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Attachment Parenting
Bride2b2004
member
AP Moms- Allowance?
Bride2b2004
member
What are your thoughts on weekly money/allowance for DC to spend/save? If you do/plan to do an allowance, what age did you start and what amounts?
A fb friend got me thinking about this. I am astonished that she has her 3 year old on a "commission." Not sure if we will do an allowance or not (when DS is school-age)... I don't have great memories of allowance from when I was growing up and I wonder what other moms that embrace AP philosophies are thinking/doing.
Fortunate to be a SAHM to my 3 musketeers (5/2006, 5/2010 & 12/2011).
Soy & dairy free for the 3rd and final time.
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Re: AP Moms- Allowance?
I think it is important for children to learn to manage money but do not 100% agree that children should earn money by doing chores. I want DD to be able to learn sound money management skills. I also want her to understand that she is doing chores to contribute to the family's well being not just for her own financial interests. I'm not sure how we will acheive either of these goals but it is the direction I want things to go.
FWIW, I didn't have to do chores growing up and didn't have an allowance. I've always been good at managing my finances and terrible about doing chores. DH on the other hand had lots of chores and received an allowance. His money mangement skills needed work when we met but boy he sure is good at chores
My oldest DD started getting allowance in 3rd grade. We started at $1.50 a week and it was to cover all the little extra expenses that came up in her new school (bagel day, popcorn day, school store) and a bit was to be saved. We agreed that the allowance would go up as a percentage of her savings (so when she saved $20 her allowance was $2, at 30 she got $3, up to $5 but no higher for now).
It gave us a good way to talk about budgeting, saving, and interest.
Like many said I like the idea of an allowance as a tool to learn money managment...not as a reward for doing chores. It is OUR home and we all help make it run!
When I was in 4th grade all the kids got the chance to open a "bank account" that our parents of course had contro over. We could put our money in and it taught us a lot. The bank who did it had a great idea I think! I remember how exciting it was depositing $3 in and then $5 and seeing on the slip I $8. It was a great tool for learning how to save. And I am GREAT at budgeting now.
Probally in kindergarden of first grade we will start a small allowence in hopes of harvesting good money managemnet. Of course this will not be a bribe and I will have him saving for something fun. I will not expect him to never ask us for money. And I know of a parent who makes her kids pay for fileld trips and stuff from the allowence, I think that is stupid! We will still pay for most things!
Ladies, I know allowance isn't an AP concept. However, AP parents often have different perspectives on parenting issues and that is why I am interested in your thoughts.
Harper'sMom and others that posted similar thoughts- Feel the same way, I will not pay my children to do chores and IMO that is what allowances often degrade to (even if unintentional). My bad memories of allowance relate to those issues. I like hearing ideas to keep it off that path. Allowance was always the first thing to go when I didn't do my chores or didn't do them right or talked back or whatever, when that happens it's effectively payment for doing chores/behaving, etc. I think we can avoid that path by always providing the allowance.
We didn't get an allowance growing up.
My parents paid for everything we needed and a lot of what we wanted.
When I was old enough I got a paper-run and later part time jobs. the expectation was always that we saved our money, because my parents continued to pay for everything.
I think learning to save was one of the best things my parents taught me. I don't think it's very hard to learn how to pay for things because it's a pretty straight forward lesson of, "if you don't pay for it, you don't get it." But saving is a habit that takes discipline and the appreciation of delayed gratification.
I don't believe in getting an allowance for doing chores. To my mind, kids should do chores because they are asked/told to. because many hands make light work, and because they are a part of the household and we all pitch in together.
ETA: My parent's approach meant I learnt to save just for the sake of saving. Rather than, "I'll save for item x, and when I have the dollars I will spend it all." I just got into seeing my bank account grow, and the idea of saving for a rainy day.
When I finished university I had money to go travelling, and within a year of working full-time I had money for a deposit on a house.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
I always got an allowance. My parents were very mindful about teaching me about money and I knew how to balance a checkbook, get traveler's checks, and budget for a trip by the time I was in 7th grade. When I turned 18, they kicked me out of the nest and completely stopped giving me any money. I feel like their approach gave me a distinct advantage over my peers. I knew how to work hard for money and how to handle it.
We will likely do something similar w/ DS. We plan on giving him an allowance as soon as he is aware of money. We'll start with $3 / wk, and every wk we'll have him save $1, give away $1, and then he can keep/spend the third $1. We will require chores, of course, but I don't think the allowance will be necessarily connected to the chores. We want to use the allowance as a teaching tool about charity, savings, and frugality...not necessarily as a reward for doing chores. Chores will be expected without payment.
Starting in about first or second grade we got $1/week allowance. We were expected to give a dime at Sunday School, and the rest we could do what we wanted with. Of course, my parents rarely managed to give us the dollar in coins, so they often ended up giving us an extra dime to put in the basket at church. Luckily, the lesson still managed to stick.
I think we will do something similar with DS and encourage him to save his allowance (along with birthday money from relatives, etc.) for fun things he might want.
I was a master saver and saved 40 whole dollars for a trip to Disney World (this was a major amount of money for a little kid!). In fact I was such a good saver that once we got to DW I did not want to spend any of it! My parents actually made me pick something to buy, and this was a good lesson too...I'm glad they didn't let me become so stingy that I denied myself something I had been saving for. I hope we can teach DS that saving and money management are important, but that having lots of money isn't the only important thing.
We do not tie allowance and chores. Everyone is a part of the family and everyone helps. Period. But everyone gets a little something too.
When my SS was little I read a book that suggested setting up a "bank" for your kid and letting him earn interest on his money at a higher rate than a savings account (because the total interest on $8 is a whole lot of nothing, even to an 8yo) (and I have no idea what book this was, it was 8 years ago and I got it from the library).
We did not hand him money each month, we just kept track of it. I think this has been helpful for SS because he does not have to have cold hard cash in his hand to realize that he's spending real money.
The other rule the book said was that the parent does not control where the kid spends the money. He can spend it on whatever junk he wants, and let me tell you that can be really really hard for a parent to see your kid waste money. But just because he has money doesn't mean he can do whatever he wants - sure he has money to buy a coke, but if you don't allow caffiene then he can't drink it.
So we gave SS an allowance of $5 per month. But we also gave him 5% interest per month. His "bank" was basically just a check register where we kept a tally of his account. This was actually pretty convenient because he didn't have to raid a piggy bank before we went shopping or carry around money and risk losing it.
The very first thing SS bought was a coke. We were stopped for gas and heading home. Maybe 5min from the house. We told him he could have a coke there for free... but he wanted it NOW and bought it. But he was sorry to see his savings account go down and learned his lesson pretty quick. So if we went to Cici's and he wanted to play videogames, we said sure, but it's your money. All of a sudden he went from spending $2-3 to only spending $1.
He put his birthday and Christmas money into it too. He decided in 4th grade he wanted a laptop - by 6th grade he bought an $800 laptop. As his account balance got bigger we did have to lower his interest rate to 3% because he was killing us with that interest ($25 a month before he bought that computer!)
He just turned 16 and he still gets only $5 a month allowance, but it's plenty of money since he saves and earns interest.
The only thing he is required to spend his money on is Christmas gifts. Last year he ran out of money and had to make homemade gifts instead (baked cookies) - I'm pretty sure he'll budget better this year!
I agree about allowance not being tied to chores. We did something a little different in my house though. I got a regular allowance most of the year.
My parents owned a store and Christmas season was a nightmare. My parents were too busy to do much around the house so I did most of the house upkeep, laundry, cleaning, pet care, etc. Dinner was super important to us so we would literally eat when my mom got home from the mall at 9:30pm. I always had dinner ready, my homework done and pretty much was ready for bed before dinner. My parents would pay me for that work. They said I was working just as hard as they were. That was during Christmas season only. I used to get annoyed during the non-Christmas season when I couldn't do extra work for extra money.
I have to say that I learned a lot from that. I felt like an equal in the household and while I would have done it if I hadn't been paid, I felt like I was truly contributing to the well being of my family. I used that money for Hanukkah gifts and was very grateful for it. During the off season, my parents would randomly find jobs they were willing to pay me for but most were store related, not home related.