How Much to Give for Allowance for 6 Year Olds???

Children are all different, so I think you'll have to play it by ear. A friend of mine has a kid who likes money for the sake of money. But my son had zero interest in money at age 6 unless he could use it for something. So for him, 10 cents a chore (divided by two) would have resulted in him just deciding it was a good bargain to get out of doing chores!

I've tried several things, but right now my kids don't get a weekly allowance at all. They can earn money for doing non-everyday chores, like raking leaves, shoveling snow, scrubbing the fronts of the kitchen cabinets - things I would not make them do normally, but that are useful to me. They're supposed to do the minimal chores they are assigned around the house just as part of what we all do around the house. (set and clear table, clean their room, help take out garbage and recycling, pick up the toy room) But then I know my kids - they would just try to "game the system" by deciding to do without the money if I tried to tie it to money.

our kids get $1 for each year they are at school. so first grader got $1 second grade $2. it works pretty good. When they hit highschool they get $10 until they get jobs of their own then they don't get allowance anymore but are still expected to do their stuff. once they get jobs of their own we try to follow the savings etc. this seemed to work pretty good for them. good luck
S.

We do it depending on the chores they do. She does not get any money for chores she has to do as part of the family, like keep her room clean, pick up her toys, or set the table, those are part of her job as part of the family.

If she does extra things to help us out, like help with laundry, or stuff outside, or help do things that are not something we normally do we give her a quarter. If it is something that takes a long time or is hard for her we give her 50 cents. We also make her put half into savings and half into a bank she can use on whatever she wants.

Let me say first of all that I believe with all my heart (and now there are studies coming out to back my thoughts)that giving your children an allowance is very beneficial in teaching them financial responsibility. My own mother caught much flak from relatives and friends for giving her kids an allowance, setting up savings accounts for us and requiring us to tithe at church....and I can promise you that me and my brothers are the only children from that group that are financially responsible now.

Here are a few things that my mother and father did that I do today with my girls ages 6 and 4

1.) Make a chore chart with chores done for the allowance...though I don't do allowance, but pay them 10 cents for each chore completed. I drew pictures or symbols for my girls when we started because they couldn't read yet. They can read now so I don't do the pictures anymore. Here is a cute chore chart that you can fill out and then print alenkasprintables.com/freeprintables/chore/chorechartbw1.htm

2.) Make sure that they understand that they are contributing members of the household and are expected to help out when asked without getting paid. Part of being a family is helping eachother. They don't get a dime everytime they do something.

3.) We count up the chores on their chart weekly (we use a cute stamp to stamp the chart when they complete a task...adds to the fun)...at that time we figure out how much they need to give back to God at church.

4.) We save some of it. The rest is applied to their goal expenditure. My girls want a hamster. The girls are pooling their money to buy it and all the supplies. We made a chart with blocks that represent each dime they earn. They get to color in the appropriate number of blocks. And that way they can see how close they are getting. Boy they want to color in those blocks.

5.) I give them play money to keep in their wallets and/or piggy banks and then I told them I will cash it in for real money when they reach their goal and we go shopping. (That way I don't worry about them losing it when they decide to take it outside to show their friends.

6.) When they get older we will keep a check register and learn to balance it.

Some weeks the girls work really hard and earn lots of dimes. Other weeks they don't. But they are learning that if they work really hard they earn more.

And I read the responses and one lady commented that she doesn't really pay attention to how much her kids do since salaried people earn the same regardless of their effort. I have to respectfully disagree. I've been salary and so is my husband. He gets bonuses that are directly tied to his performance. He gets merit increases that affected by the performance of the company as a whole. And he has been promoted because of his willingness to put forth more effort than others.

So I think it is crucial to keep track of their efforts and reward them accordingly.

Last take many opportunities to tie their efforts and allowance to the real world. Explain why we need to get paid, why we work hard, why we save, why we tithe (if that's part of your life), why we research what we want so we can keep track of our savings....and teach them to keep track of their money.

We have a base weekly allowance (although, I'm thinking of switching it to Monthly) that is different for each kid. The kids are expected to keep their rooms clean and pick up their toys. The older children have added responsibility (emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cats, scrubbing the toilet, etc). Normal stuff that we all have to do to keep the house running. Non-standard chores are paid separately (kinda like a bonus).

Really, it all depends on your personal view of money. In the working world, salaried people still get their full paycheck regardless of whether they produce more or less. That's kinda how I view giving my kids their allowance - it is not really tied to chores, although I have withheld their allowance when they haven't done anything for a week or two. They have to do some of what is expected! But since school has started, I've been a little more forgiving because homework comes first.

A lot of people have 3 piggy banks for their kids: Their own spending money, savings and charity. We just have the two, but have been thinking about adding a third.

Good luck!

It depends on the personality of your kids. We started giving allowance at age 7 and it was tied to chores, but then we started getting the "how much will you pay me?" when ever we asked her to do something. So we stopped tying allowance to chores. She does her chores because she is a part of the family and we ALL do our chores. She receives $5 on Fridays as her share in the family income. We don't pay her "per chore" but rather if she contributed that week then she gets allowance.

I have learned not to pay her right before we go to the store or she "has" to spend it on junk. Instead she keeps it in her wallet and brings it along.

We also started giving her money if we go out somewhere so she can choose what to spend it on. If she wants to buy junk food at the fair, then she knows she won't have any left to play games or buy rides. She's 8 now and that's probably too complicated for your six year old.

At age 7 we gave her $5 a week. If she wanted toys or something she had to save up. It helped with her begging for toys at the store!

Good luck!

We do the same as Sheri S.

If the kids give too much trouble about getting the chores done on time they still have to do the chores but do not receive that week's allowance.