Allowance

Allowance

Do you give your kids Allowance? I’ll be honest it shocks me how many times I have talked to other parents and they say they don’t give allowance. My kids are to young, They get whatever they want, he doesn’t do any chores.. These are a couple excuses I hear about people not paying out an allowance. I believe you should be paying an allowance to your kids for multiple reasons.

My son is 4 but we started to give him 2 dollars every Sunday when he was 3. He has one chore, feed the dog and keep her water bowl filled. Cleaning his room or his mess, we believe he should just do. He does but sometimes needs to be told over and over again…. haha kids. Now I’m not a stickler on our dogs food if hes not around Ill feed her if the bowls empty or top up her water but if hes around I’ll remind him to do it or get no allowance. (I always give the allowance anyways)

Old School

I remember as a kid getting like 25 cents a week and running to the convenience store down the street and buying penny candies or 5 cent candies. Oh the good old days….. Clearly I was a natural spender and candy addict.

My son is nothing like me in this front. He is a saver (well I am now), yup I think all our finance talk around the house is spreading to him. He will take that toonie and put it in his piggy bank or wallet. When he gets 5 bucks in change he will ask for a 5 dollar bill to exchange since he likes the bills in his wallet. We have a 4 year old that is starting to know what a moose(quarter), boat (dime), Beaver (nickel), Loonie (goose) and toonie (weird coin/ polar bear) is worth! It’s a little win as parents for us.

Interest and Taxes?

One week we had a some dinner birthday party or something and only had like 30 bucks cash on us. I asked our son to borrow 20 bucks so we didn’t need to go to a bank and could put that in the gift. We live in a debit world now so we don’t carry much cash around with us anymore. Everyday after he lent us that 20 bucks, he would ask Dad do you got that 20 bucks? also that 2 bucks for my allowance? haha. I didn’t have it, we didn’t go to a atm. The next Sunday I made a point to get that money and his new allowance plus interest. What? You gave your son interest? Yeah why not… These are teachable moments. I gave him 25 bucks and he was so happy.

Now I’m sure he didn’t understand the interest payment, but I try to explain that If we borrowed money from the bank or lender they would charge us a fee for interest. Since he was 2 I have been teaching and joking about taxes. This is kind of a joke when people see it, but at the same time might teach him something. For example if we go to mcdonald’s and he gets a kids meal or whatnot, I might grab some fries or a chicken nugget and say taxed. I buy him a ice cream and before I give it to him ill take a bite and say taxed. haha Again I want to point out this is more of a joke but could be a learning moment.

Giving

Now I have mentioned the benefits of allowance that has helped teach our son about money. What about giving? I really make it a point if I’m with him and we see someone in need or a salvation army kettle bell to give him some money to donate. (one of my favorite pictures from our last trip to Portugal is of him giving some money to a lady in front of a church)

Life is good for us, he needs to understand that and help out other people in need. Sometimes he will bring his own money to donate to stuff when we go out. Walmart has those donation things where to money go’s to sick kids but you put the coins in and they spiral down the container and then do various things. He loves those and tends to bring some of his change every time we go to walmart.

Books

He started school this year, and I tell ya they bombard you with stuff to buy. Those book fairs? Dam….. For about a week straight they will send him home with flyers of books to buy. We bought him a learning set to read, then the next day there’s another flyer. Hey dad I like this book, this book, this book etc etc can we buy it? Sure man, you can buy it. You have about 30 bucks in your wallet you can buy them all and have like 5 bucks left or buy one or two. You know what dad, I don’t want them. I rather have my money. Oh man did that put a smile on my face! He truly is learning about money.

He has lots of books, we go to the library often. Every once in awhile we will donate a couple of books he doesn’t read to the salvation army and buy a bunch of used books from them to restock up. Why pay retail? Used books are just as good and if you can save money while supporting a charity, why not?

Winter Gloves

I don’t know about you, but since winter started our son has lost 2 pairs of winter gloves at school already. It really bugs me. His school had their Christmas play last night, after the play we went and got him from the class room. While bundling him up one of our friends mentions that their kids always loses their gloves and has went threw 4 pairs so far this year. I told them that after our son lost his 2nd pair we bought another and told him this is the last pair we pay for. From now on if you lose your gloves you will be paying for half the cost of a new pair. Since then he has not lost his pair of gloves…. They looked at me shocked…….

I get that I may sound a little extreme, hes just a kid…… Well clearly it’s working and he’s learning to take care of his stuff because of it.

Those spur of the moment chocolate bars and kinder eggs at the checkout lanes, to get you or your kid to buy them? Yeah he will ask for them as well. Sometimes we will just buy him one other times I say you got your own money do you want to buy it? Most of the time he says no….

Conclusion

So in conclusion, I think giving your kid an allowance is a fantastic idea! Your kid is never to young, well maybe under 1 is…. There is a tonne of benefits of creating a allowance to give to your kids. They will learn a lot more about money if they have some. Do you give your kids allowance? how much? any chores? If you don’t why not?

Have a great day.

Cheers!

Rob

Hey I’m Rob, creator of Passive Canadian Income.

In 2011 me and my wife had almost $60,000 in debt and a negative $7,000 Net Worth. Through hard work and financial education we paid all that off. Now we are focusing on increasing our Passive Income Streams to make the money work for us. Feel Free to Follow along the Journey by clicking the Social Media links below or subscribing to get notified of new posts on the sidebar.