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Works for Me Wednesday: Redesigning Allowances


I love allowances. I really do. I think they're a great way to teach kids how to save money, how to spend money, and especially, how to work.

We've always tied our allowances to chores, starting at age 3. They receive quite a hefty sum, $1 per age per week, but with that they have to tithe 10%, save 30% for university, and divide the rest into short-term savings and spending.

And the chores have increased as they've grown older. It sounds perfect. It sounds foolproof. It should work.

But it doesn't always. And I'll tell you why.

It seems to me that allowances should be given out AT THE END OF THE WEEK. So naturally, that's Saturday. The kids, then, should be finishing their chores Saturday morning, and on Saturday afternoon they take their money and divide it up.

That's what everybody does. That's what you're supposed to do. On Saturday, you get your allowance. And that's what we've done for eleven years.

And then last weekend, while we were away yet again, something hit me. The reason my kids miss 66% of their allowances is because we're away 66% of all weekends. We're just not around on Saturdays. So having allowance day on Saturday (as we all know is the natural allowance day) is just plain stupid.

So I am freeing myself from the shackles of the Saturday allowance tradition and moving to the Wednesday allowance tradition. After all, we're always home on Wednesdays. We're home on Mondays and Tuesdays, too, the days leading up to the allowance. And besides that, we always have people over on Wednesday nights, so it's good to have the house cleaned on Wednesdays.

Sometimes you have to look at your routines and see what is working and what isn't, and why it's not. I've always loved allowances, but it took me 11 years to figure out that weekends don't work for my family. That's a little slow, don't you think?

If you have a routine that you think should work, but doesn't, step outside and take another look at it. Is there something simple you can change to make it work again? Maybe there is.

And so for me, Allowances Work for Me on Wednesdays!

Thanks for stopping by! Why not stay and look around a bit? I've got great posts on marriage, parenting, and more!

If you want more information about my allowance plan, it's spelled out in detail in my book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
Here are other resources you may like:
Handling Allowances
Do You Think Charitable Giving is Important?


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1 Comments:

At 1:17 AM , Blogger Unknown said…

Well, I've decided about something that doesn't work for me anymore that I plan on fixing...so it will work for me. Maybe you would be interested in joining or you know some people who would...or maybe you could just help me get the word out!! Lol...Thanks!http://yesiknowwhatcausesthat.blogspot.com/2009/05/bloggest-loser.html

 
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About Me

Name: Sheila

Home: Belleville, Ontario, Canada

About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.

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