Head on over to Mommy Snacks and check out Part Deux of my article talking about the allowance system we created for our teenage son!
I actually wrote it a couple of months ago (as you may notice since when you read it and I refer to the Winter Season!) and it’s interesting for me to read it afresh and compare it to new developments and impressions that we’re experiencing. Conner just walked out the door this morning, for instance, and completely forgot his lunch sitting on the counter… Maybe I’m not the only one a little fraggle-brained with the very new development of us moving this summer?
He’s also complaining loudly about needing new underwear and new shirts and new shoes… We’ve been having a hard time finding time to go shopping…
Just yesterday strongly hinted that he’d specifically like a blue American Eagle t-shirt. I told him he just needs to factor the extra cost into his budget. He was chagrined, but resigned. I think he keeps hoping this budget thing is just a phase. He has no idea. No idea.
Please head over and read my post and comment your thoughts. Read Part I, too, if you haven’t already. I’m sincerely interested in your input and ideas of what’s worked (and hasn’t worked) with your own kids. If you benefited from an allowance system while you were growing up, that would be great to know, too.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Jolyn,
I liked your posts. Our kids have always been horrible about doing chores because my spouse hates housework, and had a mother who had lots of help, so he never helped out as a kid. He always felt that I should do them (after my full time job) because the kids’ homework and extracurriculars “should take priority”. Clever kids always claimed to be doing work or a project…
However, the oldest two also spent between 4 and 6 hours a night on homework and reading for school in honors classes, so they weren’t exactly goofing off…
I like your idea of a set amount, to be subtracted from if chores aren’t done, as they certainly were part of my upbringing, and everyone in the house should help out. It might have worked.
What we did with allowances was to give them all a set allowance of up to $5 a week for their entertainment, candy, lunches (I packed stuff for them, and they did in high school). Once the girls were 14, we stopped giving them an allowance, and they had to get a job. We wouldn’t allow them to work more than 4 hours a week, as it would interfere with schoolwork, but that gave them plenty of money. They were expected to give some to church, charity, and save some, and spend no more than half. My oldest gave one third of her earnings every week for three years to help support an orphan girl being helped by World Vision in Ethiopia (a project people from our church had visited), After they had worked a few weeks, they had a whole new attitude towards buying things “I would have to work 22 ours to buy that refurbished fancy Ipod, maybe I can get by with the old one of Mom’s…”
With my son (who is in Special Ed, tho normally smart, but has Asperger’s), I end up paying him for extra chores (above and beyond normal everyday ones), and am still looking with him for a paying job. The economy is so awful now, and almost all the jobs teens could do around here are done by illegals or require more suave social skills than he has.
As far as name brands, we live in an area where many people have more money than sense. Some of them who shop recreationally give gorgeous stuff to our thrift shop. The kids were dressed from it all their lives. In middle school the girls began saying “YUK!” So I placated them and bought them more “fashionable” Ie: new stuff from the horrible W mart or Target, always the clearance rack. Or Old Navy. After awhile, they figured out that the stuff they were getting new was not as well made as the quality brands (J. Crew, Brooks Bros, Talbot’s, Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, etc.)they could find at the thrift shop. So they began shopping themselves there.
We do find now that some things are cheaper new from the cheapo stores, and are occasionally okay quality. We all get a lot from the LLBean and Lands’ End and Orvis sales. But mostly the thrift shop stuff is better.
I’ve had good luck finding new shoes for amazing prices from Eastern Mountain Sports at end of season sales. For example: Merrill walking shoes for $15, reduced form $140. They are modern styles and very high quality. Hiking boots, walking shoes, Merrill slides, Tevas, etc. ALso, if you know sizes, Sierra Trading Post (a Xian business) has incredible discounts on clothes and shoes.
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I was raised up on a very strict budgeted family. We never asked for name brand clothes. I think a lot of it comes from the parents. You had already ingrained in him the need for said items. We never had them, nor do my kids. To this day my brother and I are tightwads.
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jolyn Reply:
April 17th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
No, his friends and American culture and schools ingrained it in him. I can fight that, or I can hand the reins over to him. I choose to hand them over to him: He purchased a “name-brand” t-shirt recently, for instance, that he bought with his own money. It was a good price on the clearance rack. He needs shirts. He’d rather have one of those than three t-shirts from Goodwill that he could have bought with the same $$. That’s his choice. If I strutted around in retail-priced name-brand clothing myself and constantly judged aloud what other people were wearing, I might have “ingrained in him the need”, as you presumed. I, too, “never asked for name-brand clothes” as a child. But you know what? Sometimes they are a better quality; that doesn’t always mean they have to be a higher price. Despite my mother having very, very limited funds to work with to clothe her children, she instilled in us the value of a good deal and taught by practice and example that you don’t have to sacrifice style and taste and quality just because you’re a tightwad, whether by choice or necessity.
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