Is started making an allowance/responsibility chart. I read somewhere that a good guide for the amount of weekly allowance is the child's age. So, stalker #1 gets $6 a week. She has a checklist of 10 responsibilities, and each of those are worth 10 cents, so she can earn $1 a day. If she fails to do one of her responsibilities, she gets a sad face and misses out on earning some of her money.
Giving allowance has been great because
- it gives her control over what she wants to buy
- she is responsible for earning and saving her money
- it gives us a break from her asking for every toy she sees on TV
- she has natural consequences when she fails to be responsible
- she is learning that she has to work and be responsible
- she is starting to make smarter choices about what she spends her money on
- she is learning math skills along the way
- she enjoys seeing how well she is doing on paper
Her chart never stays the same. I've changed and added different responsibilities as needed. As she masters some, I will switch them out for other things I want her to work on. We count out her allowance in nickels, dimes, and quarters, and she is now a master at skip counting. We trade dollar bills for fives, fives for tens, and tens for twenties.
For the first three months, we gave her complete freedom with her allowance money. She earned it and decided what she wanted to buy. She saved her money for 5 weeks to buy a Disney princess dress, which we found on sale. She learned a valuable lesson about finding things on sale and waiting to buy something you really want. She now realizes that if she doesn't have enough money for something, she doesn't get it. Simple.
Recently, we had her put a certain percentage in her savings account for college, a certain amount for church, and the rest for her to have. During the month of November and December, she saved all her allowance to buy gifts for the family. She saved a total of $35 for the family. She was so excited to pick out and wrap presents for the family with the money she earned. Giving gifts to others was more meaningful to her because that was "her" money she was spending.
Our end goal is that our stalker becomes financially independent from us, makes smart decisions with her money, and knows how to budget. We are hoping this is the beginning of it all. Hey, one can hope right?
Do you love it? My rich stalker does.
Shells
* Were you given allowance as a child? How do you handle money with your children?
I've been doing charts since Stalker #1 was three years old. Over the years they have become more involved and are now tied to allowance. If you choose to use a chart, make it appropriate for your child's age and tie in the skills that you feel are important for your child to work on.
ReplyDeleteHave fun and watch your stalker stack those chips and get rich!