Allowance

[Freesia123]

How much do you give your children a week?
( my daughter is five)

I refuse to make it chore based because I don't get extra money for chores so they won't either. It's expected.

The allowance is for buying toys, going to McDonald's or to the movies.

 

[tnd]

My son is 7.5 and gets $5 per week. He has been getting that since he turned 5. It is not chore-based because we all do chores in our house and we don't get paid for them. I have offered to pay him for extraordinary chores (weeding garden, etc) but he is too lazy to take me up on it.

His allowance is designed to teach him to save money and understand that when you spend money, it's gone. It has also eliminated him asking for things at stores, because I tell him he can spend his own money on it. Suddenly all of the little things he has to have don't seem as important to him when it's his money on the line. He has also done a really good job of saving for things with a willpower that I did not expect him to have.

 

[Chelley00]

We don't do allowance necessarily. We do a ticket system. The kids are given a set amount of tickets per week based on age. Then they can earn extra tickets for doing extra chores beyond what's expected of them (they have to keep room clean and make their bed as part of the family, but if they help with dishes or clean windows or pull weeds or something they get tickets)

They can turn in their tickets for cash, TV or game system time, trips out to eat or to a movie or skating, Redbox rentals, have playdates etc. We have a brochure they can look at to redeem their tickets.

We also take away tickets as punishment if we need. (DD likes to oversleep and miss the bus, now she loses tickets for it)

We've done it since our oldest was little and it's worked very well for us, especially with 4 kids at different ages.

 

[clh2]

We started giving our DD an allowance when she was in kindergarten. It helped to take care of the "I Wants" when she was shopping with us.

I don't remember how much we gave her - probably about $1 per week. (DD is now 19 - so it was a few years ago.

Since you had mentioned McD's in your post - I am just going to mention one of the rules we had for DD - she couldn't use her allowance to by any snacks within 2 hours of a regularly scheduled mealtime. (Obviously - this was an issue 1-time, and then there was a rule.)

This is a great idea - we found that DD learned about taxes. Her $1 per week really only bought $0.94 of stuff. And - she learned that if she bought some piece of junk thing and it broke - that it was a waste of money. And - we let DD manage her money too - and on occasion she lost some of it. Oh well. These were all great lessons to learn without a whole lot of money being wasted. It also showed our DD that if she saved her allowance for a few weeks - she could get something "nicer" than what a 1-week allowance would get her. But the biggest benefit was mine - this got rid of the "I-wants" in the stores.

We also did not tie allowance to chores. IMHO - chores just need to be done, and everyone needs to pitch in, and that is a responsibility that all family members share.

 

[aprilgail2]

We don't tie allowance into chores either- its always been 1.00 for each year of age so now she gets 13.00 a week. It covers things like makeup, a new outfit here or there if she wants to shop on her own.

 

[Freesia123]

A dollar per year sounds like a great idea! I just gave my daughter five dollars a minute ago after reading this. She put it directly into our counting piggy bank for Disbey we already have $100 in there for souvenirs and are working towards $60 for bus transfers to and from LAX. She said shed use it for the bus- she's awesome!!

37 days and counting ...

 

[disney is my life]

i would not give a 5 year old an allowence.dd7 doesnt get one and probably wont until shes 10. I didnt realize parents gave their kids money so young

 

[disney is my life]

A dollar per year sounds like a great idea! I just gave my daughter five dollars a minute ago after reading this. She put it directly into our counting piggy bank for Disbey we already have $100 in there for souvenirs and are working towards $60 for bus transfers to and from LAX. She said shed use it for the bus- she's awesome!!

37 days and counting ...

Thats exactly like my dd15. Shes been saving her allowence since september because she wants to go to disney for her sweet 16 in november. I honestly didn't think she would last long saving but she now has saved over $1000!

 

[tvguy]

We never did allowances with our two.
If it was something they needed, DW and I bought it for them. If it was something they wanted, they used birthday and Christmas money.
Some of their friends parents commented how frugal they were with their money when out......so this may have actually cost me less than an allowance would have.


As a matter of fact, the biggest money issue I had with my kids was when they hit high school, I insisted they always have $20 with them for emergencies. DW and I would provide that $20. They resisted that at first, but after getting stuck a few times without money, they understood. Took DS until he was adult to really understand. He was taking an 11 pm flight out of LAX, got to the airport late, without eating, had no cash, just a debit and credit card. Construction crew cut the data line for all the debit/atm terminals in the airport. All these places to grab a bite to eat....if you had cash......a couple or three hours hungry will teach you fast why you never leave home without some cash.

 

[aprilchem]

We give $1 per year of age and we DO tie it to chores. They're required to complete housework each day and if they forget, they both make up the work and lose part of their allowance that week. We don't buy them any non-essentials and birthday/Christmas money goes into the college accounts, so they understand that no work= no spending money.

We started out not tying allowance to work, but it didn't work for us - I was constantly either punishing or reminding. This way there's no reminding or punishing, just consequences.

 

[kgsmith]

We don't tie allowance into chores either- its always been 1.00 for each year of age so now she gets 13.00 a week. It covers things like makeup, a new outfit here or there if she wants to shop on her own.

This.

My DS11 gets $11 per week. Each week he has to decide how much goes into three buckets: spend, save, donate. Our only rule is that something must go into each bucket.

 

[KrisM]

We pay for chores. They have some they have to do daily/weekly. Others are paid. I don't get money just for living, why should they? DH goes to work 5 days a week to earn money. I don't want to raise them to think they deserve money just for breathing . So, we pay points/chore. Cleaning the bathroom is 3 points, vacuuming is 2 points, etc. $.10/point is paid out weekly.

Things they don't get paid for - making their bed, clearing their dishes at the table, putting away laundry.

 

[kimbe21]

This.

My DS11 gets $11 per week. Each week he has to decide how much goes into three buckets: spend, save, donate. Our only rule is that something must go into each bucket.

I love this idea! We just got back from Disney and while we were there we did the Piggy Bank Adventure in Innoventions with DS5 & DS3. They loved the game and talk about it all the time. This would be a great way to continue what they learned while playing the game (save,spend,donate) at home. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Freesia123]

Our schools all have programs tied to the credit union. Every two weeks kids can put any amount (minimum 25c!) into an envelope and it gets deposited. When dd5 starts kindergarten next year I think I'll make her save 1 dollar a week from her money to do this. Ts not a lot but it adds up fast and if they make a deposit every two weeks, the credit union adds $5.

 

[imsayin]

We pay for chores. They have some they have to do daily/weekly. Others are paid. I don't get money just for living, why should they? DH goes to work 5 days a week to earn money. I don't want to raise them to think they deserve money just for breathing . So, we pay points/chore. Cleaning the bathroom is 3 points, vacuuming is 2 points, etc. $.10/point is paid out weekly.

Things they don't get paid for - making their bed, clearing their dishes at the table, putting away laundry.

30 cents to clean the bathroom? Can they come to my house? I'll pay them at least $1.00

 

[ten6mom]

For those who pay for some chores and not "standard" chores... do you have any kind of rule that the standard chores must be completed before they can earn the money for the extra ones?

 

[ptlohmysoul]

Our schools all have programs tied to the credit union. Every two weeks kids can put any amount (minimum 25c!) into an envelope and it gets deposited. When dd5 starts kindergarten next year I think I'll make her save 1 dollar a week from her money to do this. Ts not a lot but it adds up fast and if they make a deposit every two weeks, the credit union adds $5.

Really? My credit union would go out of business as much money as I'd have my kids contribute .

 

[disney is my life]

We pay for chores. They have some they have to do daily/weekly. Others are paid. I don't get money just for living, why should they? DH goes to work 5 days a week to earn money. I don't want to raise them to think they deserve money just for breathing . So, we pay points/chore. Cleaning the bathroom is 3 points, vacuuming is 2 points, etc. $.10/point is paid out weekly.

Things they don't get paid for - making their bed, clearing their dishes at the table, putting away laundry.

My kids would never clean the bathroom for 30 cents.

Sent from my iPod touch using DISBoards

 

[ptlohmysoul]

We pay for chores. They have some they have to do daily/weekly. Others are paid. I don't get money just for living, why should they? DH goes to work 5 days a week to earn money. I don't want to raise them to think they deserve money just for breathing . So, we pay points/chore. Cleaning the bathroom is 3 points, vacuuming is 2 points, etc. $.10/point is paid out weekly.

Things they don't get paid for - making their bed, clearing their dishes at the table, putting away laundry.

Definitely good idea in this "entitlement" mentality day and age.

I started paying my son for chores, but this was not enough incentive for him, so I changed it to time to play on the iPad (mostly educational games) and/or video games, and at 8 yo, he needs daily incentives, not weekly, so 15 minutes a day, after he completes all his schoolwork, unpaid chores (taking laundry to laundry room, picking up toys, playing with his siblings while I do chores), then 1 paid chore (cleans 2 toilets, bathroom floor, and kitchen floor over 5 days). His whole attitude has changed on getting things done now that he has a daily reward of what he really wants.

 

[leagirl12]

DS (15) and DD (14) get $100 a month. It is not tied to chores because chores are just part of living in the house and all of the family pitches in. They are responsible for all of their wants and their clothes.

We were only giving half of that but DD saw a blurb in an American Girl mag. where a girl talked about how she bought her own clothes from allowance and DD wanted to do that. DS didn't jump on the clothes bandwagon and was only getting $50 a month until he realized that with a little budgeting and clearance shopping DD always had more money. It has really taught them about name brands and whether or not having a paricular label is worth it when it is coming out of their own pockets. They both now look for the sale or clearance rack where when I was buying there was no thought to ask for something regardless of the price.

They also have to spend $10 of their $100 for their phone data packages as they asked for smartphones for Christmas.

It has really helped our budget too. We are no longer nickel and dimed to death.