How much pocket money...

[leuce]

G'day everyone

I read in this thread:

http://www.theforumsa.co.za/forums/showpost.php?p=20453&postcount=1

that the average weekly pocket money in the UK for 7-13 year olds is GBP 6.00, which for simplicity's sake we can convert to R60.

My own kids are 6 and 8 years old, and they get R40.00 per week each. How much pocket money do you give your children (if they're under 12 years old)?

My children can supplement their pocket money with chores (doing the dishes earns them R2, doing dishes and packing away earns R5, watering the plants earns R2, etc).

It took my kids a while to figure out that one can save up one's pocket money to buy something big later. This past year we said that if they save up R600 each, we'll chip in with the other R600 so that they can buy themselves gaming consoles, so they've been saving an average of R20 per week for the past few months. We don't buy our children any snacks (except for some weekend food that the whole family eats), so if they want some, they have to use their pocket money for it. The same goes for buying toys -- they have to pay for it themselves -- we never buy toys, although relatives sometimes give toys as gifts. It does mean that my kids are slightly behind their friends when it comes to the latest crazes. Their friends' parents buy these new toys for them, but our children have to save up and make careful choices about what to buy, because there's only so much money.

I suspect I would have given my children more pocket money if we had lived in a more dangerous town or city where one can't safely let one's children play outside with the neighbourhood's friends, and where safe entertainment necessarily means going to the mall.

What do you think?

[tec0]

First of I don’t have children but, R40 a week? When I was at school I made between R60 and R120 a day. At age 10 I stared fixing computers and got good at it. I could handle almost any system apple or Dos MS I got the stuff working.

I never used to ask for pocket money or anything because I had skills, skills that I thought that would carry me throughout my life... “I was dead wrong” So here is the deal you must consider, bestowing hard work on your kids for R40 is counterproductive. Give them a reason to study! A good report card = good money. A bad report card = more time to study and less time to play.

[leuce]

First of I don’t have children but, R40 a week? When I was at school I made between R60 and R120 a day. At age 10 I stared fixing computers and got good at it. I could handle almost any system apple or Dos MS I got the stuff working.

When you're earning money from a hobby, that's different. I'm talking about pocket money, i.e. money that parents give to non-income generating children to help them buy stuff for themselves.

So here is the deal you must consider, bestowing hard work on your kids for R40 is counterproductive. Give them a reason to study! A good report card = good money. A bad report card = more time to study and less time to play.

Well, if they get one report card per quarter, it means that they'll get a tonne of money once a quarter, instead of a smaller amount every week. The time difference of 3 months between the hard work and getting paid for it is too long for a child to effectively learn the value of hard work or to learn how to work smartly with expenses. If they get money once a week, they learn very quickly not to spend it all, because children learn by repeated action. If you pay them 4 times a year, they won't learn fast enough.

And besides, what a kid gets on his report card does not accurately reflect how hard he worked.

I remember when I was in high school (standard 6) my parents changed my pocket money to a monthly amount from which I had to buy my own toiletries and clothes as well. This really helped me understand the basics of budgeting in action. If you spend too much money on a nice book or toy, you don't have enough money for shampoo or a new shirt.

If you don't believe in pocket money, then how do you expect your children to learn how to work with money? The point of pocket money is not the money, but the learning experience.

[adrianh]

We give the girls R20 per week.

They also do Mathletics on the internet. www.mathletics.co.za. They get R10 per certificate, bronze (1hr worth of math per week), 5 bronze = 1 Silver which gives them R20 & 4 Silver = 1 Gold = R50. Let me tell you, the girls are really good at math, it has become a way of life, daddy works on the website on the one PC and the girls do math on the other.

For every 10 tests at school that they get full marks for they get R50.

My eldest saves easily. She's quite happy to save R600 to buy a MP3 player. The little one just likes to spend as much as she can as quickly as she can. We try to get her to set small goals to save towards.

[Debbiedle]

Interesting thread...my kids are now much older and I have no idea what youngsters are getting anymore...all I can say is I am pleased I don't have kids this age as some very lucky varsity students are getting in the region of R3000 per month now already! (excluding digs and books etc)

I differ a bit on rewarding for good grades as I somehow think it is their responsibility to use the brains they were blessed with. I do however see that it could be a quick incentive to a short term goal.

[adrianh]

I differ a bit on rewarding for good grades as I somehow think it is their responsibility to use the brains they were blessed with.

Ah, but the problem is that kids can use the brains that they were blessed with, for other purposes. They could become master drug dealers, genius computer hackers, cat burglars, and all sorts of other things that takes intelligence. The purpose of the exercise in not to reward good grades per-se, it is to channel their attention. Besides, I am quite willing to reward my girls to better themselves - what is the difference between working towards a gold star on a report card and working towards money. Working towards money not only keeps their attention on the work but it also teaches them about risk & reward, saving and other things financial.

[AndyD]

.....And besides, what a kid gets on his report card does not accurately reflect how hard he worked.

Wouldn't outcomes based pocket money be going the same way as the outcomes based education curriculum?

[Debbiedle]

Hi Adrian, I do get it. I suppose I am just playing devils advocate as I have issues around the state of the world, actually I simply have issues!! :-) Please, I am not pointing fingers, it's just simply a subject that fits so closely with what I am grappling with now. (Changing the world and all...)

My thinking is that we collectively need humanity, wisdom, kindness and caring as the uppermost goals in our lives. Yes, education enhances our ability to get out of self preservation mode and into a space where we can more easily provide the emotional needs, but our global challenge is that we need to get all people into this mode, not only the educated and therefore, maybe, we need a swing in the mindset of how and what we reward...(and for rewarding read pocket money as well as salaries, promotion and bonuses etc)

Now before anyone slates me, I don't think education is unimportant by any means and I am not judging and condemning....what I am doing is trying to explore a concept...and I suspect, doing so on the wrong thread??...

[adrianh]

I have issues around the state of the world, actually I simply have issues!! :-)

Sounds a bit like me.

My thinking is that we collectively need humanity, wisdom, kindness and caring as the uppermost goals in our lives.

Difficult one...Calls for a big debate around what is considered to be humane, who is truly wise, what defines kindness and who cares for who.

Is it humane to abort a baby, is an Imam or a Priest wise, is it kind to give money to a beggar who ends up buying glue and is it good to care for group of people who are unable to look after themselves, feed themselves, yet make lots of babies.

You see the problem, the same words mean different things to different people and issues arise when those concepts conflict with one another.

Some consider it humane to abort a deformed baby, some don't. The Imam believes in one way and the Priest in another. Some say "give to the poor", others say "don't give to the poor, give to the church and let them deal with the problem". Some say "give Africa food, education, condoms & ARVs", others say "leave them to their own culture, let them sort out their own problems"

To quote a truly wise man "Eish...."

[SilverNodashi]

They could become master drug dealers, genius computer hackers

And this is a problem, how? If it wasn't for many genius computer hackers, then you wouldn't have had internet

A cracker, and a hacker is not the same thing. We hack computers on a daily basis in our industry to make life easier for everyone else. No offence, but I think you need to look at this one differently

Back the to the topic though, I also like the idea of giving a child a "basic allowance" and then teach him / her to work for more. My brother-in-law has 4 children (eldest about 8, youngest 3), lives on a farm outside Pretoria and has taught his kids entrepreneurship. Well, for the 3 elder ones at least. They each farm with something and have learned to trade, even with other people in the area. So far they're doing well.

[adrianh]

Ha semantics,

And this is a problem, how? If it wasn't for many genius computer hackers, then you wouldn't have had internet

You give yourselves far too much credit.


We hack computers on a daily basis in our industry to make life easier for everyone else.

I am sure that the companies who rely on their computers are thrilled to have you "Hack" them.

hack·er   /ˈhækər/ Show Spelled[hak-er] Show IPA
–noun
1. a person or thing that hacks.
2. Slang . a person who engages in an activity without talent or skill: weekend hackers on the golf course.

3. Computer Slang .
a. a computer enthusiast.
b. a microcomputer user who attempts to gain unauthorized access to proprietary computer systems.

So do you consider yourself to be 1, 2 or 3.

You assume that I don't have an IT backround...

[Dave A]

A question of terminolgy and interpretation evolving perhaps?

In vBulletin circles all changes to the original code were called hacks, but after a while the professional "hacks" that were well coded as plug-ins were called "mods". We also started differentiating between hackers and coders...

So at a software level we seem to have got to hacker vs cracker vs coder. Hasn't this differentiation hit the hardware side yet?