When and how to give your kids an allowance

Money management is an important thing to teach a child. Children think toys and books and clothes fall from the sky. When they are three or four, they don’t know the value of money. It may be laughable to think that a single parent with a low income can afford such a luxury for a child when it is hard even to keep growing children in shoes and clothes.

Way to give your kids an allowance and also teach them the value of money

1. As a single parent you need two sets of hands to do everything yourself, and then some. If you have a six-year-old, you can tell him to keep his room clean by packing away his own toys at night. If he does this every day for a week, you will pay him two dollars. Get a little money box or small chest in which he can save his money for that new toy he has seen. The two dollars you tell him, is for keeping his room clean. You can’t expect him to vacuum, so you will do that yourself. Just keeping his room clean and tidy is worth the money. It is better than buying chocolates and ice-cream.


2. Offer him an extra dollar a week if he keeps the yard clean by removing old chips packets and small items that mess up the lawn. He also has to water the plants. Tell him that he will be allowed to start spending his money when he has twenty dollars in his money box. This will create a desire to have more money and he will constantly be working out in his mind what he will spend his hard-earned money on. Just by keeping his room and the yard clean, you are only paying him three dollars.


3. If he is doing well and keeping up with his chores and it doesn’t affect homework, tell him that if he sorts his own clothes when it comes out of the laundry and help in the kitchen, you will give him another two dollars. Keep the total amount to a nice round figure of five dollars a week. If he does three of his chores and does not complete the others, make the appropriate calculation and tell him why he is getting less. If he does all his work, he is earning a nice sum of twenty dollars a month which should create some excitement in him. Don’t deduct money because he has left his shoes in the middle of the bedroom floor, but tell him about it.


4. Don’t allocate money for things such as doing his homework, brushing his teeth or making his own bed. These are things that are expected of him anyway. The twenty dollars he has earned in a month makes it possible for him to save a hundred dollars for something he really wants.


5. When you know he has fifty or more dollars saved up, don’t borrow money from him. It will set him back and he might lose interest in the venture if he knows you are going to borrow from him constantly.