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Allowance for Children: Yes or No?

I want to thank Jonathan Clements for his article on allowances for children many years ago while I was raising my children. After reading the article I decided to give my two children age 13 and 5 at the time a monthly allowance. For this allowance they had to buy their own clothing. My daughter at age 13 was initially appalled at having to buy her own clothes. We did agree that we would buy big clothing items such as a. winter coat or later her prom dress. However, in the interim, she became a bargain  clothing hunter and enjoyed  showing me her bargain jeans from TJMax etc.! Our son only 5 at the time was elated to have any money but decided to save as much as he could and asked me to take him to thrift stores to buy his T-shirts and shorts or pants. My kids are now 34 and 26 and are still frugal and now very savy investors.

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stelea99
1 year ago

It has been a long time since those days, and times have changed. We didn’t give our boys an allowance. Instead they had a newspaper route for 9 years. The oldest had it for 4 years and the younger then had it for five. It is a shame that newspapers are dying and this opportunity to understand the concept of earning and to actually earn money no longer exists.

R Quinn
1 year ago

I couldn’t remember so I just texted our four children. Three replied immediately No‼️ you put us to work stuffing and ceiling envelopes and sorting mass mailings ( I had a very small side business)

One also said “I think I still have paper cuts from it and I have the taste of stamps in my mouth still…….”

The fourth child, the different one, replied “Yeah, I got $50 a week.”

That didn’t go over well, but he didn’t.

DAN SMITH
1 year ago
Reply to  R Quinn

I think I’d like the different one

mytimetotravel
1 year ago
Reply to  DAN SMITH

I think I feel sorry for the different one, but it begs the question of “different how”? (Now there’s the question of how to punctuate the end of that sentence, should it be question mark, quotation mark, period? That looks odd.)

Randy Dobkin
1 year ago
Reply to  mytimetotravel

I think question mark but inside the quote (no period).

Last edited 1 year ago by Randy Dobkin