Spending money for a 5 year old??

lynsjh

I give my five year old pocket money but it is dependant on him completing his behaviour chart and his five a day fruit and veg chart. we dont give him much but we thought it important that he was aware of the cost of things and how to save up for special things from an early age - a money saving expert in the making.

immoral_angeluk

We counted Ash's piggy today... she's got nearly £10 in there! :eek:

bebebelle

Stapeley I couldnt agree more.

I think we should be teaching children the value of being kind to each other, and how to cook a decent meal from scratch.As a teacher, I hear children bragging about their pocket money, in class. It is so sad to see that the rot of materialism has set in ,at 7yrs old.

boredofbeingathome

I never gave pocket money at that age. We used to have a friday treat,though and they could have a spend in the shop on the way back from school.
They also liked to earn money from jobs, i used to find this quite interesting as eldest DD would have a price for a job, say 50p for tidying, bribe DS with 20p and leave herself 30p profit with no work.

Also loose change went into the piggy for hols. We split it three ways and that was their spends. Children have a varied concept of money at that age, so it is good to teach them to wait for what they want, but also not feel left out. There are always children at school with too much money, and i have spent many a morning stopping classes because a child is in tears as someone has nicked their money etc. The school banned it in the end, and no tuck shop etc. It is just too much when i have seen children with a pound coin in their hands.

Tiger_greeneyes

EmptyPurse wrote: »

I had pocket money from around the age of five. Dad calculated it against the cost of a Mars bar - I got the price of a Mars bar each week. If the price went up, so did my pocket money.

I was allowed to spend my pocketmoney at the newsagent on a Saturday morning; it was my choice whether to spend the whole lot on one Mars bar or to buy lots of penny sweets. I wasn't allowed sweets 'on demand' during the week and didn't have chocolate biscuits or anything like that with my packed lunch. Overall had far fewer sweets than my peers and my parents (who didn't have a lot of money) didn't have to shell out vast amounts of money to a child who didn't really understand the value of money. It worked well.

Much healthier and fewer cavities too

We used to get a Friday treat of a packet of cheese Wotsits between the two of us (money was very tight then, early 70's). We were about 5/6 at the time and loved Dad coming in from work with the crisps, it was a huge treat as we only ever got crisps at other kids' birthday parties.

Our first pocket money was 2p a week when we were about 7/8, which would have bought a comic or a handful of sweets on Saturdays. We then went up the scale a year or two later and had a comic each delivered and 5p a week. After that it was increased to 10p a week - probably the equivalent of 50p a week now. It bought us a bag of crisps and some sweets, although we used to save half towards our new bikes! Although we used to dip into our piggy banks for birthday presents for our parents, we wouldn't accept money for that sort of stuff, we wanted to do it ourselves.

Kids don't need more than that, all their needs are catered for, it's something little to teach them about money - budgeting, counting, value of. I'm at a loss to understand why very young kids get £5 or more a week. I can understand teenagers getting that much, although they should be saving half of it for mothers/fathers day, Christmas presents, holidays etc - same as us adults have to. If they get given too much money then where's the motivation to get a paper round or something similar? I had three jobs by the time I was 10 and loved earning my own money, and I've always worked since.

Start as you mean to go on, I say :rotfl:

poppyg_2

stapeley wrote: »

Today's kids are being taught everything can be given a valve , instead of encouraging them to be helpful out of the goodness of their hearts

I can see your point yes, kids should be brought up to be helpful and have good manners not just do stuff because they're being rewarded in monetary terms. I was brought up to help others (and like to think I still do! ) but I did also get rewarded for doing additional little jobs and I think that's quite good

I didn't understand your post about money for drugs, playground bullies etc that's why I was asking what the matter was

mum2one

I give my daughter a £1.00 week pocket money shes 5, she puts it up in a purse so when we go somehere for the day she hasher own money, worked out well, as we were in chester last week in Disney shop (not a gd move.) I brought her a disney princess cushion ready 4 bday it was £10.00, she asked could she have it now...... pull at the heart strings........ I said no, shethen offered to pay out of her pocket money purse, took all her money, I felt so guilty, but it taught her a valuable lesson, you have to save in life for things.

She has a magazine ocassionally, but most of them are £2 + yet in my day it was 5p for the Beano, (ok Im a 70s child).

I put £10.00 month up in the bank for her, which she doesnt know about, so when shes 18 she will hopefully have a little nest egg.

She very rarely asksfor anything, and helps out by straightening her quilt, then she polishes the table in the front rm, so if we go to cinema on sat am(£1.00 showing), she knows that a treat. x

Morporkian

There were 4 children in my house growing up. I am the youngest and my eldest brother is 7 years older than me.

We never really had the money for things like pocket money - when I was very little, Mum would buy me a Gingerbread Man from the supermarket when we went shopping, IF she had the money! - but Mum started seeing someone when I was about 5. (They are still together, he has own business, she works for him)

He had what seemed like a huge amount of money to me at the time. Nicer cars and other things. However, we were not spoiled because of it. They did decide to give us some pocket money when my eldest brother was about 13. I would have been 6. (Gosh, didnt realise I was so young!)
The eldest got £1.50, Middle two got £1 and I got 50p. Obviously, I found it very unfair and was told, "If you're going to complain and think it isnt enough, then we'll take it away!" I decided it was an "ok amount". Haha!

Before the pocket money was introduced, we were obviously taught to help around the house. Washing up, making tea, changing our own bedding (I had help, obviously!) etc. Our rooms could be messy, as we had to live in them!
However, to get our pocket money on a Saturday, our rooms DID have to be tidy by Saturday morning - even if we messed them up again a couple of hours later! - and our beds had to be made and bedding changed if it was the week for it (we did them every other week). If it wasnt done, or we had been very naughty during the week, we didnt get our money.

Also, because of the tight budget we were on, Mum had a Great Universal catologue, which she used to buy things for us that we did need. Or for herself, or the house, obviously.
That was brilliant, as it had either a 20 week payment plan, or 40 week. (100 weeks on very expensive things) so once Id gotten a bit older, if I saw something I wanted, I would work out how many weeks it would take to pay for it and ask Mum if she could stop my pocket money for that long, so I could get it!
I also did that for birthdays/christmas too. I added up everything I wanted to buy, divided by £2 (when in teens!) and thought, "I can live for xx weeks without money".

I didnt get anywhere near the same amount as other people I knew, but Im glad. I learnt how to manage money into weeks and what it meant to not have "my money" in order to get something that was need, or that was a gift (either to myself, or someone else).

Its all about teaching, as others have said

kyh

My nearly 3 yr old gets pocket money (only coppers at the moment) but she has chores she helps with around the house eg emptying the cutlery in dishwasher and keeping her toys tidy to "earn" it When she goes out with us to shops if she wants something she asks if she can get it and I say whether she (I) have enough for the book/comic that it usually is. I started doing this about a year ago when we went to a car boot sale and I was telling her not to touch other peoples things if she hadn't paid for them (she kept wanting to pick up toys etc and I had seen other children just walking off with things and not paying for them - I didn't want her to do that) I then realised that I couldn't expect her to understand what I meant unless i gave her the opportunity to pay for something. She now has a purse and we use the whole thing as a learning experience. She also gets treats from Mummy and Daddy when she is a good girl and behaves nicely and she also helps with other things eg car cleaning for fun
I don't think she is too young although i am sure some of you will - she has a money box and counts her "monies" every now and then - when she can undertstand then we will teach her about saving so she doesn't end up like me financially!

jennyc_3

I've got 3 kids and a tight budget so although my kids dont go without necessities we give them a small sum each month when we get our salaries to be able to buy magazines etc, my 13 year old has just got a paper round so he is loaded!! We give the 10 year old £8 and the 6 year old £5 each month, they get given this on the understanding that they do small chores around the house, because we think it's important that they understand that money doesn't grown on trees and if they do some chores they will be rewarded for it. They also get money for tuck at school now and again. I know plenty of parents who dont get their kids to do anything around the home but still get money handed over willy nilly and we think that is the wrong attitude to take.