Give pocket money as pay, otherwise you're 'trust fund teaching': blog discussion

whatsername

sariec wrote: »

I really agree with this approach. My boys get a small amount of money - 10p per week per year of their age i.e. 8 year old gets 80p /week. We started when the eldest was 7, the middle one then started at 6 (the baby doesn't get any yet!). They're not expected to do anything in particular for this, it's a case of us sharing the family income (I'm a stay at home mum and I don't get paid for doing the housework!) but they are expected to help with tasks appropriate to their age and ability (e.g. making their beds, laying the table, emptying the dishwasher etc).

If they do anything exceptional e.g. cleaning the car, or give lots of extra help (fruit picking springs to mind) they might get a bit extra. Equally, if they were very badly behaved they might sacrifice some of their pocket money.

I think it's very important that children learn from an early age to do things for their intrinsic value (the sense of satisfaction of doing something for its own sake, or to help someone else) rather than because they will be rewarded "extrinsically" i.e. financially or with a sticker or whatever.

I'm also in agreement with this - no one pays me to do the household chores. I also feel that as they are making a fair share of the mess, they need to do a fair share of clearing it up - that is part of being a family and pulling your own weight. Plus as they grow older and live alone, they will not be paid for doing the chores - what then?

My kids are 11 and 9. They get paid a pound per year of their ages each month, *HOWEVER* 20% goes into savings and 10% is put into a charity fund (they then chose a charity to donate to). This money is not dependent on anything, although they are expected to do chores. If they do additional chores than those allocated to them each day they can earn more.

By nature my son is a saver and my daughter a spender, but recently my daughter has learned that if she wants something of value rather than frivolities, then she needs to save for them. She has been doing exactly that, and doing additional chores for her Grandparents as well to boost her earnings.

I also talk about the value of money and the cost of things, they help with the grocery shop, they help work on our budget - both have become really quite frugal. This system works really well for us and I'm proud to say I have two amazing little savers :-)

skint_but_working_on_it

I give my 6 year old 50p a week and have done since she was 5. As she's got older she has her own "chores" to do (tidying her room/clearing up after herself/clearing the table after meals/putting her own laundry away) and if she does all of these without fuss (which isn't very often!!) she gets £1 and I tell her she gets more money for choosing to help and work hard rather than being told she's got to do it. She saves her money in her piggy bank and each school holiday we count it up and go and spend it. The first thing she bought as a 5 year old with her pocket money was a bag of carrots (real) for her toy rabbit :rotfl:(but it's her money ... I wasn't going to stop her!). She bought herself a new DS game last month so she's obviously getting the idea. She knows that if she spends every penny then she can't get the more expensive things that she'd like so she now asks how long it'll take to save up for "XXX" and decides whether to spend or save.

She earned herself an extra £1 last week for cleaning the inside of my car (although I'm a bit miffed because she asked her friend to help and I had to give her something too ... her friend's parents have paid my daughter for helping clean their car so now I feel I have to follow suit!! I'm going to have to nip this in the bud before it gets too costly:().

She isn't into saving it in an account yet. I've suggested it but she'd rather spend it!! There are some good suggestions here that could help. I'll bear them in mind next time we have a piggy bank count.

Ellie71_2

I always feel guilty when a friday comes and its pocket money time. My 16year old gets £10 per week but his friends get around £20! I know £10 doesn't get alot in this day and age but its all I can afford. He asked me this morning for extra money to go swimming after school but I had to turn him down.

My other son gets £5 per week but he is very thrifty with his money and saves every penny so he can buy games, etc.

I hate fridays!

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Yes I do believe that teaching good money management and financial self discipline from an early age is a great idea.
About work though: Surely if it was that great, all the rich <chosen expletive> would keep it for themselves .

makeup

Both me and my sister were given pocket money in the same way. (I'm now 35 and she is 32).

I think we started off on 20p which was all spent on sweets (and that was when you could still buy 1/2p sweets).

I once spent some of my PM on bubblegum which was strictly forbidden and I was furious that my Dad wouldn't refund me the money on it when he threw it away!!!!!

When I got to about 13 or 14 - I got an allowance which was a monthly amount and that included money for clothes. I think my Mum still bought my uniform and a winter coat but all my other clothes I could buy with this money.

Although my sister and me had totally different attitudes to money, she was a saver and always had lots of cash, I was a complete spender. My answer was to go out and get a job and I was working long before she got a job.

We've still been the same, although I've got better at saving and budgetting but she has always been tons better.

My parents gave an excellent example and taught us both very well but I think in the end the lure of shiny shopping always won me over. It was also very easy to get credit when I was 18 and left home to go to Uni.....

kindofagilr

MSE_Penelope wrote: »

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Give pocket money as pay, otherwise you're 'trust fund teaching' " Blog.

Please click reply to discuss below.

My mother did this, she had a book and if we washed dishes for example we got paid 5p (this was when we were under 10 in the 80's) and took out rubbish 5p etc etc

Then at the end of the week she would "pay" us, I always spent mine on sweets, my brother always saved his lol

bylromarha

Just had the conversation with OH - do you think we should be giving regular pocket money to the kids (5 and 3).

His response - I never had it, why should they?

More I think about it, the more I remember I never had regular pocket money. It was more ongoing teaching at home about the lack of money in the house and how we had to wait to save up to buy things rather than personal financial management of my own budget. Done pretty well in our opinion in regard to our finances through our 10 year marriage.

Thankfully we can afford to give our kids pocket money, but think that what we're already doing in regard to teaching about money is better than putting coins in their hand. It may change as they grow, but they are doing pretty well at the moment comparing prices instore, getting best value with their birthday money and other things we do in regard to money teaching.

LonyTilly

Have you seen the size of my twin boys - well not quite boys - but they both play front row for a respectable local (play around the SW) team. Payday for me and in they come. Dad - are wages in yet ?? Yes son - why ?? Hand it over then as the eclipse of life happens with them both above me. Here are son. Thanks Dad - now your share. You can have £1000 for the house, bills and food and cars. Nothing else you need is there ??
NnnnnOooooo - sounding scared.
OK were off then - thanks for the dosh.

Only kidding

plimsoll

If we tries to link our regular pocket money (70p a week!) to chores we had to do my dad wouyld always reply we could choose to forego the money if we wanted but we still had to do the chores cos they were part of being a family! We could however earn extra by doing HIS chores lol (washing up on weekdays, we had to do weekends anyway) - £1 a day. We got taught budgeting by being provided with an allowance to buy our own clothes etc. started with £1 a month for socks then at 16 got £15 a month (later increased to £25 when mum started working with us older 2 given back payment) which bought everything except our 3 meals a day (inc school clothes as no specific uniform items we could use within guidelines). Plus I had a part-time job from 14, still was always in debt lol mostly to my brother who earned less but didn't spend it on food & mags like I did!

inicholson

racheldawson wrote: »

when our kids were very young we would save pasta - one child had green dried spirals and the other saved orange spirals. When they had saved 20 we would let them choose a present from a box. This saved us being nagged so much when we were out, because if they wanted a small toy or magazine or something it would go in the box and be saved up for with pasta. When they got to 7 we swapped the pasta for 5p coins and introduced pocket money. They get 5ps for jobs (emptying the dishwasher earns 20p) and cash in every £1 of 5ps earned which is counted once a week. They have a small additional amount of money as weekly pocket money - this is just 10p per year of their lives, so the 10 year old may be gifted £1 and also have earned £1. The gifted pocket money is based on them putting clothes away and keeping their rooms tidy, the earned money is extra jobs. They save 10% of the earned money to have a concept of saving.
Once the primary school took the whole class to poundland to buy anything in the store they liked. this seemed to be a great idea for younger children as it was freedom within boundaries, and the kids had to save £1 first.

I love the idea of the box! My kids get pocket money monthly from their Gran. Being a skinflint I hate to see them buying toys at full price when I know if they look on the web (or sometimes wait a few weeks) it'll be a lot cheaper. I never pay full price for anything for myself (I only look at the clothes on the reduced rail).

Even worse I hate to see something I know they want reduced, when they have no spare money - I often buy it anyway and put it aside for Xmas/Birthday (the value of the stuff under our tree is always way more than we spent and it spreads the cost over the year if you start in the Jan sales!). In the past I have occasionally lent them some money until their next pocket money if there's a deal on something they want. Next time I think I'll use the box - it's on offer today but you can't afford it, so I'll buy it and put it aside until you can pay me for it.

thanks