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kcnjason 08:52 PM 09-04-2011
I have a 7 year old daughter who really needs to learn the value of money. We work on it with her and she knows a small amount but it's time for her to save money for things she would like. I have a hard time being consistent but I think that if I find something that I can stick with, it won't be a problem. I have had mixed messages about chores and allowance. But what should my daughter be doing in order to earn money? What do you do with your children?
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Growing1atime 09:36 PM 09-04-2011
We pay our daughter and daddy's pay days. We have 6 o'clock clean up:

Yard, playroom, living-room, lil sisters bedroom or hall bath (she chooses).

Once all these things are done, she gets a star on the calendar. If she has at least 5 starts a week, she get's paid. If she doesn't. She doesn't.

She is eight and her allowance is $10 a pay period.

She LOVES the money. She saves it up and buys things for herself.

As far as teaching her the value of money, well.... She values having it. And she knows what sales tax is now!

But I kind of don't believe she is ready for anything heavier yet. I would like her to have some fun before she learns the rest.
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kcnjason 05:54 AM 09-05-2011
Thanks for the good idea. I like that you allow her to choose what she does at that time. I will store that idea and try that out.
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Kaddidle Care 05:58 AM 09-05-2011
I told my oldest that he will earn an allowance when he does his chores without me reminding him. I think I paid him ONCE. He's 20 now.

ADHD has saved me a lot of money!
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snbauser 06:03 AM 09-05-2011
My kids allowances are not tied to their household chores. They are expected to do their chores because they are a part of the household. I don't get paid to do household chores and neither do they. For us, their "job" is school. They are expected to get up on time, do their best while there, not whine about homework, etc. They get 50cents for every year old they are. They can earn extra money by doing things around the house that are above and beyond their normal chores.
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AfterSchoolMom 06:41 AM 09-05-2011
I really like the idea of tying allowance to school, snbauser! Definitely going to think about that.

Currently mine get $2 and $4. Their allowance is NOT tied to keeping their rooms clean and picking up after themselves, because they're expected to do that anyway. They each have extra chores. The younger one gathers and takes out the trash and cleans the bathtub in the bathroom that they share. The older one empties and refills the dishwasher and cleans all of the toilets. It's also the responsibility of both of them to take the recycling to the curb on recycling day and to put away their own clean laundry.

It sounds like a lot, but none of these chores take longer than ten minutes. I do have to remind them to do them, but they know that they only get paid if they don't whine about doing them.
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SilverSabre25 07:10 AM 09-05-2011
Originally Posted by snbauser:
My kids allowances are not tied to their household chores. They are expected to do their chores because they are a part of the household.
This is how it's going to be in our family. DD is going to start getting assigned chores as well as an allowance as soon as she turns 4 in October. I plan on giving her a quarter a week (and right now there's nothing for her to spend it on, so it's just because she wants to put money into her piggy bank, lol). She's also going to have 4 chores to do each day--right now I'm thinking that will be feeding the cats in the AM, feeding the cats in the PM, putting her dirty clothes/jammies in the hamper, and I'm still searching for a 4th. Maybe I'll teach her to set the table.
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Kaddidle Care 08:10 AM 09-05-2011
Originally Posted by snbauser:
For us, their "job" is school. They are expected to get up on time, do their best while there, not whine about homework, etc. They get 50cents for every year old they are. They can earn extra money by doing things around the house that are above and beyond their normal chores.
Ahh - well this.. I used to pay him $5.00 per A per quarter. He was and still is a good student so it paid off for him. Now he sees that keeping his grades up earns him a decent Scholarship in College. I still remind him that his School is his Work right now. He had a summer job earning minimum wage and he is required to pay his car insurance and School Books with this money. He sees how long it takes to earn it and how quickly it goes. This may switch next year as his internship may be for free. Ugh! Once he graduates and gets a job it's all his baby. I will probably charge him some rent as well.

I haven't started this with my youngest yet - he's not the academic wonder that his brother is but he's coming along. Perhaps we will start it this year.
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Crazy8 08:28 AM 09-05-2011
I do a chore chart and it IS tied to doing chores around the house. I always hear people say as the above have that they don't tie it to chores because they are expected to do those things as being part of the family but every one of us earns money because we do our job. Why can't a kids "job" be to take out the garbage?? There isn't much that can be a "job" for a 5-7 year old. So we have a chore chart - they earn stars for the jobs on the list (making their beds, taking out the garbage, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the bathroom, etc.). Homework is on the list too, but I was leary to relate it to school work entirely as I have one where straight A's comes naturally and another who needs a tutor just to pass his classes. And I had one who wasn't in school yet so that just didn't work for me.

They earn different levels of money depending on the amount of stars they have at the end of the week. So if they only have 10 stars they may only get 50¢, if they have 15 stars they get $1.00, etc. I've never had kids argue over who gets to take out the garbage till I started this.
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PitterPatter 09:29 AM 09-05-2011
I do give a small allowance for extra effort and some bigger chores but what I mainly use now is a system that I came up with where I give personalized dollar bills that I print. We reuse them handing them back and forth. He gets these bills for good behavior, good school reports as well as cleaning his room or helping with laundry etc. He then cashes these bills in for video game time, tv time etc. If he hasn't earned any bills he doesn't get any privledges like electronics and TV. He also has the option to save up and cash them in for trips to the movies or even cash (small percentage of the bills of course) This system has really helped us out!

Oh and poor behavior costs him too! So if he talks back, throws a fit, issues at school, etc that will cause him to lose a bill.
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Abigail 08:01 PM 09-05-2011
I don't have kids yet, but growing up with two older sisters we all got an allowance. The most I got in the mid-90's was $3 per week! LOL

We have a chore chart on the side of our dishwasher with all three of our names on it. On the other side of the chore chart was all of our required weekly chores. We had to do them all or we didn't get an allowance. My sisters are 2 and 4 years older than me and they were getting $4 per week. That was $11 per week from a low income family so I know how it added up. We use to all get $2 a week and that is when it started when I was about 4 years old.

Some of our chores I remember....DAILY: make beds, clear our dishes from table and lay in sink, lay out our clothes for the next day, do our homework right after school and put everything back in our backpack and on the hook in the entryway so it was ready to go.

WEEKLY: (Saturday was our BIG cleaning day).....we had vacuuming/dusting, sweeping/washing floors, bathrooms/ miscellanous. Between the three of us our mom just assigned us the day of what our chore was going to be. I usually got stuck with bathroom because I was detailed, now I HATE cleaning bathrooms. I really enjoy vacuuming. ha ha. The best thing about Saturday mornings from 11-noon cleaning was my mom playing LOUD music for us to listen too. This was the day we all had to sit down and fold laundry together on the livingroom floor.
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