Pocket money for Amy

[pne]

Stella and I had a talk last night wherein she suggested that it might be time for Amy to start getting pocket money. (I think in the US this is usually called an allowance?)

What prompted this[*] was that, Stella said, Amy often sees things she "needs" (though when she speaks English, it actually comes out as "meeds", as in "I meed that"), whether it's clothing or sweets or whatever, and having a finite amount of spending money of her own that might help her realise that things cost money and once you've bought something, you have less (or no) money left, so it's better to ration the money and to think twice before buying something.

I asked Stella whether she would also be telling Amy about tithing and she said that she wouldn't force her to deduct tithing but would tell her about it and let her choose, which seems fair enough. And since the tentative number we came up with was a euro a week, she thought she'd give her ten 10-cent pieces which would make it easier to figure tithing, as well as possibly feeling like more (I can imagine that at Amy's age, it might well be "one money" for €1 vs. "ten moneys" for 10×10¢...).

Related question: did you get pocket money as a child? How often, how much, and starting at what age? Did you call it pocket money, allowance, or something else?

When I was a child, our pocket money increased automatically at each birthday... I think that by the time we were old enough to get pocket money monthly rather than weekly, it was 5 marks more a month at each birthday, but it's been so long I don't remember the details well. I do remember that at one point, my sister Jennifer got 50 Pfennig a week, which was the cost of a Kinder Milchschnitte at the time, and that that was her basic unit of currency: when we talked about money, she'd ask how much that was in Milchschnitten.

Any other amusing incidents relating to pocket money?

And what were you expected to buy from it? I remember that another boy had to buy clothing from his pocket money, and that he delivered newspapers in order to earn enough money; our pocket money was purely for "luxuries", since basics including clothing were covered by our parents. (Though if we had wanted specific clothing, or (say) new shoes even though our old ones were still fine, we probably would have been expected to buy that ourselves.)

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[*] My first thought was "Der Auslöser dafür war..." but I couldn't think of a good translation for "Auslöser", and dict.leo.org (including a brief skim of the relevant forum entries) didn't provide anything good either, so rephrasing seemed best.

Comments

[eva]

Hm, I got pocket money, but I don't really remember how much. I think I started in Kindergarten, probably with 1 or 2 DM per week. I recall that at some point, I got 20 DM per month, which could be used to buy a moderate-sized box of Playmobil with a bit of saving. The amount I got increased with age, but as I started earning considerable amounts of money with my music relatively early, I didn't need/want pocket money anymore at some point. At the time where other people my age got perhaps 100 DM a month, I made several times as much anyway. During my last year of school, I was at 1000 DM per month, through playing the organ in at least ten services and directing four two-hour choir rehearsals per month. I had taken an advanced exam in church music, so I got higher rates than those lesser trained or untrained.

When I was small, my pocket money was for "luxuries", as you call it. In the end, shortly before I left school, when I wasn't getting pocket money anymore, I bought pretty much all of my stuff myself, including clothes. Larger spending, such as school trips, were usually shared, and if I needed something extra, my father would usually give me what I asked for. We had a pretty relaxed attitude towards this kind of thing, as I am an only child and there was no need for being fair to siblings. My parents and I shared books (which is what I spent most my money on), no matter who had bought them.

Amusing incidents? I dimly recall that my parents told me that I once came back from Kindergarten with money that I hadn't previously had, because I hat bartered with other children and managed to get quite a small fortune from some bonbons. I was discouraged from doing that again, though.

I think the idea you have about using ten 10-Cent coins is a good one - I'd imagine that it would be hard to make a very small child understand that the one funny-looking coin is worth ten times as much as one of those shining coins - especially if the one with the higher value says "1" and the others "10". Perhaps you could also find something that Amy likes (like I did with my playmobil or your sister with the Milchschnitte) that is in the range she could afford with the pocket money and tell her "with your pocket money for this week, you can buy one of these, but then you'll have to wait until next week to buy another one". That makes understanding money so much easier.

Oh, and I remember a serious misconception I had when we went shopping together. At some point, I saw how my mother was handed change, but I hadn't seen her paying anything before. So, I assumed that she had not had enough money with her, so the person at the registry handed her the amount she had not had in the first place, so she would have money again. At that time, this concept made perfect sense. I'm still not sure if we should perhaps try it out as a basis for our economy.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Books were the one thing I never spent my own money on before college. It didn't occur to me to do so. I just always assumed that I'd regularly be taken to book stores and given time to pick out several books that my parents would buy for me. It was just the way the world worked. It's one of the things that I have come to feel really fortunate about.

[conuly]

Oh, and I remember a serious misconception I had when we went shopping together. At some point, I saw how my mother was handed change, but I hadn't seen her paying anything before. So, I assumed that she had not had enough money with her, so the person at the registry handed her the amount she had not had in the first place, so she would have money again. At that time, this concept made perfect sense. I'm still not sure if we should perhaps try it out as a basis for our economy.

My uncle used to think, as a child, that you went to the store to get money! AND things, how lucky! Because you give one bill to the cashier and get more bills and coins back, of course.

My mother has told me this so many times that I just kinda nod and don't pay attention, so imagine my surprise when the three year old niece, when asked to pay the (pretend) toll one day piped up that she couldn't, she hadn't been to the store yet!