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Kids’ Allowances: Friday’s Financial Forum
By Molly's Brother | January 19, 2007
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s forum. Great comments. I hope that they will end up helping visitors of this blog.
This week’s question:
What are your thoughts about paying your children an allowance? At what age do you begin? How much do you give?
This question came out of a conversation I held with a friend earlier this week. We decided that it was important to teach kids about money from an early age. But when exactly? And how much do we want to teach them?
We both looked at each other and shrugged before turning the foucs back to the beverages before us.
Topics: Personal Finance |
January 21st, 2007 at 12:51 am
Obviously, I don’t have any kids. I guess I can comment on how it was with me, and plans I might have for any future offspring, though.
I never really got an allowance as a child. I started my own business at age 6 (a newspaper for kids, which I sold in all the shops in my small town), so I always found ways to try and make my own money, and my parents would give me a little money when I asked (”Hey, can I have some money to go the movies with my friends?” type deal). I finally started getting an allowance of $50 a month when I was 16, because my mom set up one of those “teen debit card” accounts for my school trip to Italy.
I think if I have kids some day, I would like to do something similar, but with a bit more structure. I would like to encourage them to think up ways to make money doing things that interest them. Since I was young enough to do this on my own at six, that’s probably a good age to start.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I started getting an allowance in junior high school/high school…I’m not sure how that affected my financial acumen though. FYI - BankRate had a recent article about this as well!