My oldest son is turning 6. I think it is time to start him on an allowance. What do the teeming masses think? How much is a good amount? $1-2/week?
$2.00 is good. it is enough to buy some candy, or a few of those vending machine type toys. It is also enough that you could institute a bonus for good saving behaviour. For example, if he saves his money for the month, you could offer him a bonus of two additional dollars, rounding it up to ten. That would be enough for simple toys, action figures, cheaper nerf guns etc. The important thing here, is to make certain that he understands that he will be responsible for his money, and that more will not magically appear if he blows his. If you don’t limit impulse purchases now, it’s time to start. This way he will see the consequences of his actions. If he spends his money on Friday evening, he doesn’t get more for the candy machine on Monday. He spent it.
It depends on what you want to do it for. I did not give my kids pocket money until they were able to count change, but began at about 6 allowing them to earn extra money based on a list of extra work that needed done around the house. These were not ordinary chores like cleaning their rooms or what have you but extra, occasional things as what money they needed at that point was extra and occasional.
I don’t have kids, but when I was a kid my parents never gave us an allowance. However, we could do chores around the house for money. I think it helped prepare us for getting out and working, and both my brother and I managed to work our way through and pay for our own college. I’m sure that getting started early helped shape our work ethic.
Whatsit Jr. is 6. He gets $2.00/week, of which 25% goes into his charity box, 25% goes into his piggy bank, and the rest is for whatever he wants. (Usually it goes into the piggy bank, too.)
When I was a kid, my mom was too broke to give us an allowance or pay us for chores, so I have no experience with this. We’ve opted not to go the pay-for-chores route just because I don’t want my kids to get the idea that they can skip chores if they don’t care about being paid that week. Chores are non-optional. However (standard disclaimer) I am certainly not suggesting that it doesn’t work for other people or that you shouldn’t do it if that’s what you want to do.
Our son is only 5 and doesn’t get an allowance yet, but when he does this is how we want to work it.
I also agree on the theory that chores are just chores…you do them and shouldn’t expect to get paid. Because I also don’t want him to say, “Na, I don’t feel like it, and you can keep your measly dollar!”
Thanks for the early replies!
The goals of this are to:
- Begin his financial education. Understand money. (When he gets older, I intend to do “The Bank of Dad”.)
- Help him learn math - addition, subtraction, multiplication,
- Develop patience, forbearance, etc. The power of deferring gratification.
- Possibly incorporate charity, but I’m not sure how I feel about mandatory charity.
It is not hooked to chores. Any chores he does I consider part of his duties as a member of the household.
I don’t have kids yet so feel free to completely ignore me.
When I was that age I got about two pounds a week (one from mum and dad, one from grandad), of which half always went in my piggy bank. I don’t think this was a rule, but it was heavily encouraged- from being about 8yrs old any money I saved up for family holidays would be doubled and I quickly learned that double-fifteen is a lot more than double-three (however it was my job to buy the first round of icecreams on holiday from my own money in an attempt to stop me being completely spoilt).
It wasn’t tied to chores at all, but I was expected to make a contribution towards Mum and Dad’s birthday presents when it came around, which is something I will definitely do with my own kids. I think the fact that I had saved my own money to buy them a gift made it much more special and meaningful for me, and I was always very excited to give them whatever I had picked.
Oh, and while I agree with chores being non-negotiable, I don’t think there’s any harm in occasionally getting the odd dollar for an extra job, like washing the car.
I’m not a parent, but what about agreeing to give a significant amount of money if he’s willing to give some part of his allowance for a cause he feels strongly about? For instance, he hears about starving children, he’s strongly upset, and you agree to give $20 for each dollar he’s willing to give himself?
Or maybe proposing him to participate for some small amount in an operation you’re involved in yourself and that allows him to see the concrete results of the donation? (I’m thinking for instance of these NGOs who offer to sponsor a specific child, inform you about his/her whereabouts, have him/her send a letter once in a while, etc…)
(Having to search for the English wording for “sponsoring a child”, I ended up hearing a serie of orphans wishing me a “prospero año nuevo” while I was typing. I’ve been entrapped and this post is going to cost me part of my allowance).
We do mandatory charity, but we let him decide how he wants to spend the charity money. It could be on buying a toy for a needy child at Christmas, or giving to the Salvation Army bell-ringer, or helping to purchase a chicken on Heifer.org, or whatever. We give options.
Also, the mandatory division of allowance really does help with the counting money/math skills. Whatsit Jr. is pretty good at figuring out 25% these days.
I don’t have kids, but I want to add my two cents in about mandatory charity. I think it is only fair if it works both ways. I would talk to the sprout about people less fortunate than ourselves and explain about how charity can help the needy. I like the idea of matching donations too. If they are mature enough to agree to help then that’s great; If they are greedy, or you are not ready to do your part too then it become hypocritical and places a foul taste in their mouth about the process. Charity should be freely given, not enforced.
I got an allowance until I was about 10 or 11. My Mom gave me the dollar amount equivalent to my age. So when I was 6 I got $6/week, when I turned 7 I then received $7/week, etc. I thought this was a very effective way to do things and it made birthdays that much more exciting. My instinct would be to give him more than $2/week – at least $5. Money doesn’t go that far anymore, and at least this way he could practice saving it up for a month and then go get a cool new toy or something.
ETA: That is, assuming you’re in a place financially where you could afford more.
Our system is a slight variation on olivesmarch4th’s. We give a dollar amount equivalent to the grade in school. Our 6th grader gets $6/week.
It’s true that $6 doesn’t go far, and he has friends who stop in at the Starbucks near the school and drop $3 or $4 on a frothy drink several times weekly. By giving him a smaller amount he quickly developed his own sense of the value of things.
He has chores which are his responsibility as a member of the family, but for unusual things like cleaning gutters or car waxing he might get some extra cash.
He also gets frequent cash gifts from assorted aunts and uncles and we insist that a hefty portion of that go into his savings account.
I dig this idea and will be discussing it with MrWhatsit.
This is exactly what I want to do, but I will not incorporate charity at all.
Surprise! Shock! Amazement!
Let’s see… 1990ish… I’m pretty sure in that I was brought to the dollar store once a week if I did my chores and cleaned my room. There were lots of cheap fun toys for a 6 year old at the dollar store.
Inflation being what it is… 1990 dollars… 2009… The local used car dealer should do fine. 
My family did a dollar a year per week - so at age 6 we got $6 a week.
That was split:
25% - Short term (anything we wanted, as long as it was legal, essentially)
25% - Medium term (parental approval required - not for junk food or whatever, but something worth saving for)
25% - Long term (straight to the bank)
15% - Family tax (all kids contributed to a fund, we voted on what it got spent on - an early intro to politicking and the unfairness of life!)
10% - Charity (to wherever, I was fond of Angel Trees)
My parents gave us an allowance when we were little. You could get an allowance as soon as you could pass the test, no age requirements. The test was to tie both your shoes and to count without error whatever random pile of change he’d dump out of his pocket. He always had over a dollar’s worth of coins for the test. The allowance was 10 cents a week in 1960…you’d want to adjust that for inflation. 
There were never any rules about saving or donating any percentage of the allowance, they expected us to learn from experience.
Thanks for the input everyone. I like the charitable match idea… I’ll take these to the wife, see what she thinks.