Allowance

[OutOfTheCube]

Now that my kids are starting to grow up and figure out what money is, my wife and I have asked the question: do we do allowance?

So my question to you parents out there:

Do your kids get allowance? If so, how much/how often? How do you manage it?

I remember when I was a kid, I got $5 a week, and my dad would let me take advances on it if I wanted. But that doesn't seem like very much for a kid now.

[prarieboy]

We give $5.00 per week for emptying the dishwasher and doing the recycling for our boys aged 14 and 12. Shoveling snow, mowing lawns and other chores net more money depening on the initiative shown and the amount of work..

I normally forget to pay them so if they don't remind me I save a little there.

[Huntingwhale]

When I was a kid, I got $0.10/week for vacuuming, cleaning washrooms, dishes, setting and clearing the table.

Child slave labour at it's finest.

[Weitz]

When I was a kid my allowance started off at like $50 for the month or something like that.

But, if I did anything stupid or swear or whatever my parents deemed idiotic I would lose $5 at a time.

More often then not I didn't any allowance as I would run out of money.

I thought it was a scam, then my mom would tell me life sucks then you die. So I got over it.

[Ashartus]

We give $5/week. We used to keep a chart and deduct $0.25 for things like kids not doing what they are told, though haven't really kept that up lately. We'll probably have to bump it up as our kids get closer to their teen years but right now they pretty much have everything then need anyhow.

[bc-chris]

our kids don't get anything (yet?). they are 5 and almost 3
'back in my day' we got a quarter per week and had a ton of chores to do.


as huntingwhale said....

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Child slave labour at it's finest.

[CaptainCrunch]

When I was really young, it was $1.00 a week.


But when I hit the age of being able to work, my dad would assign tasks and pay, but he wouldn't pay if I did a terrible job. I remember I was mowing the law with an electric mower and he was going to pay me a couple of bucks. But I ran over the cord and a new cord cost like 2.50 so I actually ended up owing him.


the ridiculous thing was the more dangerous the job the more I got paid. "Go take care of that wasps nest son, I'll give you $5.00." "I need you to climb up on the room of the house boy and scrub the gutters". "Hey boyyyy" he slurred "I'll give you $20.00 buck if you go punch that bear in the face". Ok, that last one didn't happen.

[photon]

I don't like the idea of tying mandatory chores to an allowance.. They should learn that being in a family means having responsibilities and that they can't just choose not to do them one week because they don't feel like it and don't care if they don't get the money.

So taking out the garbage, unloading the dishwasher, doing your own laundry, etc are things I probably wouldn't tie to an allowance.

And those extra infrequent jobs I usually offered extra. "I'll give you $20 to go break down all the boxes in the garage and load them into the car". This is pretty unsuccessful for me though, my kid doesn't care about money or stuff enough lol.

I've seen some parents do enforced savings, i.e. half of the allowance has to go into savings.

As for the amount, I tried to scale it according to the kinds of things he'd want to spend it on and how long I thought was reasonable to expect him to save. Did I want him to save for 1 week for a $40 LEGO set? 1 month? 6 months? If the kid's money is more about activities and being social then maybe scale it according to that, what's a reasonable number of movies to see with friends a month and how much do they need to have to be able to do that and still have some money.

Part of it is education about just using money, part of it is fostering independence, part is teaching value and saving and delayed gratification.

We haven't done allowance in a while now, he seems to get enough as gifts to meet his needs.

[Amethyst]

I would do some kind of allowance to teach your children about money and how we work to earn money and buy things. A couple options are giving a set amount each week and certain chores that go along with it, or paying a certain amount per activity. I like the second option for older kids. If they want to buy something expensive, they can get it sooner by doing more jobs around the house, or maybe offering to mow the neighbour's lawn, etc. (If any of you have kids in my neighbourhood, send them over. I would love to hire someone for that.)

The other idea I've heard people use, which I like is dividing up any money the child gets into saving, spending, and charity. That way, they learn not to just spend everything they bring in, a skill that will prove useful when they are older.

[GGG]

I don't like tying it to specific tasks. I don't think it implies the correct lesson as it creates a transactional relationship amoung family members. I see an allowance as one of the things you get as being part of the family and that chores are a responsibility of being part of the family.

My kids are 8 and 10 and get $20 per month. Half of it has to be saved for items that are planned spending. The other half they can do what they want with.

I also offered to give them $60 up front than $2 per week over the next year to try to teach them about contracts and interest and so called deals. The younger one didn't understand and got real mad at me for a few days when I refused to giver her the upfront payment. The older one did the math and made the correct decision.

[jeffporfirio]

We do $10 a week and goes into a savings account for each.
At about age 6 we started demanding chores. Making bed, folding clothes, putting dishes away, setting up the table, and as they have gotten older (teens) we included yard work or snow shoveling.

Most of the time they won't even touch the money, it just accumulates.

My kid has more money in her piggy bank than I do in my bank account.

[troutman]

Allowances went out the window when I started paying monthly data plans.

[tete]

Our daughter gets her age per week. (Right now it's $6). We started this when she was four. 50% is allotted to spending, 25% goes to savings, 25% goes into a charity bucket. It is not tied to chores, it is simply a weekly allowance. Thanks to random cash from family members (out of province), she tends to have a good stash of cash in her wallet throughout the year. The majority of toys/tchochkes that she wants is paid from her spending money (excluding birthday/Xmas presents). It works okay so far.

[CliffFletcher]

$20 a month. Problem is we rarely have cash, so it ends up being a virtual tally that we lose track of.

[calgarybornnraised]

My oldest got $25 a week in jr.high as long as he got good grades and did the garbage and snow shovelling.Now he’s old enough to have a part time job.

Now he has a part time job. All his money is going to tuition for university. We will pay for housing and the food plan.

[EldrickOnIce]

As Cliff said, reality turns it more into a ledger than actual cash money in hand.
But yes, there are things to be saved for. That take time to acquire. This is a good lesson.
But no tie to household tasks. That's part of living in a family.

[pseudoreality]

I never got allowance when I was a kid. I got a job when I was 12.

My kids get $208.33/month, straight into their RESP. If they need money for something, I'll give it to them, but I don't think having regular spending cash when you don't have any needs teaches kids anything about being responsible with money.

[Weitz]

What are peoples thoughts on the mandatory charity donation that some of you guys have said you make your kids do?

I feel like that wouldn't teach my kids how they should treat charity properly.

[V]

Photon’s approach is pretty much identical to mine. Every kid has a set of chores that they complete every day. That’s just part of being in a family. But then there are odd jobs that they can perform to make money. If I need someone to tidy up my construction site where I’m building my deck you can make a bunch of money. Coyotes got into the garbage again. Clean it up for cash.

All the money they make gets split into jars. Saving, spending, charity and investments.