Allowance
Anyone have any thoughts on allowance? Lately, our trips to the store have encouraged me to consider giving Amara an allowance. She wants to buy about 30 different things, usually cheap things, but its exhausting at times. Maybe if she had a limited amount of money, she'd choose one thing, and learn more about money along the way. I'm leaning toward a couple bucks a week, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts about it.
5 Comments:
my first thought is, does she understand numbers and money? (you know, like 50 cents is enough to buy that 25-cent item, but less than the dollar item)
maybe she does. but if she'd not there yet, you could just have a "only pick one thing" rule.
my second thought is, where can she keep it, and is she supposed to bring it along on your errands?
i dunno :)
we give jaden a weekly allowance when he remembers but it was for the very reason you're talking about and he only asks when there's something he finds at the store that he want so it's great.
Out of bulk size yogurt containers we made two money banks: one for tithing and one for savings. Then he gets to keep the remaining in the his wallet as spending $$. I think we give him $1.75 so .25 goes to tithing, .50 goes to savings and he keeps $1.00. Then that encourages him to save up to buy whatever he wants. It works really well if they know how much they need for what they want.
In a parenting class I had a J's preschool, they suggested not giving allowance for doing chores, they should have chores but not get monetary compensation for doing what each family member should be helping out with.
Just a thought and it works well for us. Like I said, we're not very consistent but it hasn't been a problem and works the way we intended. Sometimes, if he knows we're going to Walmart, he'll just bring his wallet but if he goes without it, I'll just tell him to bring it next time to see if he has enough $$. It eliminates the "gimme" problem--we don't have it.
Micah,
Thanks. Your system sounds ideal. So he can use his savings for whatever he wants? Has he been saving up for bigger things sometimes?
cchrissyy,
She does have some understanding about money, and I'm hoping she can "get it" if we do this. She does have a purse and a couple wallets where she stashes her money. She's actually been saving money from her birthday and piggy bank for Disneyland for awhile!
When Alan was about 2, he was always asking for things. When we told him we didn't have money to buy the things he wanted, he offered a simple solution: "Buy more money." He and Alex Keaton would have been good buddies.
so there's a "savings container" (along with the tithing one) that is taped shut. It's a long-term savings that's never touched and just forgotten about.
He can spend "his money" that goes into his wallet and choose to save that portion up to buy bigger things. So his 1.75 is split 3 ways. At some point, we'll open the savings container and put the money in his savings account, which we also recently started for when he gets birthday money that's not necessary to spend since he's already received plenty of gifts.
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