(A bit of an old post that I keep forgetting to share. Pictures from October 2012.)
Since Will's 5th birthday, we've been doing an allowance with him. He has a handful of tasks that he performs when I ask and a handful of tasks that are expected of him on a daily basis for his own self care. He's not really being paid for the things that are expected of him in his daily life, but if he slacks on them or has a particularly whiny/complainy week or two, we do not give him the allowance simply because he has acted irresponsibly and has not demonstrated a maturity worthy of handling money. But for the work he contributes to our household (most of which has been new since his 5th birthday) we want to compensate him in a way that teaches him how to be responsible with money. We based our savings plan on the book he received from us on his 5th birthday:
We made jars that are kept on a high shelf in his closet (out of his reach) and we pull them down every other week to contribute $1 to each respective jar. So essentially, his allowance is $1.50 per week or $3 every other to make it easy to divide in the jars.
Oh my gosh! He looks so young here! Can't believe how he's grown in just five months!
There have definitely been plenty of weeks where he hasn't earned his allowance, and many others where he has requested to help with more housework just to make sure he gets it. ;) The spend jar is his to do what he wants with. He thinks up things he would like to buy and excitedly counts the dollar bills until he works up to it. The save jar is going into his savings account at the bank. And the give jar could be for various uses in which he charitably or kindly uses the money for something or someone else.
I realize it's kinda gross that he's counting money on his bedspread. I didn't think he was going to pull it out and count it when we took these. But he wanted to re-check how close he was getting to his next purchase. ;-)
So far this is working for us. And I think we'll start Sophie on something similar when she turns five.
