Allowance is a hot topic among most parents; is it a good idea? What is the best weekly allowance for kids?? How do I know if I’m doing it right??? The simple answer for this is that there is no one answer. We all need to choose what works best for our family and situation, and tailor it to fit us (and not the other way around).
In this blog post we’re exploring how we can use allowance and how we can use it in different ways. Thanks to our amazing UM Club Episode with Maya Corbic from Teach Kids Money, we have some awesome tips on how to choose the best fit for you. Keep reading on to learn about the different chore and allowance methods and make sure to check out our full UM Club Episode for even more great tips!
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Is allowance a good idea for kids?
People will often think of allowance as us just giving our kids spending money. In reality, it can be so much more than that, especially if we use it to teach our kids about money and finances. For so many of us, money was a subject that was never taught or talked about, and can even seem super scary. So don’t we want our kids to feel more comfortable with it than we did?
Using allowance as a tool for teaching opens up so many doors to how our kids can use it. If we want to teach saving, we can deposit half of their allowance into a savings account and maybe invest some of it on their behalf (make sure to check out our blog post on 9 Different Types of Investments for Canadians and How They Work if you want to learn more about that). This is also a great way to show that we can’t spend everything we earn (even if we might want to). Allowance for kids can really help us to teach them good money practices, which is something we all want at the end of the day.
What is the best weekly allowance for kids?
Choosing the best allowance for your kids isn’t black and white. We all come from different backgrounds and situations and need to choose the fit that is best for us. When you’re choosing an allowance for your child, look at your own financial situation first; if you don’t have a huge allowance to give, don’t give it. If you’re able to, also make sure that what you’re giving your kid for allowance is relevant to the real world and its prices. A toonie went a lot further when we were kids than it does now!
At the end of the day, we need to pick the best fit for us, not for anyone else (no matter what the internet says). Choose what works for you and your child, maybe even using some tips from what we’ve listed below!
Different allowance ideas.
Chores
The first way we can have kids earn an allowance is through chores, and this is where the very popular chore chart can come in handy. A lot of us are already familiar with this method and using chores to earn allowance. This is a great way to teach our kids that hard work means reward, and that it’s a surefire way to earn money.
No Chores
No chores means we’re giving our kids an amount of money to spend over a specific period (so something like $10 a week or $5 every two weeks). This doesn’t mean our kids don’t do any chores, it just allows us to teach chores as something that we do as part of a family rather than for money. This is great for financial education as well because it’s giving our kids a set “income” that they need to spend wisely.
Hybrid
The hybrid method means we’re doing a little of both the things we listed above. This could mean that we have a set number of chores our kids have to do and a set allowance, but they can also help out in other ways to earn extra cash. The hybrid method is another great option, and it really lets us teach both family responsibility and hard work.
There is no best weekly allowance for kids, it’s going to look different for every family, but we hope our blog post provided some helpful tips on what it should look like for yours! The most important lesson in all this is that we need to pick what’s best for our family over whatever anyone else says. Allowance is a teaching tool for our kids, not just us giving them a ton of spending money. If you want even more great tips on teaching kids about money, check out the exclusive UM Club Episode and pin this blog post for other great recommendations!
