[dlhall]

For those who give your kids an allowance, what is your philosophy/system? My dd who will be 7 in July is asking for an allowance; neither my husband or I ever received allowances growing up and we are trying to decide if we should start this with our kids. My dh wants to tie her allowance to chores; my SIL says don't tie it to chores because the chores need to be done regardless if she's getting paid for them and don't we all do chores everyday without getting paid. I'm just curious what other families do.

Liz

[kretzklan]

I must admit we've been lack about it lately...but when we did it - we did not tie it to chores - nor could they earn extra money for extra chores. We gave a dollar per week per year of age - so your DD would get $7. We only bought neccessities - they had to buy all others. That included some clothes - if it wasn't something they really needed - more expensive shoes - we would give them the amount we would spend and they had to pay the difference for the ones they wanted. We bought ZERO toys, games, etc. We bought very few "treats" at the grocery store or Starbucks runs or DQ treats. They could use their money to buy those things - still with our approval, of course!

[MamaChinch]

My sister with five kids did the exact same things as Kretz. She also always made them put 10% in savings and 10% for charity for any money they got, allowance, birthdays, etc.

[momraine]

WE do the same as Kretz, except that our younger kids don't get thiers yet, they have not proven they can care for money yet. My daughter is probably getting close. My older boys have bank accounts and thier allowenct and Lunch money for school is direct deposited into thier accounts and they have ATM cards. So they have to remember to ask someone to take them to the ATM to get cash. Of course when the money is gone it's gone. So they can't spend what they don't have and they are old enought to understand it. They have also learned that if they spend their lunch money on other things they have to do without or bring from home. (which apparently isn't cool, though dd brings all the time as she hates school food) We added the lunch money for them because the school sells junk at lunch and when I gave the school money, they could spend it on cookies, chips and ice cream. Of course those things are more expensive than the basic lunch. So they have to learn to budget as we only give them enough for the basic lunch. W buys and eats the basic lunch and uses his own money for extras. S sometimes skips lunch, and sometimes does the basic and sometimes gets junk. He is always broke, because we charged him for going over his cell minutes (now he can't, as we got parental controls on it) also for downloading I-tunes, yes the songs are only a dollar each, but 100 songs is 100 dollars! Plus he has a girlfriend, so he is always broke. W has plenty of money. Chores are things they do for the prveledge of living in the house. We don't charge them rent or utlitlies or for food and stuff, so they do chores to help support the household. We do occasionally pay for some extra chores but those are beyond the normal ones, and only when we offer it is a paid jobs. Some extra jobs like helping clean for company they don't get paid for, again those are part of being in the family. For P when we start giving her allowence, she will recieive a bank like we gave the older boys when they started. it has three sections, one is for savings and one is for church (or charity) and one is for spending. One of the boys had a fourth section that was for saving for a special toy or something. I will have to see what I can find for her. The problem we have now is that M and P are the same number age at the moment, but two years apart in school and miles apart in maturity. P is ready, M is not.

[beckyww]

From 2nd grade through 8th grade, mine get their age in dollars every two weeks. Can earn more w/chores. I've been giving my high schooler $10/week and telling her not to nickle and dime me all the time (for all the good it does!)

Becky
The Woodworth Family in Beautiful San Antonio TX

[MominPA]

We don't do allowances. My oldest tonight balked at him doing more chores and said he will do them if he gets an allowance.... love these tween years.

I said fine you can get an allowance, but there will be no asking for treats while out, ie baseball cards. His attitude changed quickly. He can save his money when he wants something big and doesn't like to spend it on just anything, but doesn't have an issue spending my money on it.

Attitude is more important to me then chores and the attitude has been rotten lately so even if he did chores and got an allowance for it I wouldn't feel right giving it to him.

[Aphi86]

Ellen has been getting an allowance since she was 7. I based it on Dave Ramsey. It is not tied to chores and she gets $5 per week. $2 is for spending on anything she wants, $2 is for long term savings (she is 10 and now has $500 in savings) and $1 is for giving (charity to which she saves all year to buy gifts for the Angel Tree, and or natural disasters etc) This has worked out well so far. She does not have any plans for the long term savings as of yet, but that will come with maturity I hope!

[Bcelli]

Our now 10-year-old gets $5 each week. We started in January, I think, or maybe a little ways into the school year. There are some ties to his chore list, but his allowance is not payment for those chores. He is required to give 10 percent to the charity of his choice; 35 percent goes into savings; and he is allowed to spend the remaining 55 percent on purchases of his choice that meet with mine and/or Dad's approval. He saved until he had more than $110, so he would have enough to buy a PC game he's been wanting. It was hard to not buy it for him, but I was very proud he was so dedicated to putting his money away for a specific purchase. Prouder still when he chose to give 10 percent to the Ethan Powell Foundation, which is dedicated to fighting childhood cancer. Money management is a HUGE lesson children need to learn early that so often is sidestepped until they are older. It's kinda like eating vegetables - if they're raised on ice cream, the liklihood they'll turn to veggies when they are teens is pretty slim. But if they get them from the beginning and ice cream is only an occasional treat, chances are they're going to grow up healthy.