How much allowance do you give your first grader?

[Anonymous]

23:09 if your kid is satisfied with less, why encourage him to be a bigger consumer. He sounds fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:23:09 if your kid is satisfied with less, why encourage him to be a bigger consumer. He sounds fine.

I agree with this - I think part of it depends on what parents buy their kids anyway. We just started giving $3 a week, but we don't give birthday money and rarely buy toys except for birthdays and Christmas. Partly why I started was so that our 6 yo could start learning the value of small treats, such as the juice, silly bands or what have you she cries about when we go out. I want her to bring her own money and buy this stuff from now on, or learn to save for something bigger that she really wants. So far she is saving up for a lego set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Banks are giving 1.7% a year for savings. I'd like to put my money in a 1% a week bank. Pp, are you looking to adopt an older child?

funny ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$6 a week. $3 goes into spend, $1 into save, $1 into invest, and $1 into donate.

Her spend is stuff like, junk toys, ice cream during the summer, gum (she loves gum), cheap makeup and nail polish, etc.

She also saved a bunch of money for a big ticket item a couple of months ago....

Yes, we are going to implement something similar at BD time. And DC will pick where to donate (unless DC decides that DC is the best charity - ha!).

[Anonymous]

We recently started giving our 2nd grader $2/week, $1 of which goes to charity weekly at sunday school. He can do what he wants with the rest of the money. He is more interested in saving his money (including previous monetary gifts from relatives) than spending it right now. i would actually prefer if he spent some of it, to learn about spending money!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$2/week.

If our kids "bank" their money with us, they get interest at the rate of 1%/week. They have quickly learned that saving benefits them more than spending - at this point our fourth-grader (who gets $3/week) earns more in interest than he receives in allowance.

Wow, great rate -- do they understand that they get close to half again their allowance by the end of the year if they don't spend it? That teaches them about the power of compounding, but I wonder what they will think when they get into the "real world" where they will only get an interest rate of 1% a year. Will they then think that saving, at that rate, is worthless?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$2/week.

If our kids "bank" their money with us, they get interest at the rate of 1%/week. They have quickly learned that saving benefits them more than spending - at this point our fourth-grader (who gets $3/week) earns more in interest than he receives in allowance.

Wow, great rate -- do they understand that they get close to half again their allowance by the end of the year if they don't spend it? That teaches them about the power of compounding, but I wonder what they will think when they get into the "real world" where they will only get an interest rate of 1% a year. Will they then think that saving, at that rate, is worthless?

I don't worry about that. For now, my goal is to establish habits, and for that purpose, this system is working.

[Anonymous]

We give a quarter per year. So my 9 year old gets $2.25 and my 5 year old gets $1.25. I guess this is less than most people give, but they also get money for their birthdays from grandparents, and we feel like they have quite a bit.

[Anonymous]

$2 a week for both a 2nd grader and a 5th grader. It seems to be enough. They don't spend much and have learned about savings. Maybe there will be an increase for middle school but tere are still no real expenses...and its not like they are toy deprived.

[Anonymous]

Does your DC need to cover their entertainment expenses out of his/her allowance? For example, if DC is invited to go to a movie or ice-skating with a friend, does DC need to pay out of his/her own pocket?

[Anonymous]

I give 1/2 dollar per year. So our 7 yo gets $3.50 and our 4 yo gets $2. I love the interest idea! They don't get much other money. I don't enforce a charity donation, but we do ask them to partially pay for gifts for each other at bdays and XMas. We also have a system where they earn tokens for good behavior and when they have enough tokens we will split the cost of one item with them. (Or they can choose a destination for a day trip.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. 23:57 sounds kinda harsh to me. I've heard of making kids do chores to get their allowance, but not to perform.

23:57 here. Not sure what you mean by harsh. I didn't say "perform" - you did. Locking our DS in a dungeon would be harsh. Making him go to bed without supper every night would be harsh. But, giving a monetary reward for accomplishing things that he already wants to learn to do? Not sure I understand you comment at all.

FWIW, DS has been doing "chores" - picking up toys, helping to sort laundry and emptying the dishwasher. Those things are part of being part of a family. They are expected and he does them without comment.

Sorry 23:57 but it's like he's a trained monkey. "Ride your bike through the cones three times and I'll give you a dollar. You can do it, come one, don't you want a dollar?"

[Anonymous]

For those of you that give your kindergarteners allowance, is it a reward for particular chores? My DS is in K but we haven't started an allowance yet.

[Anonymous]

My 3rd grader has never gotten an allowance. She has a list of chores that must be completed each day. They are part of belonging to a family. My own parents were miserable at allowances. Never had the cash. Disputes over whether or not chores were done well enough to receive allowance. Total pain. It also led to a serious case of me not wanting to do any work unless I was being rewarded in some way. I did not want that sense of entitlement in my own child. I worked hard to beat it out of myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you that give your kindergarteners allowance, is it a reward for particular chores? My DS is in K but we haven't started an allowance yet.

No. Both the kids (K and 2nd grade) have a chore list, but it isn't connected to the allowance. I was raised on the $x for y chore method, and I don't think it helped me learn anything about money except that I could get enough money to do wahtever I wanted relatively quickly. We do it more as a chores are part of being a family thing.