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#1
12-12-2002, 12:25 PM
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What's a good allowance for a 5th grader?
Recently, my 5th grader woke up out of her sleep, school, and play existance to realize that there are things she can help with around the house. Lo and behold, she actually started doing these things on a weekly basis without me or Mrs. KVS asking.
What's a good allowance for a 5th grade girl? What has she been doing? She cleans the gunea pig cage by herself, cleans the bathrooms, keeps her room reasonably straight, sets the dinner table on Friday night, helps serve when we have guests, and helps clean the table. She's also been applying herself much more in school this year. What's fair and reasonable?
__________________
"Everyone knows what is in Room 101." 
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#4
12-12-2002, 01:12 PM
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I vote for $10 a month. That gives her money to "go out" with her friends once a month and spend her own money, like if she goes to the movies or something. It's also not too much, so that she understands the value of saving it if she wants something bigger.
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#5
12-12-2002, 02:19 PM
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I have only two questions:
1. Have you considered the possibility of an alien abduction or changling? 2. Would you like to trade?
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#6
12-12-2002, 02:26 PM
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I think that more like $5 a week is fair.
I know that a lot of people pay $1 a week for every year in age. I think that gets silly with the odd numbers though. I guess I just like to round things off.
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#10
12-12-2002, 03:01 PM
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Make it like piece work. Me 'n Mrs enigma give ours $.10 for every chore they do every day. I made a chart for them, they are able to check off each chore daily. Gives them ownership and incentive 'cause the more consistent they are, the more they get. Given about 4 chores apiece, in a given month, and a perfect score, it works out between $11 and $12 a month.
works for us!  ~eNiGma
__________________
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play ~Heraclitus, Greek Philospher 500BC
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#11
12-12-2002, 03:24 PM
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My sons get $3.00 per week each if they do their chores without complaining about it. If they complain, they still have to do their chores but they don't get the money. I guess I'm really paying for their silence--it really is golden
Another thing we do is use old, unused checkbook registers for them to keep track of their cash. It's really nice because they can watch what they save grow over the weeks. It's also seemed to make them more careful about spending their money because they like to watch the numbers get bigger.
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#13
12-12-2002, 03:47 PM
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Or you might consider a allowance with matching saving program. $10/month goes to her, $10 month goes to her savings account (when she has enough to open one), all with the understanding that it all is for doing chores. That teaches her the value of both having money and saving it.
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#15
12-12-2002, 03:57 PM
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My parents were of the mind that chores were a part of contributing to the family, and therefore you weren't paid for them. We got a really shitty allowance to learn money management and saving, but it was so paltry we could barely save up enough in a month to hit the penny candy store. (This was back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.) Subsequently, I started babysitting at 12 and working an after-school job at 15 and haven't stopped.
In modern times, $5/wk until she's 12. Then give her a raise (that is, if she's still the miracle child you allege!)
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#16
12-12-2002, 04:13 PM
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We opened bank accounts for our daughters wherein we direct deposit $30 per month for our 5th grader and $40 per month for our 9th grader. They get ATM cards that enable them to make withdraws.
They are expected to use their money for most of their incidental expenses, i.e. if they go to a movie with friends, buy treats for themselves, etc. It works very well. It gives them some independence and teaches them to live within a budget. They also enjoy seeing their balance increase. We used to give them weekly cash allowances, but we'd sometimes forget, or not have the proper cash to give them both and it could get very confusing. This works very well for us. They do have a number of chores they are expected to do and have been pretty good about doing them without complaint.
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#17
12-12-2002, 04:50 PM
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Fibonacci, that's a really cool setup you've got. I'm impressed.
My parents pretty much shared Kalhoun's philosophy, so I never had any money. They sometimes tried to have cash allowances, but most of the time they either didn't have the right cash on hand (there were four of us) or soon realized that not giving us money was cheaper than giving us money, so it would fall apart after a few weeks.
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#18
12-12-2002, 05:26 PM
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My family had a similiar philosophy to kalhoun's too. We did chores because we were part of a family and that is what families do. "Mom does not mean Maid!"
We did get an allowance but it wasn't directly tied to the chores.
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#19
12-12-2002, 05:39 PM
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I only had an allowance in high school (gr. 7 in Quebec) - I had the choice of getting 20$ a week for food/activities etc, or not get money and have my mom make me a lunch every day. I took the 20$ because in the end, I only used about 12-15$ of it for food at school, and I pocketed the rest. Saved up quite a bit of money for CDs, movies, and going out with friends. My brother had the same deal, and IIRC, he didnt bother to make a lunch either. Oddly enough, though, my younger sister managed to get the 20$ AND get a packed lunch....my brother and I never quite figured out how that worked, and when we'd ask, my parents would get mad and tell us some crap about how my sister works hard to get good grades (we had good grades too!) and deal with her arthritis, which makes physical activity more difficult for her. We'd point out that there's little physical activity in making a sandwich, but that never got us anywhere. My parents just can't say "No" to my sister - she owns them!
OTOH, if we were stapped for cash, or needed extra gas money, or wanted to go to an event that we normally didn't go to, my parents were always generous and willing to help pay, so in the end it probably worked out more or less even since my brother and I certainly went to more parties and concerts on my parents money than did my sister. Anyways....thats a long-winded hijack about my allowance....
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#20
12-13-2002, 06:46 AM
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Quote:
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#21
12-13-2002, 12:14 PM
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Allowance should be based on the cost of living where you are. Here, a typical movie costs 9-10 bucks not including popcorn. I would say a movie or two a month and then some pocket change would be a good bet. If she likes reading (don't know many 5th graders who do) add in the cost of a typical paperback (they are around 8 bucks here). 25-40 bucks a month sounds like a reasonable range for an allowance here. That would be a book and a movie plus a very little amount of pocket change.
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#22
12-13-2002, 12:53 PM
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Quote:
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#24
12-15-2002, 10:42 AM
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My 11 year old gets $5 per week, and is quite content and able to save up for large purchases. As others have mentioned, I don't tie it to household chores, because pitching in is expected in a family (an exception is one-time large chores, such as helping with the annual leaf deluge in the fall, when we mulch several hundred pounds--that merits a bonus). However, I'm really intrigued with the monthly-deposit-and-ATM-card scheme, and may well give it a whirl. Thanks for the idea!
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#25
12-15-2002, 12:33 PM
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My 5th grade son gets $5/week deposited automatically into his Quicken account on my computer. Whenever he spends any, we enter it into that account and categorize expenditure. Then he can see how much he spends on candy or video games or whatever.
I do not believe in tying allowance to chores. My kids have to do their chores no matter what. It is part of being in the family.
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#26
12-15-2002, 11:10 PM
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I got $5 a week when I was that age, but it didn't last long--my parents kept on forgetting, and I was too polite to remind them.
My parents have also normally been of the "chores are something you do to help the family" school of thought. That is, until one day. . . . . .see, sometime during high school--I think it was between my sophomore and junior years--I realized that I was doing almost *all* the major chores. I was vacuuming and dusting the downstairs (which is finished, and has no private rooms, hence I do the entire floor) as well as my room, cutting the grass, cleaning the toilets, shoveling the snow, splitting the raking with my mom, and doing whatever odd chores my dad thought up, such as, say, scrubbing down the entire kitchen. Pretty much, the only things I didn't do was washing the floors, and that was pretty much because my mom realized I *sucked* at it. I started demanding pay, on the premise that, well, it's my duty to pitch in, but I'm pitching in my part, my dad's part, and a good chunk of my little sister's part, so I should be compensated. It worked, and I got $20 per week, contingent upon what I did or didn't do (if I didn't do much that week, I wouldn't get paid). For a 5th grader, 5 dollars a week should be pretty good.
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