Posted in My Kids

My 5 year old daughter saved up her allowance and bought a Ms. PacMan game that plugs into the T.V.  It's hard to say who loves it more...the kids or Dad!


Speaking of allowance, I might as well tell how we do allowance.  Our kids get $1.00 per week for each year they are old.  So our 5 year old gets $5.00 a week and our 11 yo gets $11.00 a week.  We start them on allowance when they turn 3.  This seems to be when they start asking for stuff!  This has worked really well for our family.  The kids know that anything they want they have to save for.  We buy food and clothing, but that is pretty much it.  If they want special food or clothing they have to buy them with their allowance. (We shop thrift stores and all their clothing come from there.  So far everyone has been okay with that!)  We buy them toys for Birthdays and Christmas, other than that whatever they want comes from their allowance.  We started this when your oldest was 3 and VERY interested in spending money.  I didn't want him asking for things all the time and we figured if we didn't give our kids money to manage how would they ever learn?  My oldest son now has some subsciptions he pays on a regualr basis and can save money better than most adults I know!  Our 5 yo doesn't understand money quite as well, but she's learning. 

There you have our allowance system in a nutshell!