I knew we’d have to deal with this at some point, but didn’t think it would come aroound so soon.
Our son is 6 and in first grade. Yesterday we met some of his classmates’ parents at a school event and the conversation turned to pocket money. Turns out some parents give their children the equivalent of US$3 a week, but one confessed to giving hers $15. The teacher said they should not come to school with more than $1.50 a day to spend in the school cafeteria. I was a little taken aback. I don’t remember being given money until about the age of 8 or 9, and my husband agreed, but it seems we were in the minority.
Clearly cultural/class/economic factors will come into play here. We live in the Dominican Republic and send our son to a private school which brings him into contact with middle/upper middle class children. Yesterday’s event brought it home to us that the parents were not people whose values we share: they appeared to be shallow and materialistic - if I can say that without appearing shallow and judgemental at making such a snap judgement!
We don’t think he is old enough to be given unsupervised access to a shop selling junk food, fizzy drinks and sweets, but we can see the value in the chance to learn about using money, although my gut feeling is still that 6 is a little young. I suppose the point is I don’t want him to feel like a total freak either.
What do you think? How old were your children when you started giving them pocket money, and how much did you give them? (Please give the US$ equivalent if at all possible).
We took our lunch for as long as I can remember. In middle school, around 7th grade (so about 12-13 years old) my mom started giving me $10 a week to use at the cafeteria. Most days I still took lunch though. In high school, the first year or two she gave me $20 a week for the cafeteria and gas money, but then I started working and paying for my own stuff.
I think 6 is the right age to really start learning about responsibility with money. I don’t have kids but that’s about the age that my parents started giving me pocket money, and setting me up with my financial lessons.
If you don’t want him having unfettered access to the canteen at school, how about setting up a savings account for him and paying the money directly into there so he can save up for something (either something big like a bike, game console etc. or a few small things like books or action figures or whatever)? That way if he wants to buy anything, he can speak to you and you can work out if he’s got enough money in the savings. If he does, you can both go to the bank and take out the money and then if necessary (say you get a good deal) put some of the change back in next time his money is deposited.
You could also work out a ‘paycheque’ system, where instead of depositing $2 at a time you nominate a monthly pay date. He ‘earns’ a certain amount each week, perhaps with little bonuses paid for doing extra chores or good grades on his schoolwork, then once a month on the nominated date you can deposit his ‘paycheque’ into his account and then give him the receipt to put into a book or folder or whatever. I think kids love the feeling of control when you show them what they’re earning, and then they can see it at work in their account, accuring interest.
That way he’s getting pocket money, he can buy treats if he wants them but you’re still in control of how he’s spending the money and it’s not going on candy at the canteen every day.
I don’t have kids myself, but I don’t remember getting pocket money before I was in junior school (in the UK), so I must have been about 7 years old at that point. We never got much money, enough for sweets and not much else. We could earn extra money for things by doing chores at home, my parents had a list pinned up somewhere of all the things we could do and how much they would pay us for it. It was then up to us to decide whether we wanted to do it.
My parents don’t take money to school for lunch. They have money deposited into an account and use their pin.
At seven and eight, we give them $5 short term and $5 long term a week - but it isn’t exactly pocket money (because it doesn’t stay in their pockets and because that involves having cash on hand). It goes into a ledger and they kids can spend it when mom or dad are around or ask mom and dad for the balance (only from the short term account) to go into their pocket if they go out with friends (and their friends parents). That money is theirs to do with what they want - and they usually forget about it long enough to buy games or something rather than spending $5 a week on candy.
I don’t have kids but I used to be one. At some point. Methinks.
Since the dates involved count as The Dark Ages, I’ll translate to “what I could buy” instead of to dollars, ok? This was all in Spain.
Mom’s Mom is my godmother. She always gave me one whole bill (of the smallest denomination) to put in my bank account, on Christmas and my Birthday. That bank account had been opened by Dad’s Dad, who was my godfather, it’s a family tradition and I opened an account for The Nephew (aka my godson). This is the earliest money I remember getting, but it was for the account, I couldn’t just go and spend it. It would have let me buy enough candy to make me sick for a week if I’d tried to eat it in one sitting.
I started getting a small amount every week in 1st grade. It was enough to buy one piece of candy every day; since I got it all on Sunday, if I went and spent it all on the day I got it, I didn’t have anything left for the rest of the week. This money wasn’t expected to pay for anything else. I could save it too (I had a piggybank with a cork on the bottom).
When I was 10, the weekly moved to being “1 duro per year”. 50pta at 10, 55pta at 11… If I saved the money from two weeks, it was enough for a movie ticket.
When I turned 14 I dared ask for a raise. My parents were so stunned that they said “what?” instead of “no” See, inflation was affecting me and my interests had grown wider; movie tickets now were more than twice my weekly would have been and there was also a “junior dance” every saturday afternoon; with 70pta/week I would have been able to go three weeks of every four assuming I never bought a book or went to a movie. Not right. So I got a whole increase to 150pta, which let me go to the dance every week as well as to a movie about once a month. To be reviewed every year depending on inflation and stuff, of course.
I think 6 can be enough, but it’s also very possible that you should give your kid the money daily. I was already used to be responsible for myself and others, at that age. And do try to give him amounts that match what he should be spending it on but do not try to match what other people get. At 14, I had the highest “weekly”… but all my classmates got more money a week because they had tons of relatives who dropped them a coin every time they saw them!
I think pocket money was started when I went to school, just before my 5th birthday.
Oddly, while living in the country, sans shops, I had a good idea that money was desireable as I made quite a collection, which I foolishly showed my grandmother - leading to prompt confiscation and my parents thoroughly confused about where I got it.
The idea of ‘spending money’ and ‘banking’ money is a good one.
When we were kids we could also earn extra by doing jobs that had a defined pay rate, not a bad idea, actually a very good idea, but there was a drawback.
One of the jobs was digging weeds out of a lawn that was always infested. Oddly enough weeding was also a punishment - and I noticed that the frequency of punishment tended vary with the state of the lawn.
It has left me with a deep suspicion that civil and traffic violations are actually revenue raising operations.
@Martha, at a later school there was a vast difference between the ‘generosity’ of parents, which in hindsight I can see was driven by guilt. We got used to it, possibly it was a good preparation for later life.
I think 6 is about the right time to start teaching children about money, but too young to start letting them have money in their pockets.
By about 8 YO, it’s time to let the kid pay at the shop, figure out how to look at the cash register, which note to give the cashier, count the change, give it back to mom/dad after verifying…
By 10-11 YO we were giving our eldest pocket money (to the tune of the equivalent of $2-3 a week for anything she wants + reasonable expenses on request.)
Twins are now 9-1/2 and are starting to get antsy (but aren’t all younger kids like that?) – We’re already letting them earn the occasional dollar by taking out the dogs in the afternoon, and they’ll probably start getting the equivalent of a Dollar a week before they actually turn 10.
Different part of the world, different people, YMMV…
I could go for the idea of a fixed amount each week for saving, or small rewards for chores, as many have suggested. We’ll probably introduce the idea sometime soon. What I don’t like is the idea of him buying stuff from the school cafeteria - he already takes a snack, which should be enough.
Luckily he seems to accept the situation so far, but once he starts lobbying we will have to come to come compromise, on the lines of letting him take a small amount of money once or twice a week only.
When I was just a little older than him (about 8), and living not a million miles from Noone Special;), things were a lot different. I used to cross the city, ride public transport and roam the streets with my friends. And yes, I used to spend money in sweet shops. Here (or now, I guess it’s like this in most places these days) kids get ferried round everywhere and have very little independence, in some cases right into their teens, which makes me think that we invariably end up babying them in other ways, delaying other stuff that makes them independent and responsible. Interesting.
To go off on a slight tangent, I think children’s independence is still more a question of geography than of chronology. Yes, my children are less independent thamn I or Martha were (and I rode city busses at 8, too) – but my eldest has been taking the bus since 7th grade – which she started not quite 12 years old; and the twins will too. And this in a country where riding the bus is, still, considered something like standing on a NYC subway platform in the '80-s – a form of Russian Roulette.
Kids here definitely go to their afternoon activities and friends on their owm ,often starting at the age of 7 or 8, as long as it’s inside the neighborhood. Of course, if it’s farther away, they do get driven… From what I hear, this seems to be in stark contrast to what happens in the U.S.
I like the “long term money” vs. “short term money” idea. Sort of like a 401k vs. a take-home paycheck. We have to handle both kinds as adults, and talk to our investment advisors (parents, in this case) before touching the long-term stuff.
I think 7 is the right age for an allowance to start, because that’s when they can really start to be trusted to not simply lose it, and also because, spiritually speaking, I think 7 is when they start becoming “children” as distinct from “babies” (not infants, but “babies” without spiritual or practical responsibilities.)
My parents never stuck to an allowance, but we were always given a reasoable amount of money if we were doing something to warrant said money. For example, if the class was taking a field trip to a museum, we were given $5 for some small trinket from the gift shop. We could chose to spend it all, some, or none. We also could earn money by crushing and bagging aluminum cans for recycling…back when that was a profitable venture. I actually used to joke with my Dad that he was paying me $5 just to get me to leave.
My son is seven and usually has to come along with me on my weekend jobs. I do chair linen for events (usually weddings) and, while he used to just sit in the corner with a book, now he helps out slightly. He takes the untied bows and places one on each chair and, for this, I give him $5 per day that he helps. Usually it’s just on Saturday for a few hours so this isn’t raking up his whole day.
He’s pretty good about money and seems to enjoy owning the money more than owning whatever he could buy with it. I think he has about $30 saved up right now and the couple times he’s seen a video game or something he wanted, I tell him that he’ll only have $5 left after he buys it and he decides against the purchase.
When I was working part time at a dressage stables, I would give Charlie (8 yo) a buck or two each day for helping out. Picking up feed pans, sweeping the main barn or the hay barn. He’d get more if he did more. Some days he’d ask the owner if he could do extra stuff like clean out the trailer and she’d give him a buck or two.
I didn’t make him divide it into spending/saving, but from April until I quit in September he saved over $90 to spend on our trip to Disneyland this Thanksgiving. He also managed to buy a few thing with some money, too. He saved more than he spent, though.
He doesn’t get a regular allowance right now, but I’m sure he’ll start asking for jobs to do to earn some money after we get back from Disneyland and he’s spend what he’s saved.
The children already take packed lunches - she meant for extras.
Update - I spoke to our son and he liked the idea of a weekly allowance that would be saved, so we’ll be starting that soon. I also told him I’d consider letting him have one day a week cafeteria money… but not immediately.
Eldest is 7 and became interested in the idea of having his own money at 6. He does not yet have an allowance. When he asked I instituted a system whereby he could earn pocket money when he wanted it.
His Big Score chore is to haul the groceries home from the market in a bicycle car hung behind his bike. He has this opportunity twice a week (as I go to market every week and I also make one trip a week with the bicycle car specifically to buy heavy things like potatoes and bottled drinks and so on) and takes me up on it, on average, twice a month. When he wants something in particular he doesn’t miss a chance; here lately though since his birthday was last week he has tons of money (from his perspective) and skipped the following weekend.
So far he has bought mostly toys which I think are not worth the money. Once he bought a half watermelon out of season for the same reason, that was funny.
During the 1990s, I got a weekly allowance in dollars roughly equal to my age. Now I’m in college and get almost four times that, but it has to cover the majority of my food, clothing and entertainment expenses. Sometimes I run over and have to make it up from my wages or savings, and other times I have surplus to invest.
Just to clarify…you are in college, have savings and job…and your parents still give you an allowance? Do you pay your tuition out of that allowance, too? Or do they pay that separate? Your parents are very generous.
See, inflation was affecting me and my interests had grown wider; movie tickets now were more than twice my weekly would have been and there was also a “junior dance” every saturday afternoon; with 70pta/week I would have been able to go three weeks of every four assuming I never bought a book or went to a movie. Not right. So I got a whole increase to 150pta, which let me go to the dance every week as well as to a movie about once a month. To be reviewed every year depending on inflation and stuff, of course.