[jalapeno]

For those who give an allowance, what age do you start? How much? Do you have any expectations for the money?

I started giving an allowance within the past year and my kids are 5, 4, and 4. I give each child $2 a week - half of that must be saved and 5% must go to charity (usually the church collection plate). Mostly I want them to have a little spending money to start learning about money. The trouble is I tend to forget to give it to them, they tend to leave their money lying around the house, it's a lot of work for ME to take them to a store to buy something, and then I get pestered frequently (mostly by older DS) to go to the store.

I don't really want to STOP giving them an allowance. But I am curious how other families manage it. What are your rules about money? Requirements for earning it? Requirements for spending it? Etc?

Thoughts?

[Fe2002]

Ha! I WAS giving $3 a week as an allowance - she was 3 at the time (now 4). The deal was she had to straighten up the family room before bedtime. It worked well for awhile, she even remembered when pay day was... I would walk in from work with her singing "it's time for my saaallllary!". But she started slacking off terribly... So I fired her. Recently she's been asking for her "job" back... I told her I would think about it. At this point she has no real concept of money... and nothing to really buy. I wouldn't allow candy on a regular basis, and I can't think of anything she really wants at this point.

[Fran27]

I'm not even considering it yet. Maybe when they're 6 or 7 and they know how to put things in their place.

[arkansas parent]

We start giving allowance when they are around 5yrs. I always forgot to give them the money or didn't have cash at the time, so I started writing how much allowance they had on the calender. Mine gets "paid" on Saturdays so I start putting 2,4,6 etc on each week till I get to around $20. Then when they want something I pay for it and "take" it from there allowance and redo the calender.

[JenC]

We started giving our oldest an allowance about 6 mo ago or so. He will be 5 next month. He gets $1. (I think we will up it when he hits 5.) We decided that his weekly allowance isn't tied to chores, because chores are something you do in the family.

Out of that dollar, one dime goes to church. Two dimes go to savings. The remaining .70 he can split between "spending money" and "give to others". He has a huge heart for others and usually ends up giving most of his weekly money away. By his choice.

We keep it all in our china cabinet. He has envelopes marked with the different catagories to keep the money in. Then when he gets enough dimes, we swap them out for dollars. All the money stays in the envelopes until it is spent. Works for us!

[crick]

I don't do allowance anymore but when I did, the best way for us was to treat it like a debit/credit ledger. It was easier to keep track of, they got a "reciept" with their balance and could decide if they wanted to spend it at the store or not. (Prevented loss, theft and forgotten monies)

Sometimes I'd give them a bonus - which was always in cash as I wanted them to have actual cash to feel, keep track of etc. too. This was usually spent immediately as it was of course more accessible.

[minibus]

We don't do an allowance, but we do give money for goals they are working on. (DS's goals are doing a good job at daycare, being cooperative during "lesson" time after dinner, and having clean underwear - he's almost 4). We have piggy banks and a big jar of change - they see us put the coins in or we give them the coins to put in the bank themselves.

Every few months, we count up what's in their piggy banks, and we go to the store and they can buy something (no candy). We've been doing this for maybe 6-9 months. It works pretty well. They remind us "Can I have a money?" and are pretty happy when they go to the store. We take their actual money, they can see what they can afford, and give the money to me, and then I pay for the item.

[millie58]

I do allowance; the 3 youngest get their grade: 8, 6 and 5. The problem is the 8th grader always spends it on snacks. I want to teach them how to save a portion. Any ideas?

[KarenInCa]

I have not done allowance with DD, now 7 yrs old. We've taken the approach of just chipping in when asked, and then she gets things as we see fit.
However, when my (now adult) DS was a kid, and his 3 step siblings visited for summers, I did something that worked really well, and I'm considering doing the same for DD this summer, when she's home most of the day.
Basically, the kids got one chore for each year old they were, per day...So, for a 7 year old, there were 7 chores a day. One of the chores were brushing teeth (to make sure it got done), and the chores got progressively more involved per item.
Each day, at the end of the day, if they did their chores, they would get a token. Then they each had to keep their tokens in a safe place, and at the end of the week, they got to turn in their tokens for money.
Each kid got the same kind of tokens (a cardboard cut-out circle), but a different value was assigned to the tokens, according to their ages and the difficulty of their chores.
This system works REALLY well during the summer, and with more than one child. It helps them learn to save and also shows them, point blank, at the end of the week, how their participation works for or against them.
In certain circumstances they also got a bonus for doing an extraordinary job, a difficult chore, or if they were "caught" doing something to help another family member without being asked. The bonus tokens were colored differently, but were worth less than their daily tokens.