Allowance?

Hannah is getting to the age where she is starting to ask for things when we go to the store or when she sees a random ad on TV or in a magazine. While I don’t have a problem telling her no all the time, I think that if she is old enough to “want” she should be old enough to learn about “earning” and the “value of money”. So, we decided to start giving her allowance when she turns three. That way, when she says she wants something, I can tell her how much it costs and she can save for it.

She will earn $0.50 a day, 6 days a week for a $3/wk allowance (no working on Sunday). She has to complete her chores in order to get her money for the day (pick up toys, brush teeth, empty silverware). We’ll probably “pay” her at the end of the week. We’re going to attempt to tell her to give $1 a week to church for offering, we’ll see how that goes. I think she will go along with it easily at first because putting money in the box is fun, but once she starts to understand that she could keep that money, that’s when we’ll have to work on the human nature side of things. Even though I think she is ready to learn some responsibility, I don’t want her to lose real money so I made some “Hannah Bucks” that she can keep in her piggy bank and when she is ready to purchase something, she can redeem them with mom or dad. She already has some dollars in the piggy bank, so I might have to convert them. I think I’ll let her keep her coins. I also want her to save, but not sure if she is ready to understand when the money isn’t in her piggy bank, but it is still in her bank account. We think its good for her to have something tangible to see how it adds up over time and to see how it gets smaller when you take the money out to buy something.

The amount:
– I wanted a multiple of ten so it would be easier to teach her “thithe”. But $10/wk is too much and if we go any smaller and divide by ten we have to work with coins.
– We also thought that $1/day is too much seeing as how we’ll probably use the dollar section at Target for her shopping trips. Its kinda fun to make it $3/wk to match her age. We might even be able to base allowance on age for many years to come (probably until a car comes into the picture – scary).

Other options:
– We discussed having a chart that requires a certain amount of stickers or marks that earns toward a specific item. It would teach her the power of saving for something, but doesn’t really show value of money.
– There is another system that I’ve seen where you earn the amount at the beginning of the day and “lose” value based on actions throughout the day. I thought that isn’t based as much on real life. I like earning for what you do better. It will teach her that if she works she gets paid, if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid.
– Other people say that they should get a certain amount just for being part of the family. I say, I feed and clothe her and that’s way more than $3/wk.

Neither of us really got allowance when we were growing up so this will be interesting to try out with our children. I’m hoping it will stop any current or future “nagging” and “I wants” as well as stop me from buying little trinkets all the time. Of course, a final goal will be that my children will be financially savvy by the time they leave my house. 🙂 Maybe they’ll be able to support me in my old age.