pocket money and the cheap mother i am

S

Seb's Dad

Registered User
did you know that my children are the only kids in hong kong that don't get pocket money?

don't go looking for verification in the post, but according to my son and his friends, it's true.

what age did you start giving your kids pocket money, and if you don't mind the crassness...amounts?

i have talked to some mums who have talked about pocket money in return for housework. i am pretty opposed to that concept. my kids do small amounts of work around the house (take out recycling, put away groceries, make their beds, fold towels, put away laundry) because they are part of the family.

any hints on the whole pocket money journey ... how to talk to them about saving, etc...would be v. appreciated.

thank you!
 
I agree that children need to do things round the house and dont really need to get paid for it it is all part of being part of the family. We decided that we would give a small amount on a weekly basis so as to introduce the concept of saving. This has worked quite well in that we can now equate things to how many weeks of pocket money it would take to get it and we can now do comparison on pricing in relation to weeks of pocket money. Added in to this you have the money from the tooth fairy and the lai see from Chinese New Year which all add in to the concept of saving and value. It seems to have worked in that she is now beginning to make choices on value and what she gets for the money. The surprising side affect of this is that she is more interested in saving as opposed to spending her money
 
We started with my oldest when she was 4. She got one euro, here actually $10. She can buy something for herself, sometimes stickers but she also likes to buy the "Learn to Read books". Maybe when she turns 5 and/or start Primary, we'll increase the amount and then she may has to buy small presents for mommy, daddy, her brother & sister and helper's birthday.

Another friend gives her children age + 0, so her 6 yo gets $60 and her 8 yo gets $80 a week, but they also have to buy (small) gifts for birthdays, etc.
 
Another cheap mum here. We don't give pocket money either. We have developed a point system, where if he completes certain tasks (reading, spelling, going to a couple activities he doesn't care for) then he earns points and he gets a reward when he accumulates enough points. Usually an inexpensive toy or Pokemon cards etc.

I guess maybe we should start giving him some money as he's not good at saving. He spent all his Lai See money within hours. :)
 
Welcome to our world - cheap mum, me too... I am inclined to agree, housework is a shared task not a paid chore.

Our 4 1/2 year old is very interested in buying things for his bike so we recently introduced "work".

Much easier for us than most because we have our own company, he accompanies us to work or we bring tasks home and he completes allocated tasks for a small token (no more than 15-20 week, some weeks nothing).

Then he has 3 jars; saving, sharing/charity, and spending. This makes it easier when we go out and he asks for something, we ask him if he has enough $$, like Genome says he seems to be learning about value.

Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on how you look at it) for him I never got pocket money but "earnt" it in the family business and prefer him to have the same lesson.

The system we have works at the moment, who knows in the future....
 
thank you very much for all your responses!
rani - glad to know i am not alone!
love the idea of the three jars (sharing/charity/spending) and being accountable for buying presents on people's birthdays.
thank you again.
 
My almost 7 yr old gets no weekly pocket money. But he has saved every cent that was gifted to him - from family for b'days, festivals etc. It's amounted to quite a bit and so we opened an account for him and he loves depositing money in his own account. But the downside is he feels he's got very little money compared to mum and dad so he'd rather save all his money and get us to spend when he wants something ! The moment I say you can use your money then he doesn't want whatever it is anymore and that's it ! So he's learnt how to save but not how to manage money !!
 
Great sharing, all of you. Thanks for the ideas.

scr - Where did you open an account for your child? I was just at HSBC this week and they told me that they do not issue bank books anymore. The only children's account that they have is with HSBC Premier where your child's account is "included" under yours, but under his own name and he gets a separate paper statement. Not exactly what I had in mind. I wanted a bank book, the old-fashioned kind, where he could 'see' his savings grow (which I guess a paper statement would work as well, but it's just not the same, if you know what I mean.)
 
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