Unfortunately, it wound up being completely useless and actually caused us worse problems with money… I think the most I ever got by the end of the week was 50 cents (it was more often 25 cents), and that wasn’t enough to do anything with. Pretty hard to split that into saving, planned spending, charity, etc. It was usually spent right away as a “thank good ness I FINALLY got some allowance” sort of thing.

While I appreciate my mum’s intentions, I don’t intend to reproduce the allowance chart system for my kids.

You asked where to get a Wii for $160. Is there a craigslist in your area? Many people buy game systems then realize they can’t afford it or they don’t use it.

I checked craigslist for my city, and there are several Wii’s (plus games) listed for less than $220 that are only a few months old. You can verify it works before you buy it, and most people still have the receipt. Plus, usually they will come with at least one game and an extra controller.

I totally agree with your opinion that there’s no money for free.
I used to work at a group home for developementally delayed adults, they all had cerebral palsy.
It was “their” home, and we pushed that on them, basically forcing independance, which they REALLY appreciated.
Every week, we sat down with the weekly grocery budget and went through what they could afford to buy vs. what they wanted to buy.
I was truly inspired by their practicality in it all…they taught me more than I ever taught them.

It’s amazing where you learn life’s little lessons!

Nothing you teach children is guaranteed to stick but having an allowance will give them experience with money and may help them form the good habits of financial responsibility that they will need in later life. They may end up developing bad habits with their allowance but they will learn something from that as well. Having no allowance pretty much guarantees no habits, no lessons and no experience.

My husband is Scottish/Ukrainian by descent. He always got an allowance. His Scottish genes can be very frugal and stash money away but the Ukrainian genes love to have a good time and they always find the hiding place. And apparently love not only makes you blind but stupid too. With little to no effort I managed to completely corrupt him and lead him into temptation and debt.

All of OUR money problems began in my childhood and of course you know who gets the blame. If it’s not one thing it’s the Mother. Well, to be fair, Papa and my kindergarten teacher, Miss Edwards contributed to my delinquency as well.

They say you learn what you live but that is only true if your parents don’t set you up for failure by being loving human beings and making mistakes.

Before Mom was even born my talented and generous Grandpapa made and lost 3 fortunes – gambling or giving it all away. After her birth he happily did it over and over again until Mom took over the family business and finances at the age of 16.

For some odd reason she became a rather controlling control freak and never ever trusted anyone with so much as a single Swiss franc. Mom had enormous respect for money, despised debt and was talented and generous to a fault but she had to have the final say. “An allowance? Don’t be silly. You have everything you need and just ask me for what you want and first I will say ‘No’ but then I will get it for you. In fact you should have two of everything and don’t worry about it – I will find the money by not eating for a month.”

Mom knew all about the true cost of debt and despair, worked 25 hours a day, , never owed a dime, turned an immigrant’s income into a middle-middle class lifestyle and yet never thought to teach her children how to handle money. She never gave us a chance to learn by doing and over protected us from making our own mistakes. A stunning lack of judgement for such an intelligent woman. Oh, well. She loved us to debt.

Papa was the last male born into his very old and rich family and was spoiled senseless by dozens of kissy, huggy, relatives. Like the Queen he never paid for anything directly. Not surprisingly he had a very easy come easy go attitude about money. When and if he ever thought about it at all.

He suffered immensely as a soldier and lost everyone and everything during and immediately after the war finally escaping with only the clothes on his back, a watch on his wrist and a leather wallet (with no money in it) in his pocket. Fortunately one of the first people he met as a refugee was my Grandpapa who rescued him from starvation and then fixed everything else by introducing him to my Mom.

It was love at first sight for them and Papa of course pawned his watch to buy roses for Mom on their first date. She immediately stomped into the pawn shop, bought the watch back and took him in hand – where he happily stayed for the next 45 years. Papa was an engineer, scientist, astronomer and mathematician but despite actually working for NASA the knack of handling money and avoiding debt really WAS rocket science to him. And yet he always told us was that the way to solve any problem was to do the math – or ask your mother.

Miss Edwards was just an all-round bad example. She failed to teach us five year olds the importance of budgeting and saving for a rainy day and led us to believe that what ever you needed would always be available.

Bad bad teacher. She let us use all the plasticene the very first week to make the animals for our Noah’s ark and then borrowed more from Mrs. Goudie’s grade one class in order to finish the elephants. And even though she knew Michael Morgan was eating the paste she just kept giving it to him as if the supply cupboard had an endless supply and no one had to pay for it. Sadly my own poor judgement of boyfriends and the development of bad borrowing habits started at this time as I used to give Michael Morgan my paste and then borrowed more paste (at a ridiculously high interest rate of 10 raisins per day –we could only count to 10 at the time) to try and buy his love. In grade one I found out that all along he had been faithlessly giving MY paste to Brenda Wylie. Little stuck up cow.

When I was ten I decided to run away to join the circus to be the beautiful lady with plumes in her hair who rode on top of the elephants. I told Mom and Papa and they thought it was a good idea but told me that I could only join if I owned my own elephant. Bummer.

Papa figured out that an elephant cost about $2 million dollars which I would have to earn because his salary would not stretch that far. In a moment of insanity completely contrary to their life’s work of spoiling us rotten they suggested that work – chores – would get me what I wanted. But the concept just didn’t catch on. Why would it? Up until that point – and pretty much until they passed away – all I had to do was hold out my sticky hand and money would miraculously appear. I prayed for an elephant every night until I was eleven but then discovered boys.

When I first left home I was constantly up a creek without a paddle or a clue. Luckily my parents always bailed me out and kept me financially afloat.

When I started living in sin with the future Hubster we thought we were so grown up but were actually entering into an extended second childhood.

We immediately combined all our income to pay the bills believing that this was the responsible thing to do. Unfortunately we also immediately started taking an allowance. The amount was supposedly based on the amount of money left over after the bills were paid. If it was $100 we each got $50. If it was $400 we each got $200. This was private and personal money and neither the party of the first part nor the party of the second part had the right to question its use or throw temper tantrums about it.

Well as you might expect since we had no actual budget the allowance never quite stretched to cover the demand placed on it so the overruns went straight onto the credit cards. Eventually the bills became so outrageous that there was no pretend money left over for an allowance at all. But we just kept playing house.

It took us over thirty-five years, immeasurable stress and shockingly measurable debt to finally learn the lessons that would have been so much easier to learn in our youth when buying the next comic book was the be all and end all of our needs, wants and future plans.

I love having someone to blame but you are actually only a child for a few years so the “I can’t help it I’m too young to know any better” excuse doesn’t really hold up. When you are an adult your brain does not stop learning unless you put it into storage.

Today as we enter into our third childhood we finally know how to manage our money – budget, live within our means, save for the future and our wants and say no to everyone including ourselves and our egos.

AND we both have an allowance again which gives us something personal and private. It is a fixed expense. Unless we need it to pay a bill in cash.

A dollar for each year. I’m finally rich and got my elephant – through The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee.

The losing $$ as punishment thing I dunno about…sounds like the old ’swear jar’ system to me that usually backfires in a huge way, but hey, if it works for you then all the power to ya…I’d be concerned when the kids are old enough to make their own money and then can tell each other off in spades because the parents don’t control the income anymore!

Both children (aged 8 and 12) receieve $5.00/week allowance.
To teach them good behaviour and respect (these have been lacking recently), we have THEM take a monetary amount out of the jar as their punishment…eg. 25 cents for arguing, 50 cents for lieing, etc. etc. We originally had larger amounts, but realized quite quickly that they were not practical. The key here is that THEY have to take the punishment money out of their allowance jar THEMSELVES, that way they “see” it, rather than just “hear” it.
Of the $5.00/week they receive, $2.50 of it, HALF, goes into a separate savings jar…they put this money into their bank account every month. Unbeknownst to them, the “punishment money” they have removed from their weekly allowance goes into their bank account also.

We just purchased a Wii system last week, the kids (and their Dad, lol) wanted it really badly. We already have 2 game systems, so the deal was they paid for half, we paid for half. Our 12 year old daughter babysits so she actually makes money, and I assigned our 8 year old son extra chores, etc. to raise his amount. It took over 4 months, but they did it! And you know what? They appreciate it so much more when it’s “earned” by them. They did wonderful!

We created this new system because after they got the Wii, they kind of lost motivation because they had what they wanted, why bother saving more money?

It’s only been a couple of weeks, but so far this system is working out beautifully! It’s teaching them money management and respect/good behaviour at the same time.

This may seem strict to you, but it’s working.
I grew up in a very small town, in farm country, and we had chores and work to do everyday. My parents could not have done a better job with us…their strictness definately paid off in our benefit. Thank You Mom & Dad.

By the way…I talked to my children’s prinicipal about this plan yesterday in passing. She said she wished more parents were like us, and I was a good Mom! Score 1 for Mom, YAY, LOL!

On another note my daughter got her allowance and wanted to use it to go see the new Jonus Brother movie…but then she got her Scholastic book order form and wanted to order a book as well. Well she did her math and knew it had to be one or the other so she was saving for something else and decided the book was what she really wanted. She said to me” Mum I really hate spending my own money” Good Lesson learned!

I like the explaination of sorting the savings into 4 categories. I fonud a piggy bank online that has 4 slots/sections designed for this type of savings. BUT it cost around $25. That’s $25 we could be saving…