How much is your kid’s allowance?

[luvsJack]

As for the allowance for chores thing. We don't do that. DD does chores because she is a part of the family and lives in the house so she has responsibilities. And responsibilities come before play time (or going out time). She doesn't go until they are done just as it is for me and cooking her meals or washing the clothes or whatever.

 

[ShayBells]

As for the allowance for chores thing. We don't do that. DD does chores because she is a part of the family and lives in the house so she has responsibilities. And responsibilities come before play time (or going out time). She doesn't go until they are done just as it is for me and cooking her meals or washing the clothes or whatever.

I don't like the chore thing period. I like how you handle it and maybe my mom just got lucky but we didn't have "chores" we were raised to help out when needed. We could of done nothing but we did help with cleaning and trash and laundry because it was the right thing to do. We didn't get anything for it.

I want to try to raise my child like that to not do chores because they'll get money but to learn responsibility of doing the right thing.

Not saying chores for money is a bad thing. To each there own. This is just my preference.

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[akayek31]

When I was a kid I got a toy or something every Friday when I lived with my dad. When I was in high school he gave me $30 a week plus $2 a day for lunch and half the time I would not even go to the lunch room. My kids both got jobs at 16. They buy whatever they want. DD is putting up $20 a week for Disney and buys her make up, lunch (she goes to two schools and drives so eats out), and whatever date wise with her boyfriend. DD only works Fri-Sun because she is a junior in high school.

 

[MarciaBrady]

I don't get an allowance.
I get $10 a week for helping at the family business, though. (Usually. Some weeks I don't get anything.)
My sis and I are starting up a babysitting business to make some money.

 

[elaine amj]

Kinda random but just a thought. Parents giving their child an allowance is suppose to teach them to manage and the value of a dollar. I honestly don't think I learned that until I got my own job. Haha

Growing up, my allowance was just for fun stuff and it didn't really teach me to manage money since anything I needed, my parents supplied. I was always a saver though and did like to see my "stash" grow so in a sense it helped foster that attitude.

For my kids, I'm coming up with "needs" I would expect them to cover to provide more solid and real consequences to not budgeting properly. I'm paying for chores instead of giving an allowance because my DH insists they need to "earn" the money. On the positive side, I get a whole lot more cooperation to do chores when there's money involved.

 

[MinnieLovesMickey12]

Both my kids go skating every Friday night and are given $13 each week for that. $7 to get in and $6 for drinks and snacks. But all they do is keep their room picked up. I don't make them do house cleaning or chores for it. My mom.never made me help her clean the house and I don't make mine either. Sometimes I may ask them to help me do something like carry in groceries or pick their own crap up from around the house but they don't get paid for that.

We don't buy too much random crap for the kids during the year. Just skating money.

 

[wishesuponastar]

When the kids were younger we would give $1 or $2 a week. Now we don't give allowances just buy them (within reason) what they need. They are 12 & 16. If it's an expensive item, we make them wait until birthday or Christmas. We don't pay them for doing chores but we do give money for report cards. $10 for straight A's, $5 for A's & B's.

 

[WantToGoNow]

You're the parent but I completely disagree with this!!! If you miss a day at work, does your boss not give you your full weeks salary??? If you forget to do one thing at work, does your boss withhold all your pay?? No.

My kids agreed to this arrangement - as a matter of fact it was my dd9's idea. If they were given the choice, we would have no clothes, dishes would be stacked everywhere and the cat box would be nasty. If I have to do their chores, no they will not be paid. I don't believe in just paying them just so they have spending money. If that's the case just give them money and you do all the work. I also don't pay for grades - they get good grades or they lose possessions and/or privileges.

 

[aprilgail2]

My 14 year old daughter gets 14.00 a week- 1.00 for every year of age. She loves shopping for make up and clothes so most of it goes there. She does make other money by babysitting which she gets to keep most of, some goes in the bank. The money she gets from acting technically only 15% by law needs to go into a trust account for the child but our deal is she gets to keep between 20.00 and 40.00 depending on how much each job pays and the rest gets put into her trust.

 

[CAFarmerGirl]

- for the grade payers, are your kids all academically inclined? This is another one that I am curious how the balance is found, simply because natural ability plays a big role here. My son can pull off an A without cracking a book, but some of his friends work harder for their high C or low B than he does (by a long shot). Do any of the parents who pay for marks have kids with special needs or learning challenges, and if so, does their payment schedule differ from your more academically blessed children?

I wish I had academically blessed children! Homework time would be sooo much easier!

However, both of my kids would qualify as ADHD according to the Conner's rating scale. School is still extremely difficult for my dd, and it was a lot harder for my son. He has matured and his habits are more established; now he is almost a straight A student (he never made honor roll until 5th grade). However, he is still doing homework for at least an hour or 2 every night. My dd also has to work for her A's and B's (her grades are all B's and C's now because she is not putting in enough time). We used to have to modify their homework and both received classroom accommodations up until this year. This is why I make it worth their time to study, and I reward them with money.

They also play soccer. Neither one is very good. So, to help encourage them to work hard at practice, I told them I would give them $100 if they scored a goal. Crazy, right? If they were really good, I wouldn't have put that carrot out there. However, I like to reward hard work, and for them, it is hard to score a goal. Neither has made a goal, yet..but they keep trying!

 

[luvsJack]

I wish I had academically blessed children! Homework time would be sooo much easier!

However, both of my kids would qualify as ADHD according to the Conner's rating scale. School is still extremely difficult for my dd, and it was a lot harder for my son. He has matured and his habits are more established; now he is almost a straight A student (he never made honor roll until 5th grade). However, he is still doing homework for at least an hour or 2 every night. My dd also has to work for her A's and B's (her grades are all B's and C's now because she is not putting in enough time). We used to have to modify their homework and both received classroom accommodations up until this year. This is why I make it worth their time to study, and I reward them with money.

They also play soccer. Neither one is very good. So, to help encourage them to work hard at practice, I told them I would give them $100 if they scored a goal. Crazy, right? If they were really good, I wouldn't have put that carrot out there. However, I like to reward hard work, and for them, it is hard to score a goal. Neither has made a goal, yet..but they keep trying!

Be careful of that! LOL When ds was 12 he had a hitting slump in baseball. DH told him he would give him $5 for a single, $10 for a double, $15 for a triple and $50 for a homerun. Uhmmm, yeah, we were in debt to that kid by the end of the season.

 

[ajordan79]

My 8 year old gets $10 a week. It is her responsibility to feed the pets and keep her room straight. She also helps with the cooking and cleaning but there is nothing set for her besides the previous two responsibilities. Also, for A's on her report card she gets rewarded.
Last week she made a cool $30. LOL She is a saver though mostly by choice. One way I know if she really wants something is if she is willing to spend her money on it. If she isn't, she's not that interested. If she is, she must really want it bad!

 

[powelweb]

Wow, this could almost be us! The only detail that is different is that we give our daughter .50 per year of age - so at 10, she will get $5.00. We insist that she put half of her allowance into her 'savings jar' for bigger items that she might want. The other have is pin money to spend.

We were advised to start the allowance when DD was about 5 from a very wise, experienced, thrifty mom of 4. I was going crazy dealing with the "gimmies" from DD, and to my shock, my friend said, "Give her an allowance and make HER responsible for her choices". Her second word of advice was, "Unless it's going to be dangerous or unhealthy, you have to let your daughter make financial mistakes and poor choices with her money. That's the best way for her to learn".

So of course DD blew all her money on CANDY for the first month. I almost bit my tongue in half! But amazingly enough, within 3 months she stopped buying sweets and really started thinking hard about her purchases. Nowadays, she often will go weeks without spending a dime and saves a serious amount in her wallet to spend on a nicer toy.

We expect we will need to review how we give DD her allowance once she is about 12 - I want to start getting her to budget, and take greater responsibility for more choices like clothing, school supplies, gifts and toiletries. Our goal is that by the time DD is 18, she's getting a much larger monthly allowance from us but handling most of the purchasing decisions herself.

It's scary when you really think about it, such a short time to teach financial literacy!!!....

Funny- when we started her allowance, we did specifically say just because you have the money doesn't mean you can spend it all on candy- it is our job as your parents to look out for your health, too, and we don't think that would be healthy for your body or your teeth to have all that candy.

Never been a problem, but this is the same kid whose Halloween candy we end up throwing out at Easter, and vice versa.

 

[mom2val]

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[CAFarmerGirl]

Be careful of that! LOL When ds was 12 he had a hitting slump in baseball. DH told him he would give him $5 for a single, $10 for a double, $15 for a triple and $50 for a homerun. Uhmmm, yeah, we were in debt to that kid by the end of the season.

That is great! We only have 2 games left of soccer before the season is over.

 

[Jedana]

We do $1 per year per week. DS is now 10, so he gets $10 a week.

Out of that, he must pay his Cub den dues ($2 a week, 3 weeks a month). If he wants any video games, comic books, toys, etc, he has to take it out of that money. (We will purchase regular books for him at our expense, anytime. He has a library of over 500 books already--some he inherited from his sisters like Dr Seuss, though.)

Also, if he breaks his glasses or tears up his shoes due to his carelessness, he has to replace them. We'll pay the upfront cost, then we will hand him his allowance, and he has to turn around and pay "the bill" (us) back, until it's paid off. He has had to buy one new jacket this year, because he lost his at the park after school.

We don't pay for grades. We expect the kids to get the best possible grade they can earn. If they can earn an A, then we expect an A. If they are struggling in a subject, and can only manage a C, then we are ok with a C. (D's and F's would require extra work on both their part and ours, but we've only hit that note a couple of times with DD2.)

I also don't pay for chores. We all make messes, we all have to do our part to clean up. However, if I have to do DS's chores--due to his neglect, laziness or lack of time scheduling on his part--he has to pay me for the chore. Cash or chocolate, I'm good either way.

 

[mrodgers]

My kids don't get an allowance nor do they do chores. My kids don't get money much at all since they hardly get anything for birthdays or Christmas from other family members.

My mother was and still is an extreme control freak. She gave my brother and I an allowance, but we weren't allowed to have it. She kept it in an envelope. May as well just never have gotten an allowance as a kid.

We also as kids had to do chores. In the summer, we were pretty much the ones cleaning the whole house and doing everything since she is such a neat freak that my brother cleaning once, I cleaning once, and her cleaning once a week still wasn't enough for her. My kids already have a "job" they go to called school. With that "job", they even already have "overtime" called homework. I'm not going to make my kids to double overtime when they are just kids.

We buy them what they need and try to buy to an extent what they want (of course they argue constantly about wanting stuff, especially an iPhone or any "good" smartphone or cell plan which they will never have before they are working and paying for it themselves.) Money is too tight for allowance, heck, I don't even get an allowance or have any free spending money for myself and I'm the one gone from my home 10 hours a day.

 

[kymom99]

My son used to get an allowance. I gave him $5 every other week, when I got paid. In exchange, he was supposed to do a few chores such as empty the dishwasher, etc. When my husband lost his job we all had to cut back. Even after he started working again, he was making far less money and we weren't set up to absorb the loss. So my son has not gotten an allowance since, and that was in 2009. However, he still has chores and expectations. I explained to him that I don't have money for a set allowance, but we do manage to find the money for all his activities. He is s freshman in HS now and every time I turn araound, there is something to buy. He ran cross country and there were shirts to buy. Not as a uniform, but just shirts to show he is part of the team. We have had to drive long distances to the meets, and pay admission to watch him run. All that costs money and he needs to be aware of that. We have to sacrifice ourselves to be able to afford these activities. If I had more extra cash, I would set him up with some money to manage, but I don't. He is not a kid who ever begs for anything. He tries to save for what he has. He gets birthday money and saves cans to cash in. It all works out. I talk to him about how and why we make the financial decisions we do. Hopefully my actions are teaching him something.

I like some of the ideas I have read here. Good luck to everyone in teaching your kids financial responsibility!

 

[elaine amj]

Just want to add that we started paying the kids this weekend! Right now my DD is the motivated one and she is the hardest one to get motivated. We were shopping and she saw a cute pair of earmuffs/earbuds at Aeropostale. At $26, I said NO WAY! Then I realised I could use this. So I told her she could get it but she would have to work for the money.

We spent time talking about savings and earnings, etc and she got all excited about it. I pay her for chores and I told her she can do what she wants - but I made very highly suggested recommendations. And she likes it so she will do it. She's putting half aside for long term (I expect this not to be used for several year) and half aside for short term (immediate spend). Then another spot for birthday money (which I don't allow for just frivolous use). Her immediate spend money has to go towards things like donations, club dues, special lunch days at school, and any other things I can legitimately think of LOL!

Right now she is very gung ho about it and I like it that she has some goal in sight she wants to work towards. She is very well provided for and has few wants/needs so it has been a challenge finding a goal for her to get excited about saving towards.