It doesn’t matter what you do with your kid and money – somebody is going to think that is the wrong thing. If you give an allowance, you’ll hear folks say “they should have to earn it!”. If you pay them to do chores you hear folks say “they should have to do those chores anyway and now you’re making them money-grubbers”. If you just buy them whatever they want without letting them have their own money, you are spoiling them and not teaching them about money.
There are many passionate opinions, and many different life-stories that seem to have worked out just fine for people, so I think this is probably one of those parenting areas where you have to follow your intuition and find out what is right for your family and then stop worrying about it. What is right for my family is to give an allowance.
Carbon has been getting an allowance since he was 3 years old, although I was pretty spotty on remembering to give it to him. He got his age in dollars per week, and I gave it to him in small coins and made him put 10% in a savings jar, 10% in a charity jar, and 10% in a “family” coin jar. He wasn’t getting enough to save up for much more than ice cream treats, but it was a good lesson in counting and handling money.
As the years have gone on he’s actually getting decent money at that same scale of his age in dollars each week. When he was 5 years old, I switched from the weekly small coins approach to a once-a-month lump sum, and I also stopped enforcing the 10% rules. And then I stopped buying him toys, and would just tell him “use your allowance”. He settled into a routine of remembering what he wanted and then running out and getting it after allowance day, and it was so nice not to have to deal with begging in the store anymore. Hypatia followed her brothers lead and also stopped begging, and her (much smaller) allowance is also saved to buy toys.
Recently I’ve had a few times I needed to have the kids perform above-and-beyond the normal call of duty, such as watch themselves at work with me when I couldn’t find a sitter, and I offered to pay them each a couple dollars if they did a good job at the task. Carbon earned $15 in recent months doing things like that. When he got his monthly allowance, he had $35 in his wallet. He felt rich, and he pictured buying something BIG at the store. But I told him he had to wait until after his birthday.
One of the first things he did was he wanted to buy flowers as a gift for his nanny. He made her a card and bought the flowers and we gave them to her right before Mother’s Day. It was very sweet of him, but it cost him some money.
Then he lost some money, that went through the wash in his pants.
After that, his dad took the wallet away and put the money up in the piggy bank. When we went to get it to go shopping, he was down to $20. He asked to borrow money from me, and we thought about that. If he borrowed money, would he just not get an allowance next month? How would that feel next month?
I don’t think I’d be very happy next month, Mom.
If he borrowed, could he work to earn extra and pay it off?
How many loads of laundry would I have to fold? Oh – that’s a lot.
I suggested that I would also charge him either a fine or some kind of interest, because that’s the only way people can usually borrow money. We talked in the car on the way to the store about what interest is and how much it would cost him.
When we got there, he picked out smaller toys that fit within the money he had and he didn’t borrow anything.
I love how you are teaching your children about money – I think you’ve struck a good balance there. I recently wrote a post about this topic and, you’re right, people had all sorts of opinions. It was interesting to read them, even though I didn’t agree with all of what was said. We have decided to begin giving our teen daughter a larger sum of money on a quarterly basis vs. a smaller weekly allowance. The amount is the same as what we would spend on necessities for her anyway, but now she’ll be in charge of the budgeting. Some people felt we were wrong to “just hand over a large chunk of money” but I feel that 1. the amount is what we would spend anyway, 2. she’ll be learning a valuable skill and 3. it gives her a sense of empowerment and control over her own life, which is also good.
It looks as if Carbon is going to have no problems handling money responsibly as he grows up.
I’m very bad with money, and I can’t really tell you why. It has something to do with patience, and a lot to do with growing up with a mom who uses shopping as entertainment and antidepressant. I don’t think it has much to do with how allowance was handled. My big goal is to avoid unnecessary shopping with the girls and be clear about the fact that I make choices and *wait*. I plan to include the girls in the actual family finances as they get older so they have a realistic idea of what it takes to take care of a household. Mainly I think it’s important to avoid fetishizing material things and emphasizing activities that bring joy and connection without costing money. That’s my, uh, two cents.