When Should Kids Get an Allowance, and How Much?

Filed in archive Kids on October 2, 2006

Pretty soon my kids are going to want money. And I'm going to want to give it to them. Because I want them to stop asking me for everything under the sun. I want to say, "Sure you can have it. How much money you got?"

Which is where the question of allowances come in. At what age should you start handing over money to kids, and how much. I've often heard a rule of thumb of one dollar per year of life--which means a 5-year-old would get $5 per week.

This article disagrees, and I do, too. In fact, the author, janet Bodnar from Kiplinger's, says you should only do half that. Further, she thinks kids shouldn't be getting any money until they're 6 or 7.

Good advice. I was playing Monopoly Jr. with my 4-year-old yesterday and he doesn't even know math yet. He's just barely getting the fact that a two dollar bill plus a one dollar bill equals a three dollar bill. (And giving him the impression that there are three-dollar bils won't help him, either.) Why would I start giving him $4 a week when he doesn't even have a concept of what that is?

Bodnar talks in her article about preschoolers that choose a nickel over a dime because it's bigger. Exactly. In the same vein, most preschoolers would choose four one-dollar bills over a five-dollar bill. Until they get to the point where they understand the numbers, I'm not giving those kids anything. ( I did give them $5 each recently when we were in an open-air market so they wouldn't feel left out. They blew it on candy.)

I've also heard conflicting thoughts on whether kids should just get the allowance outright, or whether it's tied to certain chores, as if they were paying jobs. Many say just give it, with the expectation that they will do the chores assigned to them. If you pay for chores directly, kids might start bargaining on the cost or only do something if there's money attached, the little connivers. Going with the set allowance is my inclination--I can always refuse payment if I think they're not pulling their weight.

I'm not sure what I think about the amounts to give once kids get older. For us, I'm thinking the allowances will start at age 6 with $3 per week, with an increase of a buck a week each year, so $4 at 7, $5 at 8, $6 at 9, $7 at 10, and so forth, until I send them off to flip burgers. That's all personal money--we'll buy school clothes, supplies, etc. (Although they can dip into their own money if they want something that we put the kibosh on, like a certain clothing brand that seems unjustifiably pricey.) They can also try to pick up small-time jobs for extra cash while they're younger, like feeding the neighbors' pets or selling their brother's/sister's toys on eBay, whatever.

What do you think? Does that seem fair? Too much? Too little? If you have kids, what are you giving them?