Do your children get an allowance?

**nanamom** · 04-01-2007, 07:19 PM

I think there was a thread on this a while back but I dont' know how to look them up and even if I did I wouldn't be able to figure out how to give you the link. Anyway. I have a DS that is 3 years old and he gets an allowance. He gets 50 cents a week and out of that he puts 10 cents away for Jesus to use and 10 cents is saved in a bank that has a cool passbook savings program for kids. The money he is saving to give Jesus will be distributed to something at the end of the year. Last year our church had a missions trip to Nicaragua and he gave the money to the Pastor to buy stickers for the kids there. It was relevant to him. The rest is his to spend. He can save and go to the dollar store or spend it on a ride at the local supercenter or go garage saling with me and spend it. All his choice although we discuss purchases and we have seen him start learning about money. He does have chores but they are not linked to his allowance, they are because we all contribute to this family. As his age and allowance increases he will learn to save 10 percent and tithe 10 percent for now it is easier to have it be a specific amount of money.

**tinapbeana** · 04-02-2007, 04:07 AM

also not a parent, but here was my situation growing up:

until age 16 i had no allowance, but received lunch money from my parents weekly. OTOH, my parents paid for all of my activities (soccer, dance, orchestra, drama, chorus), so i didn't really have time to need, want, or use an allowance!

at 16 i moved from my home to a residential magnate school 4 hours away. at that point my parents created a checking account for me and i received a $50 a month allowance. this money paid for laundry (coin op machines on campus), school supplies, food outside the cafeteria (at the time i was still super active and eating 4k calories a day!), gas money for monthly trips home and back, and any money for social activities like movies with friends on the weekend. the school did not allow students to have jobs off campus, although each student was required to work an assigned job 3 hours per week in 'trade' for the fact that the state paid for all room, board, and books...

in college, my allowance was upped to $75 per month, as the cost of living in atlanta was significantly higher than that of hartsville, sc...

**anonymous_saver** · 04-02-2007, 07:26 AM

How about you start something like this. Each child gets $5 a month (or whatever amount you choose). But get a high interest savings account for each of them in their name. Tell your children, for every dollar that they put in the account, you will match them with another dollar (or 50 cents for each dollor they put in). This way, they could potentially save up a fair amount of money before they turn 18. Make it clear that this money will be saved for something in their future, and that they cannot spend it until they are 18. Hopefully as they get older you could start giving them advice on where to put this money.

Yes this means that you may have to give each child more money (with your matching money) so plan accordingly and offer them a little less in the first place so that you don't get overwhelmed. Maybe saying $10 a month for each kid is appropriate, and it could change as they get older. It really just depends on your finances as well. However, I think this allowance/savings method could really help your kids learn about saving at a very early age.

Do you think this sounds likse something that would work?

**Little L** · 04-02-2007, 11:46 AM

I am curious if you give your children an allowance. If you do are there restrictions?We do not give our kids allowances. They have certain responsibilities such as picking up their rooms, setting/clearing the table, and vacuuming area rugs. We do however give them a few dollars for doing extra chores like washing the car.

If your children do get an allowance do they have the save part, tithe part and get the rest or any form of this.My kids have to save half of any money given to them whether it be for birthdays, money from grandparents just because etc.

**tabbycat31** · 04-02-2007, 09:10 PM

Not a parent, but when (if) I have childern, this is what I will do for allowance.

allowance will be $1x child's age until 16, when they can get a job.

Money will be divided up in 4 ways......
10% charity of choice (I will lean them towards a charity of their interest..... ie the SPCA for an animal lover)
30% spending (to be spent on whatever they want)
30% short term savings (to be saved for a big ticket item they want..... ie bike, ipod, etc)
30% long term savings (car, college, wedding, etc) Any amount beyond the 30% will be matched dollar for dollar.

**usnavy_233** · 04-03-2007, 03:15 AM

My children are 3 and 2. They each get an allotment into their own savings accounts. It's a small amount ($20/mo each) but it's a start. When their accounts combined total $250 I'm going to open a DRIP with a company I've been familiar with for a very long time. Then, I'm going to up their allotments to $25/mo ($50/mo total) and instead of putting it in a savings account, I'm going to invest the $50/mo in the DRIP for them. By the time they're old enough to spend the money themselves, they're going to have allot to work with and they're going to be well versed with investment options.

**nitajaye** · 04-03-2007, 05:11 AM

Tabby cat

I like your plan I was thinking along those lines, but I hadn't gone as far as short term and along term saving. something to think about.

Thanks

**nitajaye** · 04-03-2007, 05:12 AM

usnavy

What is a DRIP account?

**disneysteve** · 04-03-2007, 05:30 AM

My daughter is 11. She currently gets $4/week, paid to her once a month as a deposit into her "Bank of Dad" account (an account that I maintain and pay interest on).

I think we started around age 7 with $2/week, later raised to $3, then $4. Initially, her "bank account" paid 5% interest/month. It's now down to 2%/month, still very generous. The point has been for her to understand the value of saving and compound interest.

There is a very good book called "First National Bank of Dad" by David Owen. I think it gives a great plan, including your own bank and how to set up a brokerage for your kids when they are a little older.

**usnavy_233** · 04-03-2007, 07:14 AM

Originally posted by nitajaye View Post

usnavy

What is a DRIP account?

Dividend Reinvestment Plan. In a nutshell, it's buying stock in a particular company that pays a dividend directly from the company. They reinvestment the dividends into more shares of stock. You can find some great DRIP's (I.E. great companies) which cost very little to nothing to invest in. I think it's a great way to introduce kids (or anyone for that matter) to investing.

**fairy74** · 04-03-2007, 08:45 AM

Here is what my parents did we got the same amount of our age every week (i.e. $7.00 once a week at age 7). Half had to go in a savings account, a quarter went to church or charity and the rest was for spending. I think they started this about age 5 or so. Aside from lip gloss which I bought and used at a startling rate, I saved most of mine, my brothers always wasted all of theirs. I appreciated the savings account when I left home for college. I think this is how DH and I will do it for our kids as well.

**PrincessPerky** · 04-04-2007, 11:28 AM

No allowence, I don't get paid to do dishes, niether do they.

They save something from all gift money, and we save for them from babyshower presents and such.

They each have a savings account, and we also have 'mom and pop bank' fr semi big stuff (more than one gift) in general we encourage them to also give to church (we put it in the pool of ones, for church and sunday school) and we encouage them to use it in ways that will last more than a dollar toy that is broken in a week, though we do not force either issue. (course we don't have to, we always win

.)

The savings account is theirs but they are all told and will continue to enforce it is not for 'stuff' it is for big important things, house, maybe car, education as needed.

**baking23** · 04-04-2007, 02:34 PM

I'm not a parent, however I can remember what my parents did, which I think worked pretty well.

In elementary school we had chores, and allowance weekly, they were separate and we had to contribute to the family regardless of getting the allowance. although we were paid for doing extra chores. $3-5 in elementary. Jr. high I think it was $10, and high school $15. College was $20 but my parents didn't know I kept sneaking it back to them, since I was working all the time too.

They empathized saving but we could do whatever we wanted with it.

**richinspirits** · 04-04-2007, 06:39 PM

I wish my parents had taught us more about saving! They would give us money, but not on a regular basis. I would say we were neither spoiled nor wanting for much.

My brother and I both started working as soon as we could to get some pocket money. I just wish they had impressed upon us the importance of saving some. I learned myself, how to impose discipline, but my younger brother has not. Whatever money he happens to have is money to have fun with. Because that is how our parents always acted. It's very sad to see and I try to help him think about saving when I feel the time is right to have such conversations with him.

One thing that my mom did that I liked was having a "job jar" that was full of little pieces of paper with jobs and $ amounts on them. This was stuff that we could do for extra money. If I wanted a new cassette or something in particular, I could select a bunch of jobs and do them to earn some extra money. Most of them were small, easy things, like "sweep the kitchen floor, 50 cents" etc.

As I got older I started working more. When I was 12, I got a paper route in my neighborhood for a once-a-week paper. I got three cents a paper, $2.88 a week! However, getting a paycheck was thrilling, no matter the amount. At 13 I started babysitting and at 16 I got a job in a restaurant. I tried to be disciplined and bought myself savings bonds, though I cashed them all in as I was in college, and getting ready to study abroad, and things were tight for me.

Do your children get an allowance?