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.
Off the top of my head, I’d say $5 every two weeks, or $10 a month, depending on your payday. I don’t know where I got that number from though, it just seems like a good one for a child that age to me.
On second thought, that amount may be too high. Maybe somewhere around $2 or $4 for the above situations… I don’t really know. I have about 8 or 9 years before I have to go over that bridge.
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.
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.
I’d say that $5 a week is fair. It’s enough to buy something stupid if she absolutely has to, and enough that just a couple of weeks of saving would show results.
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.
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.
I’d vote $20/month, but keep it connected with doing chores. You want to maintain the impression that they are earning the money, and are not owed it just by existing.
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.
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!)
We opened bank accounts for our daughters wherein we direct deposit $30 per month for our 5th grader and $40 per month for our 9th grader. They get ATM cards that enable them to make withdraws.
They are expected to use their money for most of their incidental expenses, i.e. if they go to a movie with friends, buy treats for themselves, etc.
It works very well. It gives them some independence and teaches them to live within a budget. They also enjoy seeing their balance increase.
We used to give them weekly cash allowances, but we’d sometimes forget, or not have the proper cash to give them both and it could get very confusing. This works very well for us.
They do have a number of chores they are expected to do and have been pretty good about doing them without complaint.
Fibonacci, that’s a really cool setup you’ve got. I’m impressed.
My parents pretty much shared Kalhoun’s philosophy, so I never had any money. They sometimes tried to have cash allowances, but most of the time they either didn’t have the right cash on hand (there were four of us) or soon realized that not giving us money was cheaper than giving us money, so it would fall apart after a few weeks.
My family had a similiar philosophy to kalhoun’s too. We did chores because we were part of a family and that is what families do. “Mom does not mean Maid!”
We did get an allowance but it wasn’t directly tied to the chores.
I only had an allowance in high school (gr. 7 in Quebec) - I had the choice of getting 20$ 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…
She really does like to do stuff around the house. We have some kind of disks or something that you dissolve in the toilet, then scrub it out. It makes it ease for her to do, and the other kids get a kick out of watching the stuff dissolve in the toilet. Don’t ask me why.
