3-On Your Side: Allowance Advice
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Now that kids are back in school, it's a good time to think about giving your child an allowance if they don't have one already. But what's appropriate these days, and what's not? Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan has some advice.
Lucy Chen gives six year-old Isabella an allowance of three dollars a week and lets her daughter decide how much of it to spend, save, donate and invest. Lucy says, "I think that she views money differently because of the fact that she's learned to be responsible with it."
62 percent of parents today give their children a regular allowance. The average amount? $12 a week. While it was once popular to tie an allowance to chores, most experts now discourage this saying chores are a child's responsibility as a member of the family.
Family finance expert Erica Sandberg says, "If you expect them to clean their room, don't tie that to the allowance. Now if you expect them to maybe clean the garage, that's maybe going to be a little more extensive, pay them for it."
Today, there are mobile phone apps and websites like smartpiggybank.com, to help parents schedule and track their child's allowance and spending. Those online banking tools help make it fun and easy for kids to monitor their savings.
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