Allowance Day

Every Saturday is allowance day at our house.  Kids under age 10 get a dollar.  10-11 year olds get $1.50.  At 13 you get $2.00.  We've never had a kid older than that, so we haven't set an official amount yet for older ages.  I'm kind of nervous about that.  Some day I'll have a lot of teens at once.  If we make a mistake in the price we set now, it could get very expensive to pay allowance.

We've made mistakes in this area before.  Years ago, when we only had one niece and one nephew, we made a commitment that we'd send birthday money to our nieces and nephews every year, a dollar per year old they are.  That's a fun idea when the kids are two and three.  Not so fun when you have more than ten nieces and nephews and the older ones are all in their teens.  We finally had to set a cap at ten bucks per kid.  And looking ahead, after their 18th birthday, they'll be adults and we won't continue sending birthday money.

When Danya and Gloria were little, we started the Elliott Bank.  Basically, they could deposit their money with their Dad and any money they saved from week to week earned 5% interest.  Eventually, the girls caught on to the concept of compound interest.  We had to quit when we owed them both a couple hundred dollars and younger siblings came along.  On the plus side, Danya has become a very good saver of money.  Gloria, not so much.