Allowance

How do you ladies with older kids handle allowance. Until now I just randomly have given my two girl spare change to put in their piggy banks and occasionally they use it to buy themselves something small. They take it to the store, find something they have enough money to buy, and give it to the cashier themselves.

But one of my daycare kids who just turned 5 told me he gets a weekly allowance for cleaning his room. My first thought was why should this little kid be paid to do something he should be doing anyway.

I don't mind the idea of an allowance, but I am hesitant to be giving it out in order for them to help their family take care of the house they live in.

I think there are a lot of different views on this. We give our son 2$ per week if he makes his bed everyday. It's something we just started a few weeks ago. We used to give the 2$ per week if he did his homework, but we've changed the reward for doing homework to getting a little extra time to play on the Wii.

I grew up in a strict household where there was a LOT expected from me. Long story short, I don't want my kids to grow up the way I did and I don't see the hurt in a small allowance even if it's for a minor chore.

There are plenty of things kids need to do simply because it is expected of them. Sometimes it's fun to offer an incentive not to mention that it means kids learn how to manage money.

Our daughter is only 22months so we are not there yet but we have already been discussing it (briefly here and there) there are many ways to approach it.

What about having a set amount, and set chores/expectations...if your child opts not to complete his tasks then he is penalized by not receiving part of the allowance. Similar to being paid to do his chores...but I think it has a different impact to see first hand that when they choose NOT to do something they don't get a reward, versus being paid to do it.

We do know that what ever we decide allowance wise we will have a set budget for buying our daughter items ( new school clothes etc) if she feels she needs to have the latest fashion (which cost more) she is responsible for the extra cost. Meaning, we will pay for the best bargain price and she can opt for the bargain items or pay to top up to get the fancier items. This will continue though highschool when she is working part time jobs.

There is so much to learn in regards to financial management. We hope she will learn it through us so she is on solid ground when she is responsible for herself. Something as simple as giving a set budget for an item she needs (new bike helmet) and making her search store flyers until it is on sale for that budget price. Rather than just running out and buying the first one we see.

Anyways, back to allowance I recently read a book where the family had a complete banking system (they had numerous teenage children). Everything was credits and deposits. If they were in 'overdraft' they had to balance out their account through extra jobs, selling stuff they own, working outside the home etc. It was pretty neat. I can't recall the book title at the moment but it had referenced this site http://www.famzoo.com/ which is an actual online family bank that can be used as part of it.

Anyways, so many things to consider and it can be really involved if you choose it to be. My aunt and uncle are huge on the stock market. My cousins have been buying and selling stock since they were about 5yrs old. Since their parents involved them in what they themselves were doing the kids naturally learned at a very young age how to make decisions to manage their own stocks. They didn't use much money at all in the process as they bought single stock shares.

Money management begins very early in life, through observations and most importantly through first hand experience!

Each of my kids gets a small amount of money each week, but if they don't remember to make their beds, in theory they wouldnt get the money. My oldest has been getting $2/week since she was around 4 I think. My youngest didn't care or count her money, she's only 2. So she gets whatever change is in my wallet. She loves running up to her room to hide it away in her piggy bank. (Or her Money Cow, as she calls it. It's the shape of a cow)
We've never directly told them that they get money for doing chores, we gave them an allowance before they started making their beds each week. But now, if they're not helping around the house, they risk losing their allowance that week.

When I was a kid my sister and I had daily chores and Saturday morning was cleaning day. If we needed money for something we got it but it was never because we did our chores. When it came to chores there was no option they were expected to be done. We were taught that you live here and get food, clothing, shelter and other things and in order to be part of that we were required to help out. Punishment was a privilege was taken away (never not getting money). I do the same with my 4 year old daughter. She cleans up her things, makes her bed when I remind her, cleans out dishwasher and helps when I ask. No expectation of being paid just a sense of accomplishment

imho, chores are part of being a family. I think part of the attitude that teens and young adults have is that hey won't do something unless they are getting something for it.
Now say if my kids 8 and 5 know that the book fair is coming to their school, and they want to have money to purchase something, then I give them "extra jobs" to equal the amount of money they would need.
So they each have asked for 10.00. In order for my 8 year old to earn that, he has helped fold the laundry today, has swept the kitchen every night this week, and has to vacuum the living room three time. This is on top of his regular "Responsibilitie s". My 5 year old has had to help with down the table and chair after dinner all week, set the table for breakfast and dinner.
This is on top of keeping their rooms tidy, play room tidy, helping care for the animals, and generally picking up after themselves.

My cousins (I have 19 so use them as examples often) grew up being responsible for 1/4 of the house work (family of 4). They were responsible for everything including cooking supper on their own 2x a week. It mean the family ate random meals that the 7plus year olds could cook but they did their share. They used the oven at a very young age and never once burned themselves because they were taught how to use it.

Right now our 22month old sorts the recycling after supper each night (bringing anything we had from the day to the garage and putting it in the blue or black box), she sweeps and washes the table. That all said, she sometimes needs reminders which bin items go in, need to be refocused and well, lets face it the sweeping and table washing is all for show - we have to come along after her for it to be fully done.

Kids are capable of so much more then we typically give them credit for. We figure that if we expect our daughter to do her share of housework in the coming years she needs to be doing it now...while she finds it fun and to instill that habit/expectation.

I too, do not pay my kids to do any kind of chore. That notion of being paid to contribute in anyway to the family and the running of the household drives me crazy. Also rewarding with money for doing their part is not something I want to instill in my children.

My kids get an allowance equivelant to $1 per year per week. My kids are 12 and nearly 14 and this will be changing soon as the cost of things continues to increase faster than they age.

The purpose of allowance in our house is to learn about finances and the value of things. My kids have to paay themselves 10% before anything else for long term savings. then 5% for sharing and at the end of the year they can choose who to donate it to whether that be to our local charities or buying a cow for a village etc. I encourage the children to research charities and explain why they chose that charity over another. Lot's of learning opportunities there to be had. My kids have chosen what other categories to distribute the remainder to keeping in mind that there allowance covers anything they WANT so they can never ask me for candy, computer games etc etc. My son has a video game jar and a computer jar. My daughter had a laptop jar which she would put a portion in and then any babysitting money would first have the 10% deducted and the remainder went in the jar. She bought her own laptop in August. My son was to young to babysit so got a paper route and he does the same thing. Both the kids also have a mad money jar so should they want a spur of the moment timmies or ice cream etc they have that money. If the jar is empty, they don't get.

I buy them things they NEED. School supplies, clothes, shoes and everything else. My daughter is going to soon have her allowance increased to cover a certain amount of clothing and I will come up with a reasonable agreement in terms of ,maybe I'll buy 2 pairs of shoes a year plus snowboots but any other footwear that she WANTS, has to come out of her clothing pot....still got to figure that out.

I'm not a cash machine and the way I teach my kids that is through this method. They learn the value of money if they know there isn't the bank of MOM available lol.

Thanks everyone for your input! I think my own feelings about it follow exactly what BrightSparks described. I had done some reading online about it too and the latest advice is to not attach allowances to household chores. I really like the idea of paying yourself first in order to create savings and also donating to charity. I think I will start this soon with my older daughter, she is old enough to handle the concept.