Melissa

In light of the recent discussion about window shopping (and after
watching Stanley with my DD this morning), I started thinking about
allowances. :)

How do you all feel about weekly allowances? Did/do you give your
kids an allowance? If so, how do you decide how much to give?

I ask in terms of unschooling. I've seen discussions about not
forcing the kids to do "chores" and I agree. However, when I was a
kid I had to "earn" my allowance by doing chores around the house.
So, if you do give an allowance, is it something that is just given
to the kids or do they somehow earn it?

Thank you,
Melissa

J. Stauffer

Allowance---

We don't call it allowance at our house but we do have spending money. The
kids don't get a tremendous amount because we just don't have it. The
amount they get is mostly determined by how much of their own purchases do
they make. Adriane is 13 and buys all her own clothes, make-up, movies,
etc. so she gets a lot more than the 4yo who is quite content with a dollar
for grocery store trips.

But none of it is written in stone, if a kid needs money and I have it, I
give it to them.

Nothing is tied to any chores. They are part of the family, they contribute
in ways they choose, they partake of "the bounty" (such as it is <grin>)

Julie S.

Kelly Lenhart

>How do you all feel about weekly allowances? Did/do you give your
>kids an allowance? If so, how do you decide how much to give?

I look at it this way--We have a family budget (sort of) based on how much
we have, what we MUST pay, and what is left. My kids get to say how we
spend the what's left as much as anyone. Right now they are pretty little
and I do a fair bit of explaining why waiting is a better value, or how we
can only afford to go once to McD's this week or whatever. But they
understand that if we have it, and it's something they want, we can try and
get it.

I don't have $100 dollars to spend each month. I have what's left after the
bills and groceries. So do they.

(Now, we might be doing better financially if we ALL had allowances,
but....)

Kelly

Inna Manni

Hi Melissa,

My daughter is only 2 so her only interest in money is to take change
out of the jar and put it back in, but she does demand something
every time we go grocery shopping. I usually tell her she can only
have one thing and sometimes we go through many many trade offs (she
picks up a scoobie doo umbrella then trades it to me for a stuffed
bear then gives that back for a baloon, then.... ) often ending up
with a chocolate bar or cookies from the store's bakery. As long as
she gets to pick one thing she seems content (at least for now!) to
put back everything else.

Growing up, I was never given any money because my parents felt that
by providing shelter, food and clothes they had already met all the
needs I could possibly have. I remember being 7 and going through
their pockets and stealing whatever change was there because there
were little things I wanted, like a small pastry from the bakery
where I was sent for bread.

Once I became a teanger my parents insisted I get a job and take the
brunt of my clothing expences on myself. When you have no skills,
experience or job trainingm, hunting for jobs trully sucks. And the
jobs one finds are often rather sucky too. Even when I was able to
find a job, my salary never covered even half of the things I felt I
needed and I was always tempted to shoplift.

I guess what I am saying is everyone needs to have a little pocket
money for those little 'umpulse buys' throuhout the day and as a
person becomes older their needs grow and teangers especially often
feel very bad about themselves if they cannot create a desirable
image for themselves... I think it may be better for the parents to
make some sacrifices and offer the spending money their child needs
rather then have that child tempted to steal.

Inna



--- Melissa <melissa4123@...> wrote:
> How do you all feel about weekly allowances?



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pam sorooshian

On Feb 12, 2004, at 8:06 AM, Melissa wrote:

>
> How do you all feel about weekly allowances? Did/do you give your
> kids an allowance? If so, how do you decide how much to give?

My kids do get money every month that they can plan on getting. We talk
about what their private money is going to get used for, how much they
want to spend on that, etc., and determine an amount. Turns out that
about $1 for each year of age is a good proxy - until they get older.
When they started wanting things that make me uncomfortable to spend
money on, they get private control over more money so that the decision
is "real" for them. In other words, if the money is really theirs, they
think the decision through more - because if they don't spend it on
that thing, they still have it to spend on something else. This is
different and nicer than Roya, for example, asking me if she can buy
"this skirt" (and me looking at it and thinking it isn't worth the $40)
when, to her it IS worth it and she'd show it by saving up for it and
giving up spending money on other things, if she had it.

I HIGHLY recommend that teenage girls, at least, have money of their
own to make their own clothing choices. We gave Roya $50 per month and
she bought all her own clothes, cd's, and gifts for friends. These
three things seemed to be things she was constantly asking for and I
was constantly having to decide if I'd buy it "this time" or not. We
have enough money to buy any of them without breaking the bank, but her
desires were pretty much insatiable, as long as she wasn't personally
feeling what was being given up in order for her to spend that money.

She was very generous, but since it was bugging me that she'd spend far
too much (imo) on gifts for friends, it took all the potential stress
out of our relationship when she had plenty of money to make her own
decisions about that.

Then she got a real job and had lots of money and that was good too
because she really overspent - feeling wealthy - and then regretted not
having saved more and 17 or 18 years old is a good time to DO that.

Rosie is 13 and knowing that she has money coming to her on the 1st of
each month, she pores over the American Girl catalog and makes notes
about what books she wants from the bookstore and saves up over months
to get a ticket to some musical theater production that is coming to
town. Plans ahead very very well. And does a LOT with only $13 per
month, too.

-pam
>
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/04 9:17:35 AM, melissa4123@... writes:

<< So, if you do give an allowance, is it something that is just given

to the kids or do they somehow earn it?

>>

We just give it to them.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/04 10:33:20 AM, pamsoroosh@... writes:

<< She was very generous, but since it was bugging me that she'd spend far
too much (imo) on gifts for friends, it took all the potential stress
out of our relationship when she had plenty of money to make her own
decisions about that. >>

Kirby's allowance is $12.75 a week.
He has a job where he makes over $100 a week (sometimes lots more). We
didn't stop the allowance, though; that seems punitive. He doesn't claim it,
though, it's a bookkeeping thing, like automatic savings.

Kirby is not saving money, but he's not wasteful either. He buys gaming
supplies and is generous with his extras. He buys gifts for friends, and food
sometimes. When he was younger, older friends would give him rides, meals, and
sometimes gifts as expensive as convention fees and Nintendo games. Now he's
generous with others too.

In a way I wish he would save money to buy a car, but in another way, his
relationship with money and people seems responsible and reasonable. He uses the
money he gets from working at the gaming shop where he would be hanging out
anyway to enrich his own and his friends' lives.

Next year he'll be 18 and his allowance from us expires. He mentioned this
year that he'd be willing to let that go since he's working and we hadn't
discussed how long allowance would go when we first started it, but we decided we
didn't want to require our kids to get jobs, nor penalize them for having jobs,
so it has stayed.

At Christmas everyone in the family got a really thoughtfully chosen gift
from him. I'm proud of him, even though I can't imagine why anyone would need
THAT many cards or dice. <g>

Sandra

Melissa

--- In [email protected], Inna Manni
<SpinFrog@y...> wrote:

<<My daughter is only 2 so her only interest in money is to take
change out of the jar and put it back in, but she does demand
something every time we go grocery shopping. >>

My DD is 2.5 but is already showing in interest in money and
buying "her own" things. I too let her pick something out when we
go grocery shopping. For example, she likes fruit snacks so, she
picks out which fruit snack that she wants. She also likes to pay
for whatever she has picked out "all by herself." I can't tell you
the crazy looks that I have gotten (from both the cashier and the
other people in line) when I have paid for all of "my" things and
then ask the cashier to ring up my DD's fruit snack (or whatever)
separate and then have her give the cashier the money to pay for it
AND then make the cashier give the change to my 2.5 year old rather
than me. :)

This is the reason that I asked about allowances, because my DD is
already taking an interest in money and buying her own things. Not
sure yet if this is a good thing! ;)

Melissa

Joyce

I started allowances (think maybe I'll try to think of another name to call it) with ds 8 and dd 7 a little less than a year ago because of this list. It was a little bumpy at first with me trying to control their spending and such but now it's fun for me to see unschooling really work once again and fun for them to have their own money to spend however they want every week. For now, each child gets $4 dollars a week and each birthday the amount increases by 50 cents for both of them.

Joyce


-----Original Message-----
From: Melissa [mailto:melissa4123@...]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 11:06 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [UnschoolingDiscussion] Allowances?


In light of the recent discussion about window shopping (and after
watching Stanley with my DD this morning), I started thinking about
allowances. :)

How do you all feel about weekly allowances? Did/do you give your
kids an allowance? If so, how do you decide how much to give?

I ask in terms of unschooling. I've seen discussions about not
forcing the kids to do "chores" and I agree. However, when I was a
kid I had to "earn" my allowance by doing chores around the house.
So, if you do give an allowance, is it something that is just given
to the kids or do they somehow earn it?

Thank you,
Melissa



"List Posting Policies" are provided in the files area of this group.

Visit the Unschooling website and message boards: http://www.unschooling.com
Yahoo! Groups Links

Elizabeth Roberts

We've not really done an allowance before now, but have just started. I bought Sarah a new wallet and a purse, and she will receive $20 for the month. She promptly spent it all...but is very happy with her purchases and not asking for every little thing under the sun. Just big things like "Can I have a TV?" ...basically testing me as to if I mean it that it's her money to do as she wishes. I've said "Yeah, if you want one and save your money for it!"

We haven't really talked about if Logan should have an allowance just yet but I think maybe we might start giving him a couple dollars a week.

Growing up my money was always controlled for me by my mother. It led to me lying about how much I earned and hiding anything I'd bought for myself. Not the best lessons to learn, and not easy to overcome. My husband always had control over his money, and he learned to budget and save.

So giving them a small allowance for their own was an easy choice for us; it was more of when to start than anything else that we disagreed on.

MamaBeth



Melissa <melissa4123@...> wrote:
In light of the recent discussion about window shopping (and after
watching Stanley with my DD this morning), I started thinking about
allowances. :)

How do you all feel about weekly allowances? Did/do you give your
kids an allowance? If so, how do you decide how much to give?

I ask in terms of unschooling. I've seen discussions about not
forcing the kids to do "chores" and I agree. However, when I was a
kid I had to "earn" my allowance by doing chores around the house.
So, if you do give an allowance, is it something that is just given
to the kids or do they somehow earn it?

Thank you,
Melissa



"List Posting Policies" are provided in the files area of this group.

Visit the Unschooling website and message boards: http://www.unschooling.com



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[email protected]

In a message dated 2/12/04 7:47:24 PM, mamabethuscg@... writes:

<< So giving them a small allowance for their own was an easy choice for us;
it was more of when to start than anything else that we disagreed on.
>>

We started with kids turning five. It was arbitrary.

Still, if the kids are going to do something we think is good for them, we'll
offer to pay for it, usually. If a group is going out to eat and one of my
boys has money and the other doesn't, I'll offer money to the poorer one so he
can go too. It's food; it's socializing. I paid for them both to go see
The Last Samurai the other night even though Marty had already seen it, because
their friend wanted to go and I didn't want him to have to pay for all three.
He was already driving.

We have been getting Kirby a pair of crazy hip-hop pants for Christmas. This
year I couldn't find any good ones I knew he would like, so I told him I'd
take him to get any pants he wanted, when he got a chance to shop or that he
could use his own money and I'd pay him back, $80 limit. Mid February, he's
not done that, even though he has a female friend who works at the mall and
he's gone there to visit her. He did bring an old pair and ask me to repair
them where the clear plastic parts had died. So I sewed up pockets that used to
have artsy clear panels, and took out lines of stitching where used to be a
clear holder for a gratuitous elastic strap, and now he has more conservative
two-year-old pants.

He's not much of a clothes horse.

He wore the same used black leather jacket for three years, and someone gave
him a light nylon zip-up Legend of Zelda jacket, and he's switched to that.

Holly's happy with the thrift store and hand-me-downs.

Marty wants his old stuff repaired even when it's handkerchief thin. So does
his dad. <g>

So kid-money tends to go toward games, toys and gifts for other people.

Sandra

Lyle W.

I've always given our kids money, but we don't call it "allowance". (I don't like the sound of that, I'm not "allowing" them to have money, I give it to them happily.) It usually gets spent on games or cards or paperbacks, and sometimes gifts for friends. It's their money to do with as they choose. If something comes up that they need more money for, I usually pitch in the rest (depending on what "it" is).

A couple of nights ago we were eating at a restaurant and were getting ready to go and I was reaching into my pocket to leave a tip. Dylan spoke up that he wanted to leave the tip this time. I told him it was nice to offer, but he didn't have to spend his money on a tip. He smiled and said, "I know, but I want to." It was important to him and he wanted to contribute to the meal, so I let him.

He arranged the money neatly and set a salt shaker on top of it so it wouldn't be missed. He walked away feeling very satisfied and very BIG.

:)

Lyle

***Always remember, Lead By Example***

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In a message dated 2/13/04 9:26:35 AM, unschoolingdad@... writes:

<< He arranged the money neatly and set a salt shaker on top of it so it
wouldn't be missed. He walked away feeling very satisfied and very BIG. >>

That's the way Holly was about batteries. We would have bought batteries for
her toys, but if it was a thing adults did, then SHE wanted to do it.

Sandra

pam sorooshian

On Feb 13, 2004, at 8:12 AM, Lyle W. wrote:

> If something comes up that they need more money for, I usually pitch
> in the rest (depending on what "it" is).

I do a lot of that too. Lots of times the kids ask if I'll pay shipping
charges or tax on something - because they've figured what to buy based
on price and then come up a little short when the tax and shipping gets
added.

I offer lots of times to pay half of something if they'll save up the
other half - especially for fairly expensive items.

-pam
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.

[email protected]

One thing we found that works to make the money giving smoother in our house
in the visa buxx cards.

It's like a debit card for kids. You set up the accounts (online for FREE),
and you are given a password to use to put money into their account.

They use the card just like a VISA card and can withdraw cash at ATM's just a
regular card.

Almost every place takes VISA now, including the fast food restaurants around
here.

Part of my children were always very responsible with their money, part were
not. That only came to be a problem when one child would spend all their
money on something great and fun and have nothing left over the next week for say
lunch out or a movie or something else. I always paid the extra for the child
who was without but it didn't seem fair to the others who didn't spend all
theirs at once.

The VISA cards helped them think more before they picked something up and
bought it. It helped them feel more grown up to have a VISA card at a young age
(the youngest since 12) with their own name on it. They also get a monthly
online statement that they can check at anytime to help them remember and know
what they've spent their purchases on.

This helps if your child gets/saves a large amount of cash, it's safer than
carrying cash around and possibly laying one's purse down or losing it. It
gives you the same safety as a regular VISA in that if you report it lost or
stolen, your money is safe.

You can also give them pin number to grandparents or relatives who want to
send a birthday gift or whatever to the child. The child gets an email about
every deposit and you can add a note.

It seemed more reasonable to me to just go online and make deposits into my
children's accounts than to go withdraw cash and catch up with each of them at
different times to "give" them their money.

More like just a direct deposit paycheck that they knew would be there.

They still might ask if I have five dollars or something if they are just
going to McDonalds or whatever, I still give it to them.

The cards work great, lots of their friends have them now too.

Different banks offer them and you don't have to have an account there to use
the VISA buxx system for your children.

Oh, and my 19 year old, he still gets money from the household too, he still
lives here.
glena


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Jon and Rue Kream

Glena - The Visa Buxx sounds interesting. The website says 'teens', but
I can't find any information about an age restriction. Did your kids
have these when they were younger than thirteen? Thanks ~Rue


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Melissa

--- In [email protected], rubyprincesstsg@a...
wrote:

<<One thing we found that works to make the money giving smoother in
our house in the visa buxx cards.>>

I've seen these cards at lots of different banks (B of A, Wells
Fargo, ect) and thought that it would be a great idea. I also had a
checking account at 14 with checks and everything (of course, I was
working at 14 so, I was making my "own" money). My DD won't be
working at 14 so this card sounds like a good idea.

Melissa

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/13/2004 2:26:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,
skreams@... writes:
Glena - The Visa Buxx sounds interesting. The website says 'teens', but
I can't find any information about an age restriction. Did your kids
have these when they were younger than thirteen? Thanks ~Rue



Yes, my daughter had them before she was 13 on one bank you HAS to be 13 and
if you put in a birthdate that was younger they did not get approved. She
REALLY wanted to have one like the "big" kids so I just redid the application and
"made" her 13, or maybe it was 12 but I just changed the year to reflect the
minimum and there were no problems. I had asked a customer service person
about this and why the requirement, they are the ones that told me to just change
the year. I guess they worry too much about really younger kids loosing or
misplacing them.

Sometimes Cait would have a bit of a problem when she went to use her card,
but we got her an ID from the DMV with her picture and name and they always
accepted that.

Now, I think they are more used to kids having VISA cards and she never has a
problem.

It works out very well when my kids are going on trips and such and you don't
want to have to give them hundreds of dollars in cash, if they loose that,
it's just gone. Here you can put it on the card and they have 24 hr emergency
replacements available, if it's lost or stolen. Also if they run out of money
while they are gone, you just have to log on to the computer and add more for
them, WAY cheaper than western union, no charge at all!

I think First Bank of Tennessee has them without an age requirement if I
remember correctly, but some do say you need to be 13.

Kids feel very in charge of their purchases and have records they can access
online to keep track of how much they've spent and how much they have left.

Mine really think they are great. My older boy still has his, they do offer
you a regular VISA when you turn 18 or are about to turn 18 but he didn't get
one, preferring to just keep his Visa Buxx card. (he has his own checking
account but likes the bank of "mom" too!)

glena


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