I got $2 in the mid-late 80’s, my little brothers get $5 today – but we live in New York, so, you know, cost of living and all.
A few months ago the little one wound up getting $10, though. He had his tooth in an old pill bottle under his pillow. Once he was asleep, I got it out and replaced it with five singles, wrapped around the inside of the bottle. My mother got home from work late that night, checked to see if the Tooth Fairy had visited, and didn’t see the money wrapped around the sides – so she stuck a $5 bill in the middle.
We’re cheapo schmeapos. We give each kid a quarter per tooth, no glitter or fairy dust. But my husband writes a personalized note for each tooth, prints it out in color-coded ink (each kid has her own color) in a tiny, italic font. Sometimes the girls ask daddy to pass on a question to the tooth fairy, and then of course the answer is in the note. Or else, they ask for a picture (of a unicorn, etc) and that’s printed on the note too. They really like that.
Actually, the $2 bill is still being printed and is in circulation just like all the other bills. The only reason you don’t see them is because people don’t use them, just like the golden dollar. You can go into your bank and ask for $2 bills and they’ll more than likely have them and also more than likely have new ones.
Jeez, I’m glad I’m not the only person who thought a quarter was the frozen going-rate for teeth! I’m stunned at the amount of loot kids are getting these days.
I remember getting a quarter when I was a kid growing up in the 70’s. I had one baby tooth that never fell out, though, and the adult tooth kind of grew in beside it. I had to have it pulled, and the “tooth fairy” gave me $10 for it.
We did something completely different with both our kids, and neither of them have ever complained about it.
For our daughter (who was a first grand-child on both sides of the family, and received far more money than she could really spend on a regular basis), the Tooth Fairy brought fancy polished/tumbled rocks. She thought they were WAY cooler than a quarter or dollar.
For our son, who is a human metal detector and can’t leave a store without finding at least fifty cents in change on the floor, the Tooth Fairy brought unusual coins from other countries. (Not hard, since I lived in France for three years, and have a wallet-full of pre-Euro change. I also keep my eyes open for unusual but cheap coins at flea markets, etc.)
We also did the envelope thing. The kids would get to decorate the envelope with their tooth, and put a date on it with their name. The Tooth Fairy would leave a new envelope with the present. I now have two collections of crayon-decorated envelopes, signed and dated, and I’m hoping that at least one of the sets will be worth something to someone someday.
When I was a kid (early 70s was losing-teeth age) it was a quarter. When our son got his first wiggly tooth, **Dangerosa **and I had a discussion about what the rate would be. We wanted it to be a single coin, so we chose golden dollars. My son, who has a pirate fixation, saw the first one and said “gleaming booty!” in surprise.
