How Much Allowance?

My husband and I have bought a program called Financial Peace for Kids. It's geared for 3 to 12 year olds. Basically it teaches the kids the value of earning their money, rather than have it given. The kit comes with a dry erase board to list chores, books and story CD's all geared toward kids.

The basic system is you make a list of chores and assign a monetary value to each chore. The chores we have are geared to their age level. My kids are 7, 6 & 4 so their chores include feeding the dog, getting the mail, picking up the toys in their rooms, making the bed. We don't expect perfection, for example we give them the credit if they made an effort to complete the task. Since we have 3 kids, we keep the chores priced at 25 cents each. It can add up in a week. There is also a possibility that they can get fined if they fight with each other or us. After the payout each week, the money gets separated into 3 envelopes, GIVE, SAVE, & SPEND. The first 10% goes to the give. We're Christian, so we have the kids put the money in the collection plate at church, or the child can choose to donate the money to a charity of their choice. The spend money is what they use when we go someplace like Cici's pizza and want to play games. This has been great because they spend what they bring and don't beg for more. Each child has identified a toy that they are trying to save for. When their savings has reached the price of the toy, we'll take them out on a special trip and have them hand over the money.

They really get to learn the value of giving, saving and spending on their level. The website is:

http://kids.daveramsey.com/

Good luck!

My 14 yr old daughter gets $20 a week. She does get extra sometimes when we pay for movie tickets, etc. She buys most of her clothes. We also pay for grades...she usually can collect a minimum of $100 for reporting period.

The clothing she buys is from shops that cater to teens in the mall. She knows how to shop a sale. She does not go cheap, buys quality, it lasts longer and she saves more $$ in the long run.

We happen to have a child who knows how to manage her $$ because that is how she how has been taught. She learned from example... Education is crucial.,. Learning how to manage $$ is crucial. DELAYED gratification is crucial.

I've been amazed at times at how she managed to go to weekly movies and save for the shopping sprees and have $$ left over!!

I think that $1 per year of age is a good starting point. Then as they get older if they do more chores or have more responsibiities then you could add more.

My five year old gets a quarter a day - bad behavior costs him a quarter. My 12 year old gets 10 a week, but she has to buy her own lunch out of that and pay for any 'extra' clothes - i.e. the price of JC Penney pants or shoes over Wal-Mart prices that she wants. She is fined $1 per behavior offense.

S.

Hi M.,

I have recently started a new system with my daughters! They are 13, 11 and 8 and are paid the same amount. We are paying them $20 per month and they are required to choose 5 chores every weekend from a list of weekly chores. The chores range from easy-difficult and they are allowed to choose one easy and 4 somewhat difficult chores. The easy chores are cleaning the bathroom mirrors or checking the smoke alarms throughout the house. The more difficult chores are deep cleaning the microwave, dusting or cleaning baseboards. We allow them to sell their chores to their sister if they choose, which gives that sister a way to earn more money! So far they have not wanted to do that! lol For the daily chores we have them pick up their rooms at night, make their beds in the morning and fold and put away any clean clothes that are washed that day.

I do not take away their allowance money if they misbehave at school. I ground them from the tv or computer that day which seems to have a better impact on them.

I think what you're paying your daughter is very fair but I would definately rethink taking her earnings away from her for punishment.

I hope this helps and good luck!

that's about right to me! i use the rule of about $1 a year of life. my 5 yr old gets $3, but has less chores, therefore gets less. my 11 yr old gets atleast double that, but he does more chores. we also take money away if they misbehave or don't do chores.