Do you give your kids an allowance and, if so, how much and at what age did you start

[justlearning]

1) What ages are each of your kids?
2) If you currently give allowances, how much does each kid get?
3) At what age did you stat giving each child an allowance?

[kijip]

8.5 and nearly 3.

Older child gets allowance. The little one does not as he has no idea what the hell money is.

We started at age 4. He gets $1 per year of age per week. So we started him at $4 a week and now he gets $8 a week.

Stuff you did not ask but I am adding anyway:

No chores required to get allowance. But chores are required to live here in this house.

He has to give some of his allowance away. He usually picks organizations that feed people or give kids gifts, but sometimes he picks water orgs and an engineering/architecture organization that works for non-profits. He picks on the Seattle Foundation website

He gets no gifts outside of Xmas (a fair number) and bday (modest) so if he wants something, be it a $3 game or a $100 Lego set, it is on him to buy it.

He buys Christmas and birthday gifts for family and close friends from what we give him. But I will chip in on something for a family friend.

[niccig]

We started at age 5, then have gone periods when forgot to give it to him. We just started again a few months back. DS is nearly 7 and he gets $5 a week. It's enough that he can save for something decent without it taking most of the year. I want him to put something off for a couple of months to delay the gratification.

[elephantmeg]

they both do, but DD is fairly clueless. They get $1 per year per wk (so $3 and $5). We are thinking of maxing them out to $5 until they are ready to buy their own clothes/other needs (not just wants) with it. $5 seems plenty and DS can save up for a new lego set etc fairly well (takes 4-6 wks).

[hillview]

Started at age 4. It is mainly used to limit the "I wants" for younger kids. Once DS1 turned 6 he started to "get" the saving idea. They get the amount of their age (4 year old gets $4 and 6 year old gets $6, I will sometimes add to DS2 if they want the same thing).

[belovedgandp]

Now 7, 4, and 1 for kids.

Only oldest gets allowance. Started at 6 birthday and will do the same for the other two.

We do 2 times age per month. So now DS gets $14/month. He keeps three separate banks - spend, share and save - a moonjar bank. He can decide how to split it each month.

This is not tied to chores. Allowance is to teach how to handle money and chores are a requirement of being in our family. He has been paid extra per job for additional jobs when he really wanted something. I rarely, rarely, rarely buy "want" items besides Christmas and birthday.

[justlearning]

My boys are 8 and 6 and we've never given them an allowance. Neither DH nor I got one so we're not really sure how an allowance would work. Giving $1/per year of their age per week seems like a LOT of money to me! That would mean $416 in a year for my oldest. That's nearly four times what we spend on him for birthday and Christmas gifts in a year, and he still has plenty of stuff.

For those of you who give that amount, what does your child do with that money? If they save their money, are they saving it merely to spend it later on toys or are they putting it in long-term savings (e.g., to use for a car or college one day)? Does your child spend the allowance money on entertainment (e.g., miniature golfing) or do you pay for their entertainment if you go as a family? Do they have to pay for clothes or food with that money?

[justlearning]

Allowance is to teach how to handle money.

This is why I feel like we should start doing an allowance--currently, my kids never have any money so they don't have practice managing it. On the other hand, they never ask me to buy them things and are content and grateful for what they have, which itself is a good lifelong skill IMO. I don't want them to start becoming more materialistic by giving them an allowance, which IMO seems to encourage consumerism by basically saying "here's some money so you can go spend it." So any advice on how to give an allowance without putting the emphasis on buying things? Do any of your kids give away the majority of their allowance to causes that are important to them instead of buying toys with it?

[tlw]

We follow the advice on allowance offered by Clark Howard (consumer guru) www.clarkhoward.com. His book is Clark Smart Parents, Clark Smart Kids.

He recommends $1 per week based on the grade in school. DS is in K, so we started with $1 and he'll keep that amount until 2nd grade when it will increase to $2.

Clark's premise is that children should earn their allowance by doing a few chores. DS makes his bed, cleans his room, puts dirty laundry in the basket. At 5, these are his chores. There are also things that he does simply because he's a member of our family (setting the table, raking leaves, etc). For these, he does not earn money.

By earning allowance, it gives him a sense that money is something you must earn--it is not given, just as parents earn salaries for working. DS takes a great deal of pride in earning his allowance and spending it! It has significantly cut down on the "can I have X?" when we're at Target. At 5, he is already learning about the power of saving up for things (mostly Legos). If you're not familiar with Clark Howard, I highly recommend him. He also has awesome travel deals on his website!