this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

Once upon a time I came up with a great plan to introduce my son to the world of allowance, but I never really got around to putting it into place. I'll spare you all my excuses and just cut to the chase. He received four dollars for his birthday last month and now it appears that he understands that money is used to buy things, things he'd like to have. He's a smart kid though, and knows he just can't ask mom for money. Instead, after finding a penny in the driveway, he's always asking to go for walks so he can look for coins. So I decided now is the time to give the kid some allowance. We decorated an old Pringles can to use as a bank and each Sunday he'll get his allowance.


The Tall One and I have decided that we will not make our children set aside a certain amount of money towards savings, not now and not ever. We will encourage them to save, of course, but rather than make them save a certain percentage of their earnings, we'd like them to come up with their own savings goals. After all, no one forces us to save a certain amount. We do it because we have certain goals we'd like to achieve and saving is the only way to get there. We want our kids to save because they want to.

When Bug first found that penny on the driveway, he was ready to spend it. I told him that there wasn't a whole lot he could buy with just one penny. He knew that meant he'd have to find more. He's decide he wants to buy a new bucket of chalk, a purchase that will require him to save his allowance for a few weeks. Eventually he'll want more than a $2 bucket of chalk, he'll want video games, and action figures, and remote control cars. As he gets older, he'll want more expensive things and there will be things that he will be responsible for, like movies or lunch out with friends - things he will need to save and manage his money for, and we plan to let him make those choices. After all, that's how both TTO and I were introduced to savings and we like to think we learned some pretty good money lessons from it.

For more on the subject of kids and money, you may be interested in the posts linked to in the article, as well as these other posts:
Teaching My Kids About Money Part I
Teaching My Kids About Money Part II