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Allowance and Other Money Questions

I'm currently listening to this audiobook: The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber. And, full disclosure, I'm not in love with it. I'm not jibbing with his position on a lot of these money issues. But its got me thinking about how I'm teaching my kids about money in the real world.

Leah has been asking about an allowance and what she'll have to do to earn it for years. And the question stumps us.

I didn't get an allowance growing up. But we were encouraged to get jobs and babysit as soon as possible. There wasn't a lot of extra money for new Gap shirts or trendy jeans, so if I wanted to not live in my sister's hand-me-downs, I'd have to buy them myself.

And I especially don't remember earning money for doing regular chores around the house. We did them because we had to, we'd be threatened with a wooden spoon (to clean my room, which I hated to do) or, eventually, because we wanted our house to look nice.

The author of this book is not in favor of doing chores in exchange for an allowance. Chores should be done because a family needs to work together to keep a home running. And an allowance is given to teach important money lessons - saving and spending.

Though, the concept of handing kids $10/month just because they're my kids and not having to do anything to earn it strikes me as entitlement. "You're mine and you're cute, here's $10. Now, let's talk about budgeting." Um? Really?

Should our kids get an allowance for doing nothing? And if so, I'd want to really hit that economic education hard or it wouldn't be worth it for me. But can I sustain a teaching tool that long? The logistics sound tough -- every week (month?) we have a family meeting, dole out the cash (I have to have cash on hand!) and talk about saving and spending. He also suggests Giving, too. And awarding interest for good saving practices, etc.

Not sure if I have the stick-to-itness not to let this practice slide. "Oops, I didn't get cash this week!" Or, "oops, we weren't home Sunday morning to do the distribution." Or, "I bought you that thing on Saturday so, you don't get allowance for the next two weeks" -- did we just blow the whole money exercise?

And if we skip the whole idea of allowance, are we wasting an opportunity to teach the girls about important money issues they'll need for the rest of their life?

Hmm ... this will require a lot more thought.



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