Over the weekend I was reading an article about the need to teach your kids about finance at an early age. It was a very interesting article and gave me reason to pause. I had a flashback to when I was a child and remembered all the times I cut lawns or shoveled driveways for some cash. I tried to remember “way back when” about what my allowance was and what chores I had to do to get my full allowance on a weekly basis. Unfortunately with me being so old, I had trouble remembering what I received.
With my kids being so young, I haven’t started to give them allowance. Maybe that should change? Maybe we should give them $2.00 a week and their chores should include:
- Cleaning up their room
- Feeding the dog
- Watering the flowers
- Cleaning up the pool area
- Not leaving wet towels on the floor
- Making their bed
Of course we could come up with creative chores like:
- Not crying
- Not irritating their baby sister
- Calling their grandparents weekly
The question is, when do people start giving their kids allowance?
- What chores do they have to do?
- How much do they get?
- How does it vary by age?
- How much do they get penalized for not doing something?
And the most important question:
- At what age does the allowance stop?
I really look forward to reading your comments.
Stephenie Gordon says:
My allowance was $7 a week, but i can’t remember what i had to do to get the allowance. I do know that cleaning up my room and putting away my things was expected, not part of the allowance. the allowance was for yard work and housework type things. i remember my parents making sure i understood that fine line.
i actually like what Sue from our UK office does with her children. her children pick a large ticket item that they really want. In the past it has been a soccer goal, special stuffed animal, tennis racquet, etc. For every time they do something great, beyond the excepted they get to place a marble in their marble jar. Or if she needs them to behave she bribes with a marble. When the marble jar is full, they are rewarded with the gift and it starts over. It think takes about 4 months to fill the jar. The only reason i know about the jar is that i was on the phone with her one evening and her son was whining in the background about something and she told him “if you are quiet and stand still for the rest of mummy’s conversation you will get a marble”. I remember thinking “her kid loves marbles that much, wow!” then she explained it.
I think that is something i would do if i kids! It’s less than allowance and continues to reward all types of good behavior.
Patricia says:
We started giving the kids allowance when they entered kindergarten. They each now get $5 per week (they are 9 & 12) and they are required to do the following:
- keep their room straight/pick up after themselves
- do their homework everyday and show it to us to go over it with them
- maintain good grades
- go to bed on time and get up on time without whining
- feed the dog, the fish & the snake
- help with chores around the house as assigned
The penalty is losing $1 per infraction
One of the best lessons they have learned already is how to save for something they really want. For example, my daughter (the 9 year old) loves American Girl dolls and realizes they are very expensive because she knows it takes her almost 6 months to save enough money. The first time she wanted a doll, she saved up the money and went to the store to make her purchase. She was thrilled with her doll but bummed that she was now “broke”. The next time she wanted to buy a doll, she save up much more than she needed to make her purchase and then went to the store. She told me that she didn’t like being broke!
Krista Joyce says:
Someone introduced to me a phenomena called the Marble Economy!
This has been so fun & valuable and my family has been a supporter for nearly a year now.
It takes an investment (more time than money) to get started but it is worth every penny…. or marble even.
-First you need one medium sized jar (glass or plastic) per child which will be their marble bank account
-One large sized jar which will act as the marble bank.
- Enough marbles to fill the large marble bank jar.
-A Poster which shows the currency for a marble’s value and how each child can earn and spend their marble currency. As well as how much a behavior infraction will cost them in marbles. (I have mine posted on the fridge)
-A stock pile of toys/games/movies etc (I also have a poster of special events and trips for purchase like going to the zoo for example) which are instantly accessible for your child to redeem their marbles on a bi-monthly basis (or whatever time frame is best for your family). It is important to keep the toys in a place that is visible to your child and that each item has a proper marble price tag. Also you need to be sure to keep the incentives re-stocked with new & fun items.
So I have a standard list which my kids both know they can earn easy marbles for; making their bed, turning off the lights when they leave a room, cleaning up their bed room, reading a book, eating all their vegetables and each “chore” is marked appropriately for how many marbles they can earn. And when our kids do something extra special like helping a neighbor pick up their newspaper, or doing something extra special at school, finishing their homework early… etc we do on the spot rewards to keep them separate from the day 2 day stuff.
The cool thing with this approach is it sets the expectations for our kids to independently manage their day and do as much as they see fit. Unlike adults – I don’t think it’s in a child’s nature to only do the bare minimum. They really are wired to excel and a strategy like this teaches them they they have control to make the best of things.
Some days my kids will only earn a few marbles – but that’s OK – everyone has on off day at times. But for the most part they really go above & beyond the standards & as a family we are always raising the bar to keep them challenged & engaged.
Also- it is teaching my kids the basics of economics; spending & saving and even sharing. If my son is short a marble or 2 for the toy he wants, he’ll ask his sister to “borrow” one and she ALL BY HERSELF figured out interest… she will give her Little brother a marble but next week will want 2 back instead.
This has even transitioned into something for my husband and I. We have to donate marbles to the NO SWEARING jar and whoever has the most marbles by the end of the month get has to pay the other $5 per marble in their jar. I’ll be buying a new pair of shoes thanks to my husband’s potty-mouth now that Fantasy Football Season has started
Merrill Dubrow says:
Krista,
That is REALLY a cool idea. I love the part where your kids can “borrow” marbles from each other. Don’t laugh but I share your husbands potty mouth since I am 0-3 in my fantasy football league.
How old are your kids?
Thanks for sharing – I know readers of the blog will find your comments interesting and run out and get some marbles and jars.
Merrill
Bill Dunn says:
I made $5 a week until I got my first job in high school and that was for lawn maintenance, car washing, pet care, and basically any other mundane task my parents felt like ‘delegating’ to me.
However, I did have a bonus structure in place for good grades. I would get an extra $5 for every ‘A’ and $1 for every ‘B’ that I got in school. I plan on putting my kids on the same structure.
As far as when it ends…Well let me put it this way…I have two daughters who are not yet old enough to get allowances. But when they start, I don’t see it ending for a loooooooong time!
Krista Joyce says:
Hi Merrill
Glad you like the idea – I tried really hard to keep my entry short – but there’s so much to cover!
My daughter is going on 7 and my son is 3 (he gets off easy earning his marbles but we’ll up the anty as he gets older).
My husband is 0-3 in one of his leagues for the first time ever in 5 yrs (he plays in 3 leagues … it’s like a full time job). But I love FF and think I’m going to give a shot myself next season
Merrill Dubrow says:
Krista,
My son is 7 so it might be a perfect time to start the marbles. I think you should join a FF league next year – a little competition in the house might be alot of fun.
Perhaps we even start a FF league with only people in the research industry.
Merrill
Krista Joyce says:
Merrill,
I bet your son will love it!
And I would LOVE to start in a league – my better half will get a kick out of it too
I have it on my calendar to revisit during draft season next summer!
Krista
Merrill Dubrow says:
Krista,
Sounds like we have 20% of a new league forming in September 2009.
Enjoy the weekend.
Merrill
Lance Hoffman says:
Hi Merrill. Great topic. I started giving my 4 year old daughter allowance this year, and told her she gets this for making her bed, cleaning her room, and doing anything else that Mommy and Daddy ask her to. We give her $4 per week.
There are a lot of reasons we started doing this, and giving her so much. The lessens we plan on teaching her with this money will prove to be invaluable as she gets older – and include both financial and social responsibility.
If she wants something bad enough, we will teach her to save for it, as an alternative to simply hounding me and my wife for it. Also, we will teach her that “X” amount goes to savings, “Y” amount is for what she may want to buy, and “Z” is for charity. We already started the charity thing about 2 years ago, since every birthday, she has to choose one gift to donate for “those children who don’t get as presents.”
I read a few articles a while back (and there are several) that spoke to this very issue, and we decided to implement it this year, as her cognitive abilities are such that she can now understand money, and we’re using this understanding to help teach her how to be responsible. We will likely increase it $1 per year old she is, with an eventual cap on it, but I haven’t thought that far ahead, as we just started.
Here are a few resources to check with regards to implementing an allowance structure for your kids:
http://www.ehow.com/how_14207_give-child-allowance.html
http://life.familyeducation.com/allowance/money-and-kids/48026.html
JP Galloway says:
Merrill -
As a child of “long, long, ago and far away” I did receive an allowance. (I think it was about 50 cents per week. We all had household chores assigned (i.e. doing dishes, drying & putting up dishes, folding the laundry, lawn mowing, etc.). The chore list/calendar was posted on the refrigerator to eliminate quarrelling over who’s week it was to do what. (I recommend this but advise against giving allowances for not doing something they aren’t supposed to do anyway. That’s sort of like paying employee bonuses for not showing up late.)
As a parent, we did provide allowances to our kids but never figured out when to stop. (They get more expensive as they get older.) Whatever you do, I’d advise that when they reach adulthood, you and your wife move into a Winnebago and leave without telling them.
Patrick
P.S. We tried the marble-thing for awhile but lost our marbles years ago.
Jeremy Bromberg says:
Hi Merrill -
Fun topic! We started giving our boys allowance when they were around 5. The initial reason for giving them anything was how often I would hear that my wife had bought a child some knick-knack, and it just felt like we (the big kids) were being nickeled-and-dimed by the little ones. So the idea was that the boys could then buy their own little stuff, or even save up to buy something bigger. “You can use your own money to buy yet another little Lego kit.”
Over time, the amount has gone up some; at 12 and 14 they like to go into town with their friends, and this usually results in the purchase of pizza, ice cream, or other similarly healthy foods. If it is a specific meal-time outing, we’ll pay for that as apparently we’re still on the hook for feeding them, but if it’s between meals…
We also require $2 to be given back to us out of each week’s allowance. $1 goes into their savings accounts, and $1 is for their respective Xmas accounts. We know how devastated the boys would be if they couldn’t buy mom and dad holiday presents, so we try to make the opportunity a wee bit more plausible.
That’s our approach.
Beverly says:
We had two objectives at about 4 yrs old (now 6 1/2)–learn the coins and their values, and learn the meaning of saving/sharing/spending. As you’ll see, these are competing objectives! The bottom line is–allowance is not easy, but it’s worth the lessons.
I give my kids $1.41/week (that’s $1, quarter, dime, nickel, penny). They just put it in their piggy bank. Then, every few months, we dump out the money, split it equally b/n Spend and Save, and then take a few bucks out of each for Share (charity). It’s not so easy to split $1.41 each week!
We don’t stipulate chores for the money–they lose toys or privileges for “not making wise choices.” The save is just going into a bank account, and we get to watch that grow. It’ll probably be for college.
My daughter surprised me recently–she was willing to trade out all her silver coins with her brother for all his copper ones. It made me crazy–she had no interest in the value!! So, right now they have NO access to their banks–I’m afraid the trade will happen without my knowledge. Ugh.
Like I said, a lot of effort, but worth the lessons!
Merrill Dubrow says:
Lance,
That is really good advice. Really love the fact that you are teaching her to give something back at such an early age!
Good for you guys.
I will check out the links you provided.
Merrill
Merrill Dubrow says:
Jeremy,
Thats a good idea that the kids always have money to buy the parents gifts at Christmas time.
Thanks for sharing.
Merrill
Merrill Dubrow says:
Beverly,
Really good life lessons – a great mix between, spending, saving and giving away. I hadn’t heard about the $1.41 allowance but it makes perfect sense.
Thanks for sharing.
Merrill
Bob Grayson says:
Whoa! The purpose of an allowance is (1) to teach the kids about handling money, (2) allow them to understanding about saving for an important item, (3) free you from doling out nickles and dimes for kid stuff.
It has nothing to do with chores and cleaning up their room. For chores they can be paid extra–just like a job. Optional on their part but now you see where “earning” comes in.
Cleaning up their room is a matter of parental discipline. This is about the right and wrong attitude towards living in close proximity with other people. That’s a separate lesson.
One other thought: should you consider tithing?
Kelly Heatly says:
We started giving our son a weekly allowance when he turned 5. A friend gave me a good formula to use: 50 cents for every year. So, my 5-year old receives $2.50/week. When he turns 6, he’ll get $3/week, etc. We do a chart with one specific chore each day. Daily “must dos” like taking dishes to the sink, brushing your teeth, etc. are just expected and are not part of the allowance.
When I was young, my mom had a jar “pick a job, 10 cents each.” These were special little jobs like sweeping the front porch. It worked well and taught work ethic early on. Maybe 50 cents would work better than a dime these days.