I think you guys underestimate the degree to which an allowance can be used to teach a lesson to kids about fiscal management. It is never too early to start. Kids have plenty of free time and very few responsibilities, which doesn’t teach them about life. Why not break your kid on the millstone early, and give them a headstart?
Get your kid started as early as possible, and take “taxes” out of their allowance. For instance, give them 30 dollars a week and then take 28 of them and make sure to buy something indulgant for yourself. Call it “parenting fees”. I also like to get them credit cards and have them run up huge debts. When the creditors start calling, I let it go on for a while until I reveal that being underage means that they can get away with it, just this once.
What my family does is this: every summer the kids are dropped off near the border and the kids are expected to make their way home by earning money as migrant farm laborers. The kids get to keep any extra money they have after the Greyhound rolls into town, but we do make them pay for the extra food they usually eat. The only kid we don’t do this for is little Wolfgang. He recieves an allowance of 10 dollars weekly, in return for kis practicing the piano for at least 10 hours a day. Bandages for his fingers do come out of that, so we think it teaches him how to be responsible with his money, since he also has to scrub the keys with q-tips (also allowance-deductable) when he misses more than 4 notes.
The only real problem with this system is that we are currently being sued by the 11-year-old for emancipation and punitive damages resulting from a fruit-picking incident (We weren’t even in the same STATE). Greedy little bastard figured out how to work the foster-care system and ended up hiring a lawyer. They grow up so fast. But, we are proud that he has learned how to be an adult in such short time.
I actually did have credit problems, but for a very different reason: I didn’t go to college in the USA and was a complete unknown to all USA credit reporting services. My wonderful credit history in England did me no good here. My dad had to finance my car.
So, I swallowed my pride and obtained one of those secured credit cards with an exorbitant annual fee. But, I’m happy to say that 6 years later, my FICO score is finally above the national average and is rising.
How I got a good credit card after moving from the UK:
I rang up AMEX in the UK (from America) and got a good card (based on my UK rating). When it turned up, I rang AMEX in America and transferred the card. It took a week.
Six months of credit card use later I was able to buy a house.
Wow, that’s actually a pretty good idea. How old were you when you attended your first meeting, do you think?[/quote]
From what I can remember, most of my life. It was pretty informal, over dinner or something (we’d all have meals together), so talks about family matters, fiscal or otherwise, were always done in my presense. Some pretty important decisions were made (moving, e.g.) and whenever I had an opinion it would be considered as much as anybody else’s, regardless of my age.
So when I requested a purchase for myself I knew how it would or would not affect our budget. My parents tried to give me an allowance when I was about 12, $5 a week, but I ended up not spending it and felt bad for taking the money out of our family budget, so that stopped pretty quickly. Then I started babysitting, and that was money well-earned. Chores around the house were common responsibilities; I’d hate doing them but what can you do; it’s life. The reward was a clean house and happy parents.
Here’s how it works in our house with two boys, ages 6 and 10. Chores are not tied to the allowance. Chores are simply part of being in a family. The allowance is to cover all the “I want…” statements that range from candy bars and Hot Wheel cars to a GameBoy SP (when he already had a GBA).
Both of them get $2.50/week and are required to put $0.50 in a bank that goes to their savings account every six months or so. We match the $0.50 every week, and match any other saving that they put in their bank. If they’ve saved up some of their allowance for a special item that’s pretty expensive, about once a year they are allowed to withdrawal $10 out to help pay for it. About 10% of any gift money goes into savings as well.
If they do chores beyond their required ones, they can earn checkmarks, with some less enjoyable jobs (e.g., cleaning a toilet) worth two or three checkmarks. They can also earn checkmarks for good behavior (e.g., spontaneously sharing an item with his brother) or other behaviors we’re trying to encourage (e.g., trying new foods, using a napkin rather than shirt, etc.). Ten checkmarks can be cashed in for $1 or an extra half-hour of video game time (they have a budget of that for the week as well).
Holy moly–10 bucks a week! That’s like a bill. How about if you have 7 kids? You’re talking real money that would be better spent some other way. If a kid needs more than 10 bucks a week, he needs to get a paper route.
My daughter does that to me all the time. She’s 11 months old, though, and things making raspberries is the height of hilarity.[/quote]
Ah, another Nick Secret Origin revealed!
Heh. If only it were that rational. I’ve had this nick much longer than she’s been making raspberries, though. Still, it’s a nice coincidence, as I can say that her first word was my online nick. :)
$10/month is $2.50/week. :roll: There’s really no reason for a 6 or 10 year old to have a higher level, since all they’re covering is their “I want…” impulse type things and they don’t do much of that. Both of them are sitting on about $40 or so now, plus Christmas gift certificates of $15 to a local bookstore and $50 to Best Buy.
