Do you pay your kids an allowance or do they get paid for doing extra jobs around the house?
My kids get paid for doing extra jobs that we’ve agreed on ahead of time and the older girls get paid for babysitting. We don’t give them an allowance but they each have a savings account that we’ve been putting money into monthly. They don’t know anything about those accounts. It will be a surprise when they are older. The three older girls get paid in real money because they’ve shown they are accountable for keeping track of it. My younger kids get paid in poker chips. We live in Nevada after all. 🙂 They’ve been spray painted gold so it’s actually treasure they’ve earned. I found however that after a while those darn poker chips start piling up so I created a trade-in program – 20 chips for one gold CD (old scratched CD’s that have been painted gold).
The littler girls really like to play store using their chips and CD’s as money. A while ago they asked if they could have some play paper money too. I could have bought a supply from the dollar store but what’s the fun in that? Instead I used the personalized money generator at Festisite to create this:
Playing store has never been so fun.
That is one incredibly cool dollar bill. I think I may have to print up a batch of money tonight.
Thank you for posting this, we’re printing money as I type. We even sent some funny money to Da in Montreal, Canadian of course!
We just started doing an allowance, in addition to the money we save for our children.
They get $10/month, which is easy for dividing–$1 goes to tithing, $3 to savings, and $6 to spend on whatever they would normally be asking for when we go to the store. They can spend it or save it as they like. This is saving me money in buying them little things they ask for, and its also allowing them to practice paying tithing and saving. Our bank has a neat program where they get a dinosaur model for each $10 deposit, so they save up to $10 and get a dinosaur for that as well.
J also gets paid $1/day, limited at $5/week for cleaning up after the dogs in the backyard. If he doesn’t want to do it, he doesn’t have to, but if he wants extra $$ its available. He’s been learning to save up for a larger purchase he’s wanted for awhile.
Those greenbacks are perfect!
we’ve just started the allowance thing lately. it is not tied to their chores– we pay out once at the beginning of the month one dollar for every year old they are. 10% goes to tithing, 20% to savings, and the rest is spending money.
we also have jars (old applesauce and costco parmesan cheese containers) they they’ve each decorated with their names on them. we put in a linking cube whenever they make good choices, finish a school task without me nagging them, etc. when the jars are full, they choose between 1 hour of video games, a “date” with daddy, or $5.
i love your idea of using play money with the younger ones. my nearly four-year-old loves to carry his money around the house with him, which drives me crazy!
No….My kids don’t get an allowance………! I love the pic in that dollat bill!!!
That is so awesome!!! I bet their having fun with those!!
great idea with the treasure…our little one is just getting into money…we give him change when he does something particularly good and he can then save it or spend it on a trinket.
Since I seemed to have a difficult time learning to budget while in college, we decided to use an allowance system. Each child is assigned an amount appropriate to the age. This amount is further divided into spend, save, tithe categories. Once the allowance begins, they are responsible for any extras they want (within reason), any gifts for friends’ parties, and gifts for siblings for birthdays/Christmas. We encourage making gifts, but also like them to know it’s special to think of something that person’s been wanting. Oh, and the allowance is not tied to chores or helping around the house. That’s done because they live in the house and contribute to the care and upkeep.
I love the fake money ideas!
I also pay for extra jobs and babysitting. But I make sure that I let the kids know that they can be fired from any paying job. =)
That is completely wonderful!! I am a public school teacher and I use a token economy in my classroom. This money is perfectly wonderful! I am going to have to start over and make all new mulah! Thanks for sharing.
What a great surprise that’ll be when they’ve found out you’ve been putting money aside for them. I have no idea what kind of account you’re storing that away but I would suggest a High Yield Savings Account like the one ShoreBank is offering. It’s low-risk, FDIC insured account that has a 3.5% APY. If you read the fine print, most savings accounts are closer to the 1% range – which is less than the rate of inflation. This account is totally online and allows you to link up to 6 other accounts from any bank, so transfers are easy and headache free. Plus no monthly fees. Check them out at http://www.shorebankdirect.sbk.com for more information.