Giving my 5 year old an allowance
I’ve been thinking about money and kids and how to teach them the right way to handle their financial matters. They are young still but understand what money is – they know you need it to buy things, but they have gotten confused and when playing, offered to pay me to take something. LOL
They have play money and I’ve been working with them on learning the values of the coins and dollar bills. The dollars are easy but the coins at a bit tougher.
They don’t see me pay bills since I do everything (but one bill) online. I’ll explain checks and how they work later, but for now I’m debating giving the five year old an allowance.
On one hand I think it would be a good educational blurb ~ on the other hand, I’m afraid of her ending up with junk dollar toys piled on her dresser. My kids are different then a lot that I know – they don’t get a toy every time we leave the house, they don’t expect something every time Mom or Dad go somewhere alone, and we don’t eat junk food anymore.
My daughter does have her money from one set of Grandparents and her lost teeth. The other day she took one dollar from her pile of money and said she wanted to buy something at the store. I said okay and she picked a pack of gum. She said she wanted to share with her brother when we got home. She understood that the dollar belonged to the cashier but I think was more excited about having gum to fully get that once the gum was gone, that meant her dollar went to something that wasn’t around anymore. Maybe she’s too little to grasp that.
And so I will continue to think about this. I don’t think I got an allowance until I was older and I’m sure my husband didn’t either. And really, what does a 5 year old need to buy?