How much Allowance do you give?

[gratefulbambina]

My daughter is 5 and I wanted to start giving her an allowance. How much do you give? Do you make them earn it with chores?

Thanks

[Mom4tot]

We give half their age. My 12 y/o gets $6 and my 7 y/o, $3.50.

It is not tied to chores. We also suggest saving about 1/3 of it.

[Lingmom]

My 5 1/2 yr old gets 1$/week in exchange for getting herself up and dressed in the morning. I also give her 1$/week so that she can donate some money to church or some other cause. I don't think the amount is essential at this age... she doesn't have expensive tastes and loves being able to buy a 3$ easy reader or a 50 cent sparkly pencil.

[WonderWild]

I've never even thought of giving my ds an allowance yet.

[Alyantavid]

I like the half their age thing! My son's almost 6 and I think he's ready for an allowance. I don't want it tied to his chores either.

[nicolelynn]

When I was a kid we didn't get an allowance. We had to earn money. From the time I was 7 through about 10 we got 25 cents for doing dishes and 10 cents for setting the table, etc. After about age 10 We got $1/hr for housework and $2/hr for "hard" outside work (like raking or something). We had the potential to earn alot (for a kid..ofcourse this was 15 years ago years ago) of money if we so desired and work for it. If we were lazy we got no money. We kind of complained when we found out our friends got allowances for doing nothing, but now that we are all adults I think it was a great system. (Adjust for inflation)

[MtBikeLover]

My 5yo gets $5 a week. It isn't tied to chores or anything. it is so he can start to understand how money works. So far, it is great! He uses his money now to buy things that he wants and he has to make decisions when he wants something but then sees something else he wants.

[One_Girl]

I give my daughter my change and she puts it in her piggy bank and then hoards it jealously and will only consent to spend it on vacation. I think that what you give them depends on their concept of money. Right now she knows that money has value and that the values are different and we use money to buy things but she doesn't want to spend it yet. It just doesn't make sense to set aside any more than my change for her because she won't use it and we can use it for other things. If your daughter wants to spend it then I suggest giving her an amount she can spend on small things or on a big thing if she saves up and basing that amount on how much the things she may want in the stores you go to cost. If you only get wood things you may have to give her more than you would give her if you got dollar store things.

[LynnS6]

Our ds started getting an allowance at age 5.

At age 5 he got $1 a week. 50 cents had to go into savings, 25 cents for giving and 25 cents for spending.

We're going to up it $1 a year, so at 6, he now gets $2 ($1.00 savings, .50 in giving and spending).

He doesn't have a lot of things that he wants or needs to buy, so $2 is plenty. We forget to give it to him about half the time, and he's not noticed the lack of money!

We don't tie it to chores. I feel strongly that each person in the family does chores because they are part of the family. Each person in the family gets a little money to spend (proportional to their age and our budget) because they are part of the family. If my kids ever need extra money, I'm OK with them doing extra chores to earn that (cleaning out the garage, pulling the invasive ivy in the garden). But I really don't like the conditional aspect of tying all allowance to chores.

[Embee]

My 5yo gets $5 a week. It isn't tied to chores or anything. it is so he can start to understand how money works. So far, it is great! He uses his money now to buy things that he wants and he has to make decisions when he wants something but then sees something else he wants.

Yes, this.

DS (now 7) has been receiving an allowance for about a year. $5 per week. It will likely stay at this rate because this is what we can budget for. He has lobbied on occasion to have it raised, but the budget is the budget. If ours goes up, we'll consider any requests.

DS receives an allowance as a vehicle for learning to manage his own money, period. It's not tied to chores and we don't tell him how to spend it, save it, donate it, etc. If we wish for DS to learn to give unconditionally, then we have to give to him unconditionally. Our feeling is, that he won't learn to manage his own money if we tell him how to manage it, kwim? I have no desire to become the money police and I feel that doing chores should come from a place of wanting to contribute to the family/home life rather than only doing things because he gets paid. He'll likely have to find a means of supporting himself when he's out on his own. But no one is going to pay him to vacuum and dust his own living room. Plus, I never want the experience of asking DS to do something for me and have him say, "how much you gonna pay me?"

Right now, he's pretty ammenable to heping when asked and in time I imagine will take on more responsiblities around the home. I'm good with that. He has done many things with his money. He's spent it madly and quickly. He's saved for something special. He's forgotten all about it for weeks at a time only to find he accidentally saved a bundle and was thrilled to go have a spree. He generally dislikes spending the "whole thing" and always try to spend in a way that leaves a little left to save. He's plopped some in the bank and doesn't touch it, and whenever we're at the zoo he makes sure to contribute to one of the many animal causes that "need his help!" He tends to model his own spending/saving/donating after DH and I.

My .02 for what it's worth.

The best in whatever you decide!

Em

[robin3]

My 7 yo ds gets $5 a week for allowance. It is not tied to chores which I believe are part of being in a family. We give him his allowance in $1 bills so he can put some in savings, some for charity and the rest is for him. We don't tell him how much he has to put in savings or charity. At the end of the year he chooses which charity he wants to give the money to. Last year it was Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. This year he wants to give it to our UU church as we are (finally!) building our own building.
Sometimes we will give him extra for an unusual chore. Like last weekend I told him I would pay him five cents for every toadstool he picked up in the backyard (we've had a lot of rain!) and a penny for every icky orange on the ground from the orange trees. So, he put on his gloves and made an extra $2!

[aliall]

$1 per week for the 6 and 4 year olds.

[4evermom]

Ds doesn't have an allowance yet, partially because we had no budget for it due to unemployment. But I agree completely with Embee and was thinking $5 or $6 were I to start giving him one soon. Ds knows there isn't much he is interested in in the $1 -$3 range and I want to set him up for success with enough of an allowance to be worth saving for what he wants in a realistic time frame. It shouldn't take 3 months for him to save for a toy or he'll get discouraged. $5 and he can get a toy in a couple weeks or something nicer by saving longer.

[TrippyLongstocking]

we have a very simple chore chart that little dude makes money with.
every chore is worth .50-1.00
and as he does them he checks them off and every week he gets the cash
sometimes we forget to use it for months though
but when we use it it works awesome

[philomom]

My 14 and 11 year olds get about 7$ a week. It's not tied to chores. It's merely a way for them to learn to save or spend.


Everyone who lives in the house contributes to its care. Even the breadwinning daddy can be seen pitching in around here.

[MomInFlux]

Originally Posted by Embee

DS receives an allowance as a vehicle for learning to manage his own money, period. It's not tied to chores and we don't tell him how to spend it, save it, donate it, etc. If we wish for DS to learn to give unconditionally, then we have to give to him unconditionally.

I had assumed that once we got around to the allowance thing that we would do the 1/3 thing: 1/3 to spend, 1/3 to save, 1/3 for giving. But the above really speaks to me, and is how I would prefer to go about it. I have no desire whatsoever to tie allowance to chores. All 5 of us are home all day, and I want to model that we all pitch in to keep the house.

[TiredX2]

DD (9) & DS (5) each get $10/month.

They are really good savers.

We do not tie it to chores. As others have said, you do chores because you are part of a family unit not because you get paid.

[RubyWild]

None. She doesn't see advertising, so she doesn't realize that she could shop. She understands about savings because that's where her birthday money etc. goes.

I never had an allowance and only had my own money when I started working. I can create a budget and stick to it, have done so for many years of my life, so I don't think there's any need for very young children to begin receiving money and going out to be little consumers.

[rosebuds]

6y/o and 7y/o receive $2 each.

$1 for spending, .75 for saving and .25 for giving.

Allowance is not connected to chores or behaviour.

If dd wants to buy something that feels really out of reach for her she can do extra chores for a few extra dollars. We devised a list and what each extra chore is worth, nothing more than a quarter.

She has only worked hard at a bunch of extra stuff once. She reached her goal, bought what she wanted and hasn't felt the need to do it again, yet.

[funkygranolamama]

my 10 yo gets $3 per week, also not tied to chores. chores are part of living in our home. she will get a raise to $5 per week when she takes initiative to do things that she can see needs doing (outside of her normal chores) without being asked. she hasn't chosen to start that yet.