I probably should have included this question with my recent “What was the vibe in your house” post, but didn’t so will ask now.
How much allowance did you get (assuming you got one) when you were a kid?
My forster father gave me and my foster brother each 50-cents per week. That was the late '60s/early '70s. I guess it sounds kinda cheap, but he wasn’t really my dad so I guess it was nice that I even got that much.
The neighbor kid across the street got $5.00! :mad: But everyone knew that his old man was rich, so what can ya do? :dubious:
We, me and my (foster) brother, didn’t have to do a crazy amount of chores, so I guess that factored in on the low amount.
Did you get an allowance? If so, how much? And did you think it was a fair amount? And if you have kids, do you give them some pocket money in exchage for chores, or whatever?
P.S. I often spent mine on “Little Debbies,” those tastey chocolate cup cakes that sold for 49-cents back then. I’d wash the whole box down with a pint of milk. Sooo yummy!
Yes. But I can’t remember how much. The timeframe was close to yours, late 60s and then 70s. I think maybe we started at a quarter and ended up at a buck or two per week. I remember it was enough for candy and the like, and that’s about it.
I was born in 1968 and got an allowance probably starting in the early 70s as well. I think it started at less than a quarter, but this was still enough for penny candies at the candy store. It rose over the years but at its peak it was $5 a week. This was in high school right before I started my first job, around 1985. In elementary school we always got Wednesday afternoons off (so the public school kids could come take CCD) and the allowance was enough for lunch at Burger King those days.
The kicker was we had minimal chores at home, basically just to keep our rooms clean and bring our laundry to and from the laundry porch. So we got the allowance just because.
In the 50’s, I got a quarter a week. That was enough to go to a movie and buy popcorn. It was raised to a dollar, but by then I was babysitting so the dollar was like a bonus.
When we lived on a farm, I’d also get a penny for each fly I killed. Mom put the kibosh on that when I started killing flies outdoors.
No. I, nor my siblings, ever got an allowance. I guess the step-dad figured that he gave us a roof over our heads and meals, and that was quite enough.
My husband gave our daughter an allowance. If I recall correctly, it started out at around 5 years of age, at $5…then went up $2 each year after that. That gave her enough money to get what she wanted. Books, movies, CDs, cheap jewelry, nail polish, cool t-shirts, etc. We gave her ‘extras’ all the time, though. So, it really didn’t matter how much she got for an allowance.
My mom kept a large chart on the fridge in the kitchen with a listing of what chores were expected to be performed each day by each kid to be initialled by my mom upon satisfactory completion.
If all your little squares were initialled at the end of the week, you got your money. If they weren’t, you didn’t. All or nothing.
I can’t recall offhand how much it was, though. Probably somewhere in the range of 3 - 5 bucks a week when we were pre-teens and 5 - 10 as 13 - 15. At 15, you were expected to both complete your chores and have a job for spending money, if you wanted any. No more cash for chores. Instead, incompletion of chores = no use of family vehicles.
Nope. I was born in 1970 and never had an allowance. I didn’t have my own spending money until I was sixteen and got a job. I was a total miser, too… it took me some time to learn how to spend money, and I’m still pretty tight with a buck. I don’t know if there’s any relationship between those things.
I don’t do allowance with my kids, either. I pay them ten bucks per report card A. This has pros and cons.
As for chores, I did what I was told to do, when I was told to do it. My kids do have daily chores. One does lunch dishes, one does dinner dishes, and since we have a dishwasher, this isn’t a very heinous job.
I think mine started as a nickel and went up to maybe a buck. Then it went up to $5, but we had to buy all of our own clothes. (Even in the 70s, there wasn’t much wardrobe to be had for that.) My $5 usually went to cigs and pot. And I never got a raise even through college.
We had something very similar, except we were paid a piece rate. Mowing the lawn earned my something like a buck fifty. Emptying the trash was twenty-five cents, cleaning my room, feeding the cats, vacuuming, etc. all had their various rates. There was a chart and they got initialled, just like yours. Some of things I was expected to do, but some of the stuff I could do or not do to earn a little more money. Usually ended up being in the five dollar range,although once in a while a big project would come up and I could earn a considerable amount more.
I started getting an allowance at age 4 for sweeping the kitchen with a dustpan and emptying the small waste baskets around the house into the large kitchen garbage. I got 50¢ for that in 1970. I use to save up money for Matchbox cars.
Later, as I did more chores and got older, my allowance went all the way up to $5 per week. This included vacuuming and doing the dishes and all the garbage and probably many other smaller jobs. It was not a lot for a 9th grader. I looked forward to getting my first job and having some real cash.
My daughter helps around the house and does the kitty litter. She gets $5 a week for this and extra money when she helps out on big cleanups. She gets any book she wants from the school’s book club and at this point she just saves her money up. She rarely spends any. She has a decent savings account already. When she does spend, it is usually on stuffed animals or toys for our pets. She loves animals.
My son fills the food and water for our dog. He gets $2 a week for this. He rarely helps out on anything else. He does spend his money on Pokémon cards and occasionally candy. He also gets all the books he wants from the school’s book club.
My kids are the only young grandkids in both families. They get way too many toys. Besides, I am a soft touch.
That reminds me: My actual source of income during middle and high school was from saving my lunch money (a dollar a day). I would either eat the cheapest thing the school cafeteria offered (Little Debbie cake, 25 cents), or eat nothing. I spent the money on cigarettes. I didn’t have to buy my own pot because I was a girl.
My allowance in the 60’s and 70’s almost always covered the cost of two inexpensive paperbacks a week. In the late 60’s, that meant $1.00. It rose as I took on more chores, to a grand total of about $5.00 a week when I was in high school. These days it would have to be $14.00 to cover two paperbacks.
No. I got a dime on Saturday afternoon to go to the matinee at the Empress Theater. Otherwise I was given money on rare occasions for a foamy rootbeer at the drug store soda fountain over my father’s barber shop.
No. And I wasn’t ever given any money. Everytime I wanted something I had to ask my parents for it. Until I was 16 or so if I got money for birthdays I had to give it to them.
I got 25 cents a week when I was a kid in the 1950s. In 1960, when I turned 12, this went up to $1.00 a week. In 1963, when I went away to school, my allowance jumped to $2.00 a week (keep in mind that in the 1960s, $2.00 could buy a record album, a rather fancy meal, or a couple of movie tickets).
I got $2/week until I was in high school, I think. I don’t remember when my parents started giving me an allowance, but in 4th-6th grades I was expected to pay for the food, cage liner, etc. for my mice out of that allowance. We were expected to do chores, too, but the allowance wasn’t strictly tied to the completion of chores.
I know it went up in high school – maybe even jr. high – but I don’t remember what to. I was babysitting a lot by then, and working, so it wasn’t as important.
