To expect DD to earn pocket money or should she just get it? Or not have it at all yet?

[Jayneyy]

What is the done thing?
She is 8 and does not have anything she could do online banking/ savings on so it’s literally cash only.

Should she learn she just gets it or should she ‘work’ for it although she seems young to be doing house jobs.

Currently she is bought what she wants within reason, such as choosing snacks at the weekend big shop or a toy every now and then.

I'm happy to always buy clothing/ shoes.

I am aware what I start I have to continue with so any advice would be great.
I am leaning towards her earning it.

My 8 year olds get £1.50 a week, I don't have them do specific jobs round the house but do ask them to do bits and bobs from time to time and remind them that their pocket money is for being a helpful member of the household.

I started giving them £1.50 a week at 7.5ish and recently got the Monzo under 16 debit card for them so I can simply direct debit their £1.50 to them weekly.

When they hit 10 I'll start offering them the chance to earn extra cash with specific prices for specific jobs.

i started giving a small amount of cash pocket money age 7/8 just to help them get use to money and think about saving for something or spending on a little something. But very little, only £1 a week. Gradually increased as they get older.

everyone has their own take on chores/ jobs and money. Mine is that you should just do jobs around the house as part of the family, no money, just an expectation that this is done to help everyone at home and work together. I envisioned money for jobs ending up with a teenager bartering for everything you asked them to do.. I’ll take the rubbish out for a fiver etc.

oh and 8 is not too young… start them young so they get use to helping. Just small jobs like laying the table and help tidying up after dinner.

Families go either way on this. Personally we do unconditional money. Pitching in at home was expected at this age but is separate. With my youngest, if you offered him money dependent on chores he'd just say no thanks. We want him to have money, for life skills etc, more than he wants it himself. I actually don't want him to have the power to "nope" helping out at home, so we keep it separate.

Just a case of what works for you and your children.

I’m like @Orangebadger - we just expect jobs around the house because it’s part of being team family. No one will pay them to set the table when they grow up!

Pocket money is unconnected. DD is 8 and receives £3 per week. It burns a hole in her pocket but I guess learning about that is part of learning about money. I recently got her a Rooster card to see if that makes her feel differently about saving.

We gave ours unconditional pocket money. Amounts that were age appropriate. To spend as they wished.
And we expected them to pitch in on family chores for free. Because families work together. For free Because we love each other.

My son gets £10 a month for his spends and that will allows him to buy a magazine or small Lego set or save. He has been having it since he was 3/4 and it has stopped me buying him random crap (still buy him the odd magazine).

His money is not chore dependent but he can negotiate to buy a bigger item if he is short and make the money up by doing specific chores like stacking firewood if we have had a delivery. He is expected to help round the house (and does)

it also has given him the concept of not just buying things and expecting to get it if he does not have the money. He has also had to save up for big Lego sets. Although if I sell his items on Vinted he does get the money from it

I am sure when he gets to teenage hood this will change

No, because you don't want her to think that pulling her weight at home is optional.

I don’t think 8 is too young for household job at all, if anything I think it’s pretty late to start.

I’d do pocket money and unrelated chores.

All of this.

Ours starting getting pocket money aged 7 - at a time when they could understand the concept of spending / getting change / saving / how many weeks you'd need to save X amount if you want to buy Y / that "when it's gone, it's gone" - so the value of saving.

It wasn't related to doing jobs, but they were expected to do age related "jobs" from when they could toddle. 8 year olds can do plenty to contribute, and to grasp the concept nothing 'just happens' without someone doing the work.

For us, chipping in and helping around the house was expected, it was not optional and not paid for. An age appropriate amount of pocket money was just given.

I started giving my daughter a very small amount of pocket money when she started school so thst she could have a little bit of money of her own. I increased it at every birthday, and I didn’t expect her to do anything to earn it.

A small set amount per week is reasonable, and then if she wants more money because of saving to buy something she really wants, she can do chores to earn extra.

The earlier they learn to budget, the better.

DS gets £15 a month put on his monzo account.

No strings attached. He doesn't have to do chores for it, but as a member of the household, he is expected to pitch in with age appropriate jobs.

He'll do stuff like: helping put the shopping away, putting stuff in the recycling, bringing me the piles of dirty washing, laying the table for dinner etc.

Why not set up a bank account for her @Jayneyy? That way she can start to understand how things work now, with small amounts of pocket money. You could say (for example) she can have £2 a week, and she gets £1 in cash and the other £1 goes directly into her bank account, so she can see the savings build up over time and save towards a bigger purchase if she wants to.

I agree with PPs that you shouldn't tie the pocket money into household chores, she is old enough to be pitching in cos that's "what we do", rather than for financial gain.

I would do both. A regular pocket money, plus options to earn more by doing extra chores sometimes.

We have this drama with my 13 year old nephew. My brother and his mother are divorced and he's bought a house with his partner, and each parent has my nephew for a week at a time. My ex sister in law is remarried and I'm not sure how things work there, but basically my mum, and my brother's partner's mum, give my nephew an amount a week or month but my brother's partner takes it and makes my nephew "earn" it by doing household jobs.

For an 8 year old I would just give pocket money, without linking it to specific regular tasks. But I'd also encourage them to join in with general household jobs, laying the table for dinner, sometimes helping with meal prep or putting away the shopping for example.
If they helped with bigger jobs, spring cleaning a room for instance, I'd give them an extra payment.

Eight isn't too young to get an idea about how a household is run, or that running it is a lot of work, but I think it is too young to have to take on any of those responsibilities!
I had quite a few daily jobs to do as a child, how my heart used to sink at the piles of dishes to be washed after dinner.

My first job in the morning was laying the coal fire, and I carried on doing it until I left home at 21 to get married. When I got back from my honeymoon, they had taken out the coal fireplace and replaced it with an state of the art gas fire!

I think I started getting pocket money at 5, and always had to earn it. Obviously at 5 it was just putting my toys away, eating my veg etc and I think my folks were pretty generous with the rules 😄

The older I got, the more responsibility I had. I got pocket money/allowance until I left home at 19. I think it was €100 per week for the last 2-3 years, but I had a laundry list of chores to get it. I had a paper round from 14 that paid 50 a week, so I was doing alright 😅

Chores my nearly 8yo has include setting the table, putting fruit/veg and snacks away after a shop, scraping and putting own plate etc in dishwasher, putting laundry in and out of the washing machine, tidying her room with help. And tidying up after herself (ideally).

Again, because she is a member of the home not because of pocket money.

I have a sub savings account for her and will pay and transfer the money out when she sees something she wants. She does have some cash too. Maybe not the best way to help her learn.

Ours had a set amount of pocket money. When they were younger they also had a coin jar which we used very much like the school marble jar, so for example each child got say £1 automatically , but their coin jar also had a pound of 2ps or 5ps and if they misbehaved a coin was taken out. They also had the opportunity to earn the coin back or earn an extra coin by doing something well. At the end of the week the coins were counted and they got the amount in the jar on top of their regular pocket money. Because it was only small denomination coins nobody ended up with much more or less than anyone else

I waited until they were 11 and had their own bank accounts and debit cards. They had the independence to take themselves off to the shop to spend it how they liked.
Not linked to chores but given on the understanding that they kept their rooms tidy, did their homework and did any other house jobs I needed them to do.

My 10 year old gets £2.50 per week that doesn’t sound much but she doesn’t really spend it unless we are on holiday/day out so soon builds up
ages 6-9 it wasn’t chore based - now age 10 she is doing more off her own initiative - she’ll tidy downstairs whilst I’m putting her siblings to bed and she puts away her own ironing and helps with her siblings (getting them drinks etc)

I have no clue. We end up just buying things as pp said but in reason.

We want to introduce some kind of allowance. But how much? Surely the point is to kind of say "well you can spend this today or you could save it" but you can't spend £1 or £1.50. that doesn't even buy a chocolate bar or a colouring book in the shops near me! They'd have to save for about a year to buy a doll.