Allowances About This Page:

[loobyoxlip]

Do your kids get an allowance? If so, how often? How much? Do they just get it or have to earn it?

I just started giving my kids an allowance last week. I got a bunch of quarters and they each started with $3 in quarters on Sat. night. They get a quarter taken away for various reasons (using bad words, fighting, whining, etc.) and I also give them .25 or .50 for doing extra chores. So far Kylor has $1.50 and Jalen has $3.25. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/questionicon.gif[/img] They'll get what's left in the cup tonight and start over with another $3 in quarters for the coming week.

[Pris]

That's a great way to handle it! Your kids sound like mine. My DS would have probably ended up owing us money, while DD would have about $6! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Colexis Mom]

We just started this with Alexa when we got back from Disney in August. She gets $3 a week. For the $3, she has to brush her teeth and floss every day, she has to clean the toy room twice a week, and she has to clean her room and put her clothes away as well.

So far, she has done pretty good. She went into a big cleaning frenzy last night, as she knew payday was coming [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[graygables]

We don't do allowance, but DDs can earn money doing extra jobs. We think that dishes, laundry, room cleaning, etc are all part of their contribution to the functioning of the household and they shouldn't be paid for it, anymore than I'm paid for what I do. They help FIL in his gardens, help MIL with some of her chores, help me with packaging/pricing things, so lots of opportunity to earn money.

[DrDolphin]

I don't have kids, and all the cats want are toys and food.. plus a comfy place to sleep... however - DNiece has recently started earning an allowance for chores, etc - she is saving it for her Med cruise w/us next summer.

[krisk11]

My dd gets $5 a week. It isn't for chores because since no one pays me to clean the house I'm not paying her although she does have thing to do around the house to help out (when she isn't in a cast that is). The money is more for her to figure out how to handle it and now I don't just buy her everything she wants. It's better to figure out how bad you want something and do you want it enough to spend your own money on it.

[Teresa]

Kathryn (13) gets $30 a month.
Lauren (8) gets $20 a month.

They used to get twice that much, but they weren't doing their chores. I took their allowances away for 6 weeks, then when they started doing chores again on a regular basis without prompting (cleaning the litter box, putting away the dishes, rinsing off the dinner plates, picking up and sweeping the floor), I re-instated them at half price. They may never go to full price again.

I don't take away for bad things, that's what punishments are for. I figure that allowances are their salaries for performing their jobs. When they didn't do their jobs, they got "fired" and then were "enslaved", as Kathryn put it. they decided it's better to do the chore and get some money than to risk no money and still having to do the chore. There is no extra money for doing extra things, unless I give it them just because they were exceptionally helpful or did such a great job, they get a "bonus".
There is no cost of living increase.

[GATechGal]

My wonderful DH came up with this system. The kids "job" is school. As long as we are getting good reports about their effort (not necessarily performance) then they earn $5 a week. But...
$1 is taken off the top for taxes (just like in life) this goes in an envelope and we use it for stuff like when they need extra for field trips.
$1 goes in their short term savings jar. You can spend the money in the short term savings when you have $5 saved up.
$1 goes in their long term savings jar. You can only spend that money when you have $20 saved up.
That leaves $2 for them to spend each week.

Now Chet got smart and realized that if he put his $2 in the short term savings then he could spend all that money a lot faster.

The quarter before we go on a Disney trip, all allowance is given out in Disney Dollars (actually I save up til the end and just give it then rather than trying to get all those $5's) and it is not subject to tax or savings. That usually gives them about $50 to spend in the parks.

[Bert & Sully]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't have kids, and all the cats want are toys and food.. plus a comfy place to sleep...

[/ QUOTE ]

H'mm this sounds familiar.

[SarahJ]

We don't do allowances yet, but its interesting reading what everyone else is doing. My 4 year old DD is just starting to be interested in money and having her own. Not spending it mind you, just having it. She'll find some coins that DH has put on the counter and say, "Ha ha, I found them and now they're mine so I'm going to put them in my Pooh bank."

[poohmaine]

I think your allowance structure is great!

DD12 gets an allowance but it is dependent upon her doing her chores without having to be reminded to do it. She doesn't have too many . . . empty and load the dishwasher and scoop the litterboxes and feed the cats for $4 a week. She is expected to do other things, too when asked but that's the minimum we expect.

If she wants some extra $ for something we will add a big chore, for example, mowing the lawn.

Our oldest now 17 has refused to pitch in for a few years now and so we stopped her allowance.

[MinnieMary]

[ QUOTE ]
We don't do allowance, but DDs can earn money doing extra jobs. We think that dishes, laundry, room cleaning, etc are all part of their contribution to the functioning of the household and they shouldn't be paid for it, anymore than I'm paid for what I do. [ QUOTE ]

[dejavu]

We don't do allowance. The kids' job is school, their home jobs are part of being in our family (make beds, dust, emptly dishwasher, trashcans, etc.) but when they want to do something like go to a movie or school dance, we give them the money. DD is ambitious and babysits quite a bit, so she has a stash. I've started buying her the necessities (underclothes, socks, 2 prs. jeans, 4 shirts), but making her pay for extra clothes or extravagant things that are more expensive than I think is normal.

We just had a hard trip to the mall on Sunday. She was drooling over a stupid shirt from Hollister, but finally settled on 2 or 3 for the same price from Aeropostale. It was totally her decision, but she was still sort of bummed. How do we get our kids to realize that the name brand doesn't "make" the person??