Giving children an allowance each week has been a much debated issue among parents. Some adults lavish their children with money to show them their love, others expect work from their children with no pay, and some make their children work for their money. What the children do with the money is an entire another debate. Should they be able to do what it with they like? Or should they be forced to give some of it, and save some of it?

An interesting system that a lot of parents are using now gets rid of the idea of allowance in favor of what they call commission. If you do your chores, you get paid, if you don’t do your chores, you don’t get paid. The amount of money you give them will go up with age, usually 50 cents per week for each year of age. Some of that money is given away to charities, some is saved, and some is spent on whatever the child chooses.

An individual that I know has a six year old who earns $3.00 per week in allowance. The parent was helping the child count the child’s savings, and he had $42 in savings already, which is quite a bit for only getting $3.00 a week. It turns out the child was saving up money to buy Pokemon Leaf Green. The child was saving up for a relatively big purchase and waiting to pull the trigger until he has enough money to buy it and have money left over!

The adult has no idea where the child picked up these savings habits. He has told me that he and his child have never really talked about that sort of stuff, and he thinks the child just kind of picked it up on his own. The child actually asked the adult to help him buy the game on eBay to save money in his purchase! The adult had told me that he and his son have purchased stuff on eBay together before.

It would be nice if all of our children picked up information about money as easy as this child, but that’s not always possible. In order for you to teach your child effectively about money, you will have to be disciplined to only pay them when they do the work, and don’t always just give them whatever they want when it comes to toys. Make them work, and save up for toys every now and then so they will link working hard with getting paid and getting what you want. Don’t bail them out at every moment, let them know that money is finite.

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