Allowances for your children

[nadiabreckon]

We used to get 25 cents back in the day, and it was like gold! I used to get 2 dimes and a nickel, while my 3 older siblings got a quarter and I always teased them that I had more money than they did! lol

[Natalka]

Oh, nadia that's funny!
I remember getting 35 cents - a movie was 25 cents and popcorn was 10 cents, so sometimes I blew it all on a Saturday afternoon! Otherwise, popsicles were seven cents, comics were 12 cents, chips and chocolate bars were 10 cents - so it all depended upon where we wanted the money to go! Mind you, you could get a HUGE bag of penny candy for 10 cents!

With our son, we never, ever tied allowance to chores or (oh, horror!) grades....

When our son was 'of age' to help out around the house (which included cleaning up toys, and even folding washcloths and pairing socks around two years old) - and in years later, it was always the policy that everyone in the family did chores to help out around the house. There were a few exceptions when our son got older if it were a big job (like doing most of the work getting bottles ready for recycling, so he'd get a cut on the deposit returned).
When he was younger, we would just buy him treats and little toys once in a while. We were quite low income then...
But there comes a certain age - 10? when they need a bit of 'walking around' money, so we'd give $5/week and see how that went.

I will NEVER forget (and neither will he) the time when our son learned The Big Money Lesson. He rarely spent all of his money each week - saved it up - and once went with two other friends to the mall for a few hours (not sure of the age, maybe 11 or 12?). He came home so sad and almost crying - he had blown $20 bucks on arcade video games and junk food - and KNEW it was the wrong thing to do... but did it 'just because'.... so we had a great talk, and it was truly a good lesson learned for him.

[DiamondLil]

I dont give my kids an allowance, but I pay them for their grades - if they make 80% or better DH & I give them $20. If they do work around the house (cleaning/fixing their rooms, vacuuming, etc..) I will give them $5. When we go out we usually pay for everything so they really dont need an allowance, and if they want to go out with friends we usually give them some "walking around" money for snacks or beverages. My 13 yr old DD is great with money - shes a great little saver. My 15 yr old DS, however, could take a lesson from her younger sister.

[jessandjake2005]

I give my 5 year old a monthly allowance of $15. $5 is his "mad money" which he can spend whenever he wants on whatever he wants. $5 is for "planned spending" which he saves up to buy something that costs more money like a video game. And the last $5 is for "giving" which he buys his own birthday or Christmas presents for family (like from the Dollar store).

The purpose of giving him an allowance is to teach him about money and how it works. I want him to get the concept of "saving" right from the start so he develops good financial management that will hopefully carry through to adulthood.

I don't believe in tying the allowance to chores, but if he wants to earn more money when he's older I have a plan for that. I will post a list of things that need to be done on the fridge with payment of each so he will get the concept of working to earn money. I plan to teach my kids about finances and be very open about our household budget and how things work when they are old enough to understand.

[FallenPixels]

We were given an allowance as children, it was in England so the amounts mean nothing, but we were expected to save half of it and we could spend the other half as we wished. We got our allowance on Saturday but only after we had done our homework and chores, so we had to earn it. If we wanted more money to do something that week, we could do extra chores around the house unless it was something my parents agreed was worth taking from our savings

[amycrows]

I agree with the $1 for every year. My son is 5 and we are going to start $5 for him and now he doesn't want to spend it on lunches on Friday (used to be $5 at school). So now he will appreciate the money, before he just expected $5 from us for lunch, now if he wants it he will have to spend half of his allowance on it and now thinking twice about it. This way I might be saving some money

[Grey]

How about high school kids?
I live near a private high school and it seems like every day at lunch time I see them eating out at the different restaurants in the area.

[Katyana08]

Until I was 12 I got $3.50 a week, and then my dad came home and told me his coworker thought he was a miser because his kids got $20. So he started giving me $12.50, of which $5 went into long term savings.

When my daughter is older I intend to give her $1 per year of age, but she has to save 50%. We'll do a mini-budget together, and she can have 50% to spend, 25% in short term savings (a doll, a DVD) and 25% in long term savings for her education or something similar. I don't expect her to understand the power of compound interest, investments (and dividends), etc. at this point, but I want to slowly introduce her to these concepts. I've always found that I pay more attention when it's my money involved, and I hope she'll care when she realises the things she can do and buy.

Closer to University I want to match her long term savings dollar for dollar, because although I'll likely have the money to pay her way through University I think it's her responsibility to finance her education. (But that hasn't stopped me from setting up her RESP before she could crawl and contributing every month, lol. I'm a sucker for a nice tax shelter.)

** I wouldn't expect her to buy all of her toys with her own money (though I use a toy lending library, they're amazing.) I just don't want her to load up on candy.

[cliff]

Never had an allowances but got money when I needed it. And saved up all my gift money when I was a kid. I am a good spender now that Im older. I think if you want to why not.

[Zonny]

.

Closer to University I want to match her long term savings dollar for dollar, because although I'll likely have the money to pay her way through University I think it's her responsibility to finance her education. (But that hasn't stopped me from setting up her RESP before she could crawl and contributing every month, lol. I'm a sucker for a nice tax shelter.)

No tax shelter there, although there are other benefits (like the free money the government gives you, based on your contributions).

I'd love to think that I'd be able to pay my DS's way through university. But since it's estimated that an undergrad degree will cost about $100K by the time my DS gets there, pretty unlikely despite all we have saved now (he's four).

We haven't started an allowance yet, but we probably will once he turns five.

Z