Alyssa is five years and three months old now, so she’s definitely at an age where she can begin to understand the concept of money — earning it and paying for things with it. She already knows that Daddy goes to work to make money, and Mommy works on her desktop computer or laptop computer to make money (and sometimes Mommy goes to Panera bread to do some work to make money). She sees us use cash or our PayPal debit cards to pay for purchases. But I doubt if she makes the connection between the work you have to do in order to make the money you spend.
The other night we went out for pizza, and Alyssa brought along with her some of the five dollar bills she made with markers and green construction paper. She even tried to pay the cashier with them (insanely adorable, and that would have been insanely awesome, had it worked!)! This morning she went with me to the grocery store, and she asked if it is hard to make money. I said no, it isn’t, but in order to buy the groceries at the store I would have had to work for almost the length of time she spends napping/having quiet time in her room. That definitely seemed to give her some food for thought. She has also asked what I do to earn money, but it’s kind of hard to explain about adult acne treatment and other topics, except that I write about certain things to make money. She seemed to be okay with that explanation.
On a related note, what do you think about giving kids an allowance? I’m tossing around the idea of giving Alyssa and Ryan each a dollar per week in exchange for them helping out with chores — taking bags of litter or diapers to the kitchen trash can, for example, or bringing me their laundry baskets and then putting away the clean clothes. Too much? Too little? Too soon to start that kind of thing? What do you do with your kids?
My name is Jenn, and I'm 27 years old. I'm happily married to my best friend and soulmate, Daniel. Together we have a six year old daughter named 
Name: Alyssa
Name: Ryan
I don’t have any children, but I never got an allowance as a child. I got money (sometimes) for birthdays and Christmas, in lieu of gifts, and for Chinese New Year. Other than that, I didn’t get any money until I got a job. My parents expected me to help out around the house (because I live in the house too, and if I want to eat, I should be expected to help wash dishes, take out the garbage, etc.). Instead of an allowance, the money that would have ended up going to something like candy or toys, they put that money into an RESP (erm… not sure it’s called that in the US, but it’s basically an education savings account). You could do that instead. (Oh, also in lieu of getting an allowance, I would get to do things like pick where we went out for lunch or dinner, or get to choose what dessert there was after dinner.)
I think Alyssa is definitely at a great age to start giving her an allowance for doing chores, but Ryan is a little young. I think it should be something that is started when they are each 5, and then they get a “raise” each year, along with harder chores.
I think it’s a fantastic idea… when I was younger, we didn’t really have a lot of money. But we got by on the simple things, but the most valuable lesson my mum ever taught me was the value of money. This happened at the age of 5 when I wanted a toy, one of those snow cone making sets. Well my parents couldn’t afford to buy me one, because they knew it’d be one of those toys you’d get bored of, or it wouldn’t work properly to begin with.
So, every week my mum would give me a little money for helping out around the house etc… I can still remember to this day the excitement of going to Toys-R-Us and getting it all those weeks later. It meant more to me that I’d earned it. I even got to pay for it myself, while my mum and dad watched from behind in the queue.
It’s definitely had a profound effect on me, so it’s definitely something I’ll do with my own kids!