venerdì 14 febbraio 2014

3 Life Lessons Your Kids Will Learn From Allowances

money tips lifestyle kids and money personal finance

My son celebrated his 15^th birthday at the end of January, which means he got a raise. My daughter, whose birthday is in April, will soon be getting one.

What am I talking about? Their allowances: we pay them $1/week for each year they’ve been alive.

They both have household responsibilities that must be completed to earn their allowance each week. We increase the amount each year on their birthday, as well as try to find a new responsibility to add.

Here’s their current list of responsibilities:

Tristan, age 15:

Make bed each day

Put away laundry whenever a full basket appears on his bed

Rinse off all dishes used and put in sink

Clean and vacuum room weekly

Empty household garbages on Thursday evening

Clean cat litter boxes every morning

Tori, age 11:

Make bed each day

Put away laundry whenever a full basket appears on her bed

Rinse off all dishes used and put in sink

Clean and vacuum room weekly

Feed cats as needed

In exchange for this work, our weekly allowance bill is currently $26.

I honestly feel like they’re getting a pretty good deal. The work required doesn’t take much time, and isn’t very difficult.

However, my wife and I agree that this arrangement teaches three invaluable lessons:

Money Is Earned: Nobody is going to give you money for free. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Maintaining Yourself Is Work: Kids tend to take the basics of life maintenance for granted. Clean clothes show up in their closet, and food magically appears at mealtime. The sooner they learn the basic skills of taking care of themselves, the better.

You Must Manage Your Money: We all daydream about the things we could have one day. Sometimes we put a plan into action to save up and purchase the items in our daydreams. Both of our kids have saved up their allowance to purchase various things for themselves. They calculate how long they have to save and must make decisions about whether to spend their funds on going to a movie or football game — and thereby delay reaching their goal.

At some point, our allowance arrangement will become insufficient for an aging teenager’s needs. Our son is already showing signs of it. Recently, he was telling me the things he wants to buy for his computer and how much they cost.

Then, he said, “I need a job.”

I couldn’t help but smile. It sounds like our allowance over the years has been money well spent.

Do you pay your kids an allowance? What do they have to do to earn it?