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My hubby and I were debating the pros and cons of giving our children an allowance, and I'm curious how you handle this one in your home! My kids are aged ten, seven and three, and forever we've made them do chores around the house, however we don't pay them.
My husband feels that they should do chores simply because they should do them (and I agree!)  However, especially as my ten year old is getting older I'd like him to learn how to handle his money wisely. I'm considering giving them one quarter each for specific chores, and leaving jars on the counter to add up their quarters in (and yes, I'm probably even cheap when giving them an allowance!) These are the chores that I feel are worth a quarter:
- Making their bed
- Unloading the dishwasher
- Taking out all the trash from the bathrooms
- Taking the garbage cans to the road and bringing them back in
At this point my kids only make beds on days they're not in school, and I would love for them to do them on school days too! (I've just had a hard time with that one since the bus is here well before 7 AM!) I figured that it takes me about 3 minutes to make the bed, so a quarter adds up to about $5 per hour – not a bad wage for a ten year old!
What do you think? Do you pay your children for chores, or as an allowance? Help me out on this one . . . and if you don't mind sharing, what do you think is an appropriate allowance for children of different ages?
Laurie, when Jackson is old enough to work at Publix, he can get coupon books for us! ha! ha!
I’m so depressed about that Alice! I would love coupon books, but James keeps reminding me that he’s closer to leaving this house than he is to just getting here (I don’t want him old enough to work!!!)
Our kids are older & working now, but when they were younger, we did things similarly to what “Brandi” described – a chore chart of “expected” chores (that did not earn $) and “additional” chores (that earned $$). So there was always opportunity to “earn” money after expected chores were completed.
I can totally relate to Brandi’s comment about having to constantly “remind” one or more children to do their “expected” chores sometimes – that happened to us too. I always felt like a nag & that the child should be able to be more independent/motivated. So I absolutely LOVE (& wish we had thought of it!) Brandi’s idea of having a consequence – make the kids’ pay the parents a set amount for when “expected” chores were not done!! What a great way to motivate am unambitious child!
My husband and I did not receive an allowance growing up. We were expected to do chores and be a responsible part of our family with regard to helping around the house and with other things as they came up. My mother did however do a wonderful job of teaching us to be responsible with our money once we started earning babysitting money, yard money (my brother) and then eventually working here and there in high school. We tithed 10%, were able to spend 10% and we were required to save 80% of it in our savings account at the bank. She took us to deposit it frequently – we filled out the forms ourselves. The 80% in savings could not be touched and would go towards college expenses. She did give us money from time to time though – it was never expected and it was never on a schedule. She would simply say, “Here’s a dollar for having such a wonderful attitude in helping me in the kitchen today.” (We still had to follow the 80%/10%/10% thing no matter what). Sometimes she would give us $5 or $10 – but like I said, it was not ‘expected’ and we knew better than to ask for it. If we really wanted to buy something special and wanted to earn money, we were allowed to ask her to give us a special chore – like cleaning windows or something that was not a regular task and she would allow us to earn money that way. I think allowing children to earn money and helping teach them about how to manage it is important, but I am not sure an ‘expected’ allowance each week is what our family will choose to do. Our four year old has 2 weekly chores and 2 daily chores and our almost 2 year old has 2 daily chores….we know it will get harder and harder to keep them motivated to help around the house, but we hope starting early will get them in the routine. The faster we get chores done…the more fun time there is to be had!
Hope – I think the way your parents handled it is very similar to my husband’s parents, and I do feel like my kids are expected to do certain things (I’ve also occassionaly handed my son a dollar unexpectedly when he’s done something well – it’s amazing how that motivates them!) When my husband was old enough he ran his own lawn service and then the money was put away towards college also – so I definitely see the benefits of that also! (Jackson is already asking how old he has to be to work at Publix . . . )
Great tips everybody!
During the school year, my 10 year old son’s only “job-chore” is to get good grades. We feel that focusing on school work is much more important than doing housework. My husband and I were both fortunate enough to have stay at home mothers, and I don’t mind doing these things each day. He does understand that he is responsible for maintaining A’s and B’s. His “allowance” is being able to play basketball, baseball, and soccer. I f his scool work is in any way affected by sports, he would not be able to participate.
I loved reading everyone’s suggestions on allowance. We have a 2 year old and he is obessed with cars, so we decided to give him a chore to earn his car every week. So our little man feeds his 2 dogs everyday (with some help filling up the bowls) and his reward is a car at the end of the week. And what makes this even better is our Wal-Mart had hotwheels for $.50 each so we got a bunch to put up. But I think it’s a pretty good lesson for him because if he doesn’t feed the dogs that week, he doesn’t get anything. I know he’s only 2 but it is working out great for us.
Thanks for all your suggestions! I was struggling with how to actually keep money available so that they could get paid as they go (payment seems to be the problem for us!) and decided tonight that since we use cash for all our purchases, I’ll just only use dollar bills as I make purchases throughout the week and any change can come home to use for their jobs.
Right now I have three jars on the counter – one for each of my older kids (the 3 year old doesn’t need anything yet!) and one for change to pay them with. They were so excited to see those quarters move over to their jars after they unloaded the dishwasher tonight!
I am a personal trainer and was working 2 1/2 hours a week at a gym. When my two girls (age 9 and 5) were younger, I was having to pay a sitter for those hours. They are in a room next to me at the gym and I was picking the sitter up. (not at my house or anything) Well, she left for college this year and I was in a bind. My mature 9 year old, walked in one day and said she was interested in taking over. She said, “I would image you pay Alexandra at least $3 a week, so I’ll of course need that much.” I bust out laughing and of course said ‘Deal!’….. I began paying her more of course in cash and then she saw a camera she wanted. $85! She asked that I buy that for her and stop paying her. I was very proud of her and she worked 3-4 months to “pay” for her new camera! Little does she know I was paying my sitter $25 a week! It has taught her money management (she is now “working” off a few books) and it has given her sister time with her big sis! They do not get paid for chores at home. I think that is part of being in our family!
We give our children an allowance of $1 times their age. They get paid on my husband’s payday (every other week). On payday, we put 10% in an envelope for savings (taken to the bank every so often) and 10% we put in an envelope for them to give as tithe. The rest is theirs to spend as they wish.
Our children are 16, 10 and 7 year old. The older they are the more they are expected to do. I have seen so many people close to me with money trouble and most of them never managed money as children. My kids are as excited as us for payday and they also see that the process of us paying bills and giving tithe at that time.
Last year my now 10 year old, started saving his alllowance in August and bought everyone in the family Christmas gifts. He is still so proud of himself for doing that. Some were nice gifts $20 and others $3 (Oreo cookies for daddy). This year he has started putting a couple of dollars a payday to build up during the year.
We also have a daughter in college who does a great job managing her money. We paid her allowance until she got “a job” (at 16) and then she no longer needed the extra money.
I do pay my 6 children an allowance, but not for all chores. Some chores I do expect them to do just because they are “citizens” of our house. For example, I do expect them to load and unload the dishwasher, to fold their laundry and put it away, and to make their beds.
I do pay them to do chores such as washing the car, taking care of the younger children when I need to go out, etc. Each chore is worth a certain amount of money and some chores are worth more–for example, cleaning up after the dog earns top notch dollars! 🙂 Cleaning the trash out of the car not so much.
We pay each of our children $2 per age per month. We have a 15 yr. old ($30), 11 yr. old ($22), & 7 yr. old ($14). They receive this money each month no matter what. They must put a portion in savings & a portion must go to the church. The rest they can spend however they want. When we are out shopping & they want something they have to decide if they are going to buy it or not. If they do not have enough money then they must save up until they do. The money that is in their savings account can not be touched. They each have chores to do but the money is not tied to chores. They are responsible for helping out in our home because they are members of our family. Doing chores is part of being a family & living in our house. We give them the money to teach them how to spend & save wisely. It helps out a lot when we are shopping because when they ask for something I simply say do you have enough money to buy it! It has worked out great~I have a lot less whining for something they see at the store!!!
Our children were expected to contribute to the household by doing chores. There were certain chores that were to do- clean their rooms, dishes, put clothes away, etc.. for no money.
They had chores on the weekend that they had to do for money (clean bathrooms, dust, sweep, vacuum) and then they could choose to do others if they needed to earn more money that week (wash cars, rake yard, wash windows).
We do what Dave says my 12 year old daughter earns a “commision” she gets $1.00 for every chore. She has to set the table, and help with clean up after dinner always and keep her room clean and fold and put up her clothes for living in our house. But as far as empting the dish washer, if she makes her bed all week she gets a dollar, and one I will ALWAYS be happy to give her a 1.00 for is if she gives my youngest a bath! wahoo to that! You think she would jump up and down to do stuff but she doesn’t. Her cash flow is low now so she is working extra hard to gain it. We also make her tithe from that and put part of it in her savings account for a car. As far as the three year old we don’t give her a commision yet but she sure does love to help clean and put up dishes. We say she needs to teach the 12 year old! haha
We just recently went through Financial Peace University at our church and we LOVE the way Dave put things into perspective on this subject! He basically had set chores that his kids were just expected to do because they are part of their family. He then gave other chores that were “commissioned” jobs. If they did all of their commissioned jobs each week they got $5 commission. If you don’t do them you get no money. If you don’t do the things expected of you then your just in trouble… We took that and the “expected” chores are making thier bed, or putting away thier clothes, things that have to do with each childs’ things. The “commisssioned” jobs are things like helping with dishes, taking out trash, dusting, vacuming other than thier room. I change up each week what they help with outside of their own things and haven’t had any complaints. Calling it a commission I think helps them understand they work for it not that it’s just going to be handed to them every week regardless. We are loving how things are working out here! The kids even have a “commission” chart and love it too!!
We have 5 kids and are always trying new ways of exploring the chore/allowance subject. One thing we tried that worked for my kids was we made a list of chores we wanted the kids to do and a list we expected them to do. The list of wants we assigned a wage for doing that job, example clean bathroom, sweep, vaccum. In other words my kids would get paid this amount if they did this job. The second list was the expected chores. On this list we put down how much they pay us if we had to do the chore, examples, make bed, put away laundry, dirty laundy in hamper. As many of you have said with school this fell by the wayside but during the summer it was great. I also have one that will get out of doing anything if he can and I found I was spending most of my time reminding him to do chores and this is why we came up with this solution because when he paid us because he did not do enough to earn money he was very dissapointed.
I really like the jar idea to pay as the chore is done. I am horrible about paying at the end of the week so the reinforcement is not there.
My hubby and I disagree on this. I received an allowance when I was a kid. $5 a week to keep my room clean and bed made every morning before school and I cleaned my bathroom every Sat. I am ok with doing the same for my kids…however the hubby didn’t get an allowance as a kid. He thinks our kids should learn to do these chores anyway and contribute to the family as a whole without expecting to get something out of it.
i am a children’s therapist. I am a big fan of allowance. It’s how the real world works. I come to work to get paid. If I choose not to come to work I don’t get paid. It sets them up for a bright future. Even a 3 yr old can make thier bed, pick up their toys and clothes. Another thing I suggest is to ask them what chores they like to do and assign them those chores. You will be suprised children will have preferences that are resonable.
We give our kids an allowance but we call it a commission. They get money ( like a dime) for certain chores like making their bed, cleaning their room etc. They also have chores that they have to do and don’t get an allowance for like taking their plates to the sink after dinner. At the end of the week we add up all the chores that they have done and give them their money. They have a money bank with three sections in it: spend, save and give and we divide their money up and put it in each section. Our four year old is the only one that really does it right now but we will probably start it with our two year old soon.
We wrestled with this a few years ago and came to the agreement that they need to learn how to “earn” money so they can learn how to manage money responsibly. There are things that are required of them simply because they are part of the family (team) such as keeping their rooms clean, clean clothes put away, beds made and things picked up around the house that they have caused to clutter up the house. However, my older two, ages 11 and 8, have a few extras they do that they receive commission for. They are responsible for keeping the cat fed, litterbox scooped, keeping their bathroom sink wiped down as well as bathroom floor swept daily (cat box is in there), gathering trash around the house once a week and garbage cans carried down to the street for pick-up day. They occasionally help with loading/unloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, dusting and vacuuming when asked. They also keep their 3-yo sister entertained when I need them to. We pay them every other week when my husband gets paid and they receive $1 per their age per week. So, my 11-yo receives $22 every other week and my 8-yo receives $16 every other week. They are required to tithe 10% of their earnings to the church and then they put half of what’s left into a spending envelope and half into a savings envelope. Once every few months I’ll take their savings envelope and deposit that money into their savings accounts at the bank. They get very excited watching their accounts grow. Our children will be responsible for helping to purchase their first car, too, so this helps them with that.
We were giving our kids $5/week to do a chore or two a day. Setting/cleaning the table is not one of their choices b/c that’s actually expected of them. Their good about picking up clothes, hanging clothes, vacuuming rooms, making beds, etc…. I haven’t paid them lately b/c with school and after school activities, they just haven’t had the time (other than set/clean the table and put away their clothes). I do, however, pay them for any A’s on their report cards. That’s how they get their spending money. I pay them by their ages. Example: Chase gets $10/for every A and, believe me, in 5th grade that’s well-deserved. 😉