Probably the most obvious way to teach children about the value of money is to give your child regular pocket money and encourage them to save up for things they want to buy and to budget their money so they don’t run out before their next ‘payday’.
I know from talking about pocket money on here previously that there isn’t a one answer suits all solution to how much or what age so I’m going to tell you what I do and I’ve also asked some of my blogging friends to share their thoughts too so hopefully you’ll read something that you think will work your family.
At the moment we give Miss Frugal £10 a month and although we encourage her to save some of it, we don’t actually have a rule in place that she has to. I was hoping that she’d be a saver by nature but she’s really not so we’ve told her that if she doesn’t make a little bit more of an effort to save then we’ll be introducing a save half rule where she’ll have to save at least half.
Master Frugal hasn’t really had pocket money in the past as there’s never really been a need for it but we’ve just started him with £8 a month (working on the £1 for every year of age rule) and he has to save half too. He’s more of a saver than his sister but he’d still quite happily go blow everything at Toys R Us if we let him!
Once we’ve decided on something to save for, I’m going to print out these trackers because it’s much for fun to save money if they can actually see their progress. I’ve got lots of other ways for them to track their savings so we’ll do that another week but for now this is a great way to do it!
As I said though, it’s clear that there isn’t a one size fits all solution so I’ve asked a few other people what they do about pocketmoney as well:
Mine get £1 a week with a 10p bonus for each spelling they get right at school. We’ve done that for this term and it seems to have worked fine. They’ve saved and bit, spent a bit and are not adverse to pooling resources to get something bigger
– Jenny from Cheetahs in my shoes.
We are currently avoiding Pocket Money (they are only 5.5yrs and 4yrs) but am considering introducing it for ADDITIONAL chores (some chores shouldn’t be paid as everyone in a family should help). The only for way for them to get money at present, is from relative at their Birthdays or Christmas. I think that is ok for now. Maybe when half the class is getting pocket money, we will start with 50p – £1 per week
– Maggy from RedTedArt and Life at the Zoo.
Don’t do pocket money as such, they have all things paid for but if they want something special they can Earn it, that’s how we did it for Teen, little man is a bit more difficult but at present he is saving his coppers for holiday, he has money each week when going out with support worker also.
– Angie from Cakes Photos Life.
Mine do not get pocket money because I feel they should do chores without payment, it’s about all helping each other out. Saying that they then do get games etc they want within reason when they want them. They only have sweets at special occasions. I do, however, need to readdress how they learn to budget money for that reason.
Joy from Pink Oddy.
JJ gets £11 month paid into his bank account. He uses £6 a month for his Beano DD and saves up the rest for things he wants. It is not linked to specific jobs but it is about being part of the family/team and he is expected to join in & help. He does things like bedroom, dishwasher, set table, recycling. The girls get £1 a week in cash & again are expected to be helpful. I have previously done it that JJ got paid per chore but dh & I changed that as we did not want to develop an expectation that he only helped for payment. Our method works well & JJ is showing a real savvy head for money.
– Michelle from Mummy From the Heart.
Eldest (12) gets £4 a week, younger two (7 and 10) get £3. £1 of it every week is linked to a tidy enough bedroom. They go through phases of saving for big stuff (younger son saved for a laptop with assistance from birthday and Christmas money) and spending it every week on smaller stuff. I should add that all of the kids started having pocket money from age 4. They all had £2 a week until eldest started secondary school last year, when we increased it for all of them.
– Sarah from MumOfThree World.
My boys get £2 per week and can spend it how they like. Mostly they save at least half of it for things they really want and spend about 50p a week at the newsagents of sweets. Both can earn more by doing chores ie Maxi can earn 2p a page for his reading as he is a reluctant reader!
– Jen from TheMadHouse.
So you see, every family has their own way of working it out but in my opinion, giving a child money of their own is the best way to help them learn about budgeting.
What do you do about pocketmoney?
