Do you let your kids simply do what they want with their allowance?

[LoveToday]

I mean in the aspect of teaching your kids – “Hey you don’t have to go buy candy and ice cream. If you save up, you can go get a skate board, or a bike. Basically do you suggest Saving, Investing, Saving for a “Cooler” thing (video games, snowboard, instrument, etc) at all?

This intrigues me I want to see what you guys think and hopefully get some good advice.

Thanks

[applepansy]

We didn't pay an Allowance. Our children were paid for extra chores, not the chores they have to do to just live in a clean house and take care of themselves.

Then the rules were... 10% tithing, 10% savings, 40% short term savings, 40% spending.

My younger sister pays for grades. Her rational is that grades have a direct relationship to their earning potential as an adult. The better the grades the better the job later. The kids "job" is to get good grades so she pays for grades. Then she does something similar to me. tithing first, saving 2nd, etc.

[ZionsRodeVos]

I have been giving my children an allowance for a few years now and they have learned what it feels like to be broke when we go shopping and they often have goals of what they want.

I mostly let them do what they want with their allowance. Sometimes they save for something specific but most of the time they spend it. They usually buy toys with their allowance and not a lot of candy or food.

[rameumptom]

I mean in the aspect of teaching your kids – “Hey you don’t have to go buy candy and ice cream. If you save up, you can go get a skate board, or a bike. Basically do you suggest Saving, Investing, Saving for a “Cooler” thing (video games, snowboard, instrument, etc) at all?

This intrigues me I want to see what you guys think and hopefully get some good advice.

Thanks

I have tried this recently with my youngest son. He turned to me with a frustrated look and says, "Dad, I'm 30 years old!!!! Can I run my own budget please?"

[zippy_do46]

I think this is one of the hardest things to teach and also one of the most important.

Out of 2 children I didn't do such a good job. I have one child that worries about money all the time and one who does not. I know there needs to be a balance. I think this is one of those things that children learn hands on though. They will be watching you and your spending habits and how you are with money. I am the one who worries all the time and hubby does not.

[Jennarator]

I want to pay my kids an allowance, but I am too broke! >.<

[Gwen]

i don't pay my kids allowance and yet they seem to acquire money. i have one that is always coming up with money. he collects cans for recycling, always looking on the ground for pennies and things, checks change cups on machines and such when he walks by. he understands every bit adds to the total, he won't walk past a penny. one time i was at the checkout in the store and he was laying on the floor. i fussed at him to get up and asked what he was doing. he says "ppl drop money and it rolls under here (the counter) and they leave it. see..." he holds out about 50 cents in change he had just collected. i just laughed and told him to go about his business.

i have another that is a tom sawyer, he will get out of work whenever he can. he talked the other into combining their money so they would have "even more". i wasn't to sure about it because one obviously had more money than the other, but it was their money.

so far it's been good for them, now they can't spend it without talking to each other. they have to agree on the spending because it belongs to both of them. it's fun to listen to them talk about things. and they do the talks about what is wise spending and what isn't so i don't have to. if they can't agree they don't spend it.

[applepansy]

I want to pay my kids an allowance, but I am too broke! >.<

I remember those days in our lives. There are still ways to teach children to be responsible with money. When my kids were small I read an article by a woman who cashed her check in one dollar bills. Then sat down with her kids and counted it. They were awed by so many one dollar bills UNTIL she got out the stack of bills that had to be paid. The sat at the table and counted out each dollar and put them on top of the bill that had to be paid. There weren't very many dollars left over. She said it was the best lesson she ever taught her children.

[rex8499]

My parent's let me spend my $3/week that I earned doing chores on whatever I wanted. I was a saver for the big items. Saved for a whole year so I could buy a Nintendo 64. To this day I'm more fiscally responsible than my parents. But my siblings, given the same amount of allowance, spent theirs quickly. It's just a matter of personality I guess. Now in adulthood, I'm well off and my siblings are still broke and just spending for fun. lol. Nothing has changed.

I've thought about when I have kids maybe paying them more than I normally would, and having them pay "bills" with their allowance back to me. If they want a special trip into town to visit their friend (a couple gallons of gas from my place in the mountains) I might make them pay $1 in allowance back to me to teach them that such desires do not come without a financial impact. Leave a light on, 10 cent charge. Leave the water running, 10 cent charge. Things like that. Not sure if that would work or not, but I like the idea. It's a lesson my wife never learned. lol. Drives me nuts some days.

[Guest]

My dad gave us all weekly allowances. We didn't have to "earn" the allowance. I mean - we don't have to do chores for them or anything like that. Our allowance is based on age, so as we get older, we get bigger allowance.

If we misbehave, not only do we get punished, he will also suspend our allowance. That is - he won't give it to us until we behave. We don't lose it or anything, we just won't get it that week. If we're behaved by next week, then we get 2 week's worth of allowance the next week.

Now, the thing is, he doesn't buy us anything except for Christmas and Birthday and first day of school (new shoes and new bag, etc.). If we want a toy and it's not our bday or Christmas, we have to buy it ourselves from our allowance. If we need gas money, we use our allowance. We go to the movies, hang out with friends, etc. etc. It comes out of our allowance.

So, for my dad, it made it easy for him to have a fixed budget. And for us - we get to learn to count our pennies if we want to go with friends to that concert everybody is raving about...

We didn't get any money for grades. Grades are "expected". We didn't get any money for chores. That was also "expected".

I wanted to do this same thing for my kids. But, my husband has a completely different way of doing stuff. Yeah, we give them allowance but my husband always comes home bearing "gifts" out of the blue, so it ruins the entire thing. Right now, my kids are learning money from the Allowance board game!

[mightynancy]

We don't necessarily "pay for chores" but if they don't do their chores, the allowance is reduced. Our philosophy is that if they want to have a share of the family's assets, they need to do a share of the work.

My kids will both save up for something they want; I let them do pretty much what they will with their money. My saver is also a very generous child; she freely gives to charity (including her big brother!). My son will also save, but has shorter patience for it.

[Dravin]

My parents insisted we pay tithing but as we grew up it became less of a requirement and more of a reminder.

[Dadspiner99]

I'm a dad, I get the "bearing gifts" things, because you want life to be fun and have surprises. I think you can do that, and teach your kids values as well, as I'm learning through all these forums. So we have a website called KIDWORTH, where you can plug in what your children save, then let them plot out how to spend it. They can have the toys and games they want. Then you just make sure you create goals of charity and long term savings, like college. Dad can still bring stuff home, but they will also have their own goals that they save for with their own money.

[kayne]

well i dont even have a girlfriend so i cant say what i would do with kids i dont have yet but growing up we got an allowance for extra chores. washing the car, yard work or other things.

we were allowed to spend it however whenever for the most part. tithing was required until we got a bit older and allowed to spend money on we wanted too. my dad owned a business so me and my brother(not my 3 sisters it was an ice machine business invovling lots of manual labor) would work starting at age 16 for my dad over the summer and that was our money for the year.

however the real lessons of financial responsbility didnt come until my 20s really i think all of us got it when we were in our 20s except one sister. for me it was a i got my first credit card after getting a job at a grocery store and became a bit careless with it. i spent several times paying off a maxed card and learning the hard way lol but never once did i beg my folks to help me pay it off. i learned doing that and around the same time started to go back to church after 6 years so started to gradually learn the blessing of tithing.

i swear i dont know how it worked. but if i paid tithing a check lasted the 2 weeks till the next one fine. but without tithing i swear that check vanished in like a day and i have no idea how.

well i also had a brain dead sister that couldnt manage finances to look at as a model of dont do this. she lived 5 hours away. at one point her check bouncing got so ridiculous that my folks basically took over her bank account and she had to drive down every weekend to do a budget by hand with my parents. there was certainly a lesson there to be learned. she bounced a check every week probably. really if my dad hadnt been able to help out she would of done some jail time but thankfully he helped out and well respected as a honest man.

she bounced checks over crazy things like shampoo or the famous....phone rings she calls on friday says dad can you put 30 bucks in my account at 3 PM on friday because i wrote a check yesterday. this was common happened weekly. seriously for a while every weekend she had to drive up and they would argue about finances.

there certainly was a lesson of what no to do to be learned there. but didnt stop me from maxing out a credit card more than once lol.

of course the other lesson i learned was i moved up the grocery store chain and counted their money every night. so i very much had to learn to keep a budget there nightly. things had to add up. between this that and growing up some more i eventually learned the value of saving money. and am now pretty good about coming under my budget.

come to think of it the oldest sister and child she is financially i dont think she learned the lesson either she and her husband are in serious debt. cards are maxed out several cards are.

im not sure about my brother but i think hes got it more under control now and my other sister is a master of savings. she can turn a 100 dollar coat into a 2 dollar purchase. no freakin idea how but she does regularly and often. so i guess 3 of the 5 kids learned financial lessons somewhere in their lives and 2 never did. i guess thats good odds.

[JudoMinja]

My parents started out with doing the "allowance for grades" thing. I like how that worked, because education really does translate over to money once you hit the "real world". Now that us older kids are out of the house and there's only two still at home, my parents just do a weekly allowance as long as rooms are clean. They also give a little "extra" for practicing piano and doing chores they aren't assigned to do. Not sure if this method is doing any worse or better at teaching financial lessons as one is a money horder and won't spend money on ANYTHING unless its something he really, really wants. The other, I don't really have any idea what his spending habits are. I have no idea what he uses his money for or if he saves any at all.

As far as letting them spend it on what they want... my reasoning is that you teach them what you think the "should" do with their money then live the rest up to them. Once its theirs, its theirs. They need to learn from experience and their own decisions. Maybe they listen to your "advice". Maybe they don't. Hopefully, whatever experiences they end up having, they will learn that your advice was good advice.