Kids and allowance?

[pennymom]

That sounded great, but their website is very lacking on info (obviously - if they gave it all away, you wouldn't buy it! )
But if anyone is interested, I found this page that desribes the principals, and how to make your own (BTW, canning jars that they decorated is exactly what my kids use to divvy up their money

The kids received the banks from our bank for opening their first accounts and I had never seen the piggy banks before...but turns out we love them!

 

[jodeja]

I like Dave Ramsey, but do not follow his suggestion here. Main reason is that when my girls get older and possibly have a part time job I will still want them to do chores around the house. They will no longer need an allowance, but I will still want them to contribute to the household chores. Also, as a SAHM, I do not "get paid," but I still have a number of things that must get done -- just as we all do.

For those that don't tie allowance to chores or behavior, do you plan to do so in the future? We're toying with the idea of an allowance, as DS (7) is really starting to get intersted in money and how much things cost, as well as getting a case of the "buy me this, buy me that" lately. However, although I agree that it's important to teach money management and savings, I also don't want to set a precedent that you just get money for nothing and think he's entitled to it into his teenage years, kwim?

My favorite allowance ideas came from two books: Mary Hunt's Debt Proof Your Kids and America's Cheapest Family's chapter on kids and allowance.

Here is my theory on it:
#1. We all take care of the house because we all live here and want to respect our environment and enjoy a nice, clean place to live. Likewise, we all take care of the pets because we all recieve the enjoyment of having them. (And the kids don't just automatically start doing chores on their own because I have this belief, it's a lot of constant training.)

#2. Discipline for obedience issues and money-management skills are two different things and as a parent I am responsible for both.

So, if I have a kid who doesn't want to make his bed, pick up his clothes, etc. That is a discipline issue. I need to figure out how instill those good habits into him, and also teach him to obey me when I ask him to do them. However, no matter how long it takes him to learn housekeeping skills and obedience, he still needs to know how to manage money by the time he leaves the house and I am the one with the responsibility to teach him that also. The fact that a kid is a slob doesn't negate the parent's responsibility to teach them the lifeskill of managing money.
I think that most kids eventually learn that parents have to work in order to get money and that when they grow up they will have to do the same thing. In reading several threads the budget board, the problem most people have is not that they don't know they have to work for money - it's how they manage their money after they get it. That's the part I am focusing on teaching my kiddos, they already know that if grown-ups don't work they don't get paid.
I am thinking that some kids who only get allowance for chores and who regularly don't earn much plus get money taken away for infractions, won't have enough money to get enough practice managing it.
To put Mary Hunt's idea in a nutshell, she starting giving her boys the money that she would have spent on them anyway, along with the responsibility of making those purchases. For example, one of the first steps would be to add up how much you give the kids for video games, snacks at the movies, gum, candy - whatever small things you buy your kids on a regular basis. Now, instead of you buying those items for them whenever they ask, you hand the money to them (once a month or every two weeks, same interval as an allowance - she calls it a salary) along with the repsonsibility for those items. They can spend the money on whatever they want, but when the family goes to the movies, you will not buy them a snack or give them quarters for the video games or claw game, they need to use their own money. This is the cure for the "gimmes". As the kids mature, the amount of money and responsibilities you give them increases. By the time they are in high school they will be buying their own clothes, school supplies, gas, etc. They will learn to manage money responsibly and you are not handing over any money that you wouldn't have spent on them anyway.

The idea I took from America's Cheapest Family is to pay them interest for the money they've saved. They get paid once per month. At next month's payday, they show me how much they still have left from last month, and I pay them 2 cents interest for each dollar. This has helped to motivate them to save.
So... that's my 2 cents - !

 

[richmond282]

Let me elaborate on what happens at our house. (Keep in mind, my DD is 6. Things will probably change as she gets older.)

My DD is responsible for (these things she does NOT get paid for nor does she have $ taken away if she doesn't do them; she gets punished):
*picking up her room
*Putting her clothes away
*Making her bed
*Dusting her room (she is too little to handle the vacuum, but that will eventually be added)
*Cleaning the toilet and sink in her bathroom
*Keeping her toy area in the den straightened up

She gets paid to do 4 additional chores.
1. dust the living room
2. Feed/water the cat
3. Clean the toilets and sinks in the other 2 bathrooms
4. one varied chore called "help mommy or daddy." this can be helping with laundry or yard work or dishes... it just depends on what needs to be done.

My DD has a chart on the fridge that shows with are $ chores and which are regular chores. Some weeks she does all her additional chores, some weeks she does one or two, some weeks she does none. (Yes, my cat still gets fed either way )

 

[cslittle999]

Like others our kids get a weekly allowance equal to their age. The allowance isn't tied to chores. They are expected to do them since they are part of the family.

We don't give actual money. There is a tally sheet on the fridge that tracks who has accumulated what. It can be a little scary at times when we realize we owe our kids a few hundred dollars.

We do make the kids pay for a number of things. They are responsible for buying birthday and Christmas gifts for siblings and us. They have to buy any book/toys/video games they want. If they go out to the movies with friends they also pay for that. They also have to decide what spending money they want to take along when we go on vacation. We tend to add some money to that as well.

My wife and I have also been talking about significantly increasing my daughter's allowance to cover her yearly clothing purchases and having here look after them.

 

[jessp1021]

Thanks so much for all the neat ideas..we had a family meeting today and it went well..we also explained to DS(9) that he would also be loosing money for jobs that weren't done DD(3) wasn't quite with the concept of saving and giving but I think once Christmas gets here and she has enough to do a gift for someone with her own money she will understand it better..with their money it goes into individual labeled envelopes and once they have enough saved up to go open a savings account it will be transferred to the bank..they will be able to use the money towards a car or wait until they are 18 to get the money out and do as they wish I agree with others once their money gets spent on the wrong thing once they will think twice about what they spend on next time!

 

[Soarin_04]

Now I highly doubt I'll ever be able to do this, especially with my overly frugal youngest, and even if I could, I don't think I would, but a friend's approach to the whole car purchasing thing goes like this...

Whatever her sons and daughter saved, she and her husband matched toward the purchase of a car. Her oldest is a total spend thrift. If it took a dime to go around the world, he couldn't get out of sight, as the old saying goes. He saved $1,000. He ended up with a beater that totalled $2,000. Meanwhile, his younger brother who's incredibly money savvy saved $10,000 between the time he started working at 16 and the time he graduated high school. Yep, a $20,000car for him.

Just the mere THOUGHT of my son at 18 behind the wheel of a $20,000 car! I mean, I've SEEN this kid play driving video games and take out gas stations!!!