends. While obviously not every man was willing to cover those costs for me straight away, it was always better to go in with a figure in mind (even a rough one).
If a man hears you ask him the most he is willing to give you as an allowance, he will automatically start with a low figure as he knows you don’t have a number in mind. They didn’t get as successful as they are by making bad business decisions so be smart!
When I first started out, it was a little different. I had just turned twenty and was still living at home with my parents in Southern Cali! I had no rent and minimal bills to pay. It was for this reason that I tended to prefer a lower allowance of approximately $1,000 per month, accompanied by gifts.
One sugar daddy I was seeing at the time was a head buyer for a major department store in New York and would visit California twice a month for business.
We met every time he did and he’d bring me a gift all the way from NYC! Gucci quickly became a favorite brand of mine! Another man I was seeing was quite serious about education and on our third date, he bought me a MacBook for college! Instead of giving me an allowance, he also preferred me to put money towards my student loans (which I was glad to do).
It all depends on your needs/wants at the time so know this before you start out!
Know what you’re able to offer
It’s great to know what you want but you also have to be realistic. The men you speak to will have expectations as well. If you’re asking for a huge allowance but only willing to meet once a month, is that fair? It’s just as important for you to ask your man what his expectations are.
Does he want to meet just once a month or will he want to meet you twice a week? Will you have to fly to meet him? I always start out asking how their previous arrangements worked and in turn, telling them how my past arrangements worked.
This gives both of you ballpark expectations and is always an easy way to start the conversation. If you’re so far away on expectations that you can’t even see each other, it’s probably not the guy for you! Most men will appreciate you being direct and honest and it really does get easier the more experienced you are.
A major red flag that I always recommend looking out for though – a guy who is talking to you as if he’s discussing business with you. It is still a relationship at the end of the day and although, there is obviously a financial aspect to it, you’re not a piece of property and the relationship needs to benefit both of you equally.
A man who treats it like a business deal is probably more of a ‘John’ than a sugar daddy.
This post is brought to you by one of our contributing SB writers, Aly, aka The Travelholic Sugar Babe. You can check out her sugar baby story here!