Pocket money

[cmm]

Hi! My daughter will be going to P1 next year and just like to check with all the experienced mommies & daddies in this forum how much pocket money is considered a reasonable amount?


Do you give pocket money on a daily basis or weekly?

[mumwgals]

You may want to go to the sch canteen & do a survey, check on the prices of the food that your child will usually eat, as all sch canteen have different charges.


In her sch, a simple plate of nasi lemak cost $0.50 (just rice with a small piece of egg & some ikan billies0, a bowl of fishball noodle cost $1. I prepared snack box for my P3 to bring to sch, and I give her $1.50 on days that she need not stay back in sch and $3 on days that she stay back for CCA. I give on daily basis and she has a note book since P1 to record her spending and saving everyday after school.

[ChiefKiasu]

mumwgals:

You may want to go to the sch canteen & do a survey, check on the prices of the food that your child will usually eat, as all sch canteen have different charges.


In her sch, a simple plate of nasi lemak cost $0.50 (just rice with a small piece of egg & some ikan billies0, a bowl of fishball noodle cost $1. I prepared snack box for my P3 to bring to sch, and I give her $1.50 on days that she need not stay back in sch and $3 on days that she stay back for CCA. I give on daily basis and she has a note book since P1 to record her spending and saving everyday after school.

We're a little bit more generous - $1.75 per day to cater for inflation :). Also, we tried to give him on a weekly basis, but found that he still lacked discipline with his money - so had to continue to do it on a daily basis. Will probably try again in P4.

[heutistmeintag]

Well, if this is any helpful to you…


my kids (P5/P6) are not given money for transport - they walk there or sometimes I send by car. Daily allowance is about $1.20 each for food and they are given $5 emergency money. If they need to stay alittle longer, they get $3 extra for lunch. Sometimes, it’s almost a full day and they get $5 extra. These are all food allowances, we still pay for their stationaries, handphone bills etc. We are micro-managing quite a bit, we are afterall KSPs! LOL

Currently, they can save alittle but have given in to temptations to buy Habbo cards and other stuff. So, we restrict their budgets and monitor their expenses. When they go secondary school, we intend to empower them by giving them weekly allowance. Still contemplating if we want them to manage budget for their handphone bills though…

I have a friend who give his kids $10/day and the kids manage all expenses on their own. So I guess there are quite diverse practices.

[sunflower]

The price of food in her school's canteen is not too expensive, so I don't really give much. When she was in P1, I usually packed some snack for her to bring to school. So on those days, I didn't give pocket money.


P1 -> $0.50 daily (on days without snack brought to sch)
P2 -> increased to $0.70 daily
P3 -> $0.70 daily, $1.50 if needed to stay back in school for CCA
P4 -> $6.00 weekly, including the one day that she needs to stay back for CCA.

The reason I give weekly in P4 is so that she learn to manage her money. ie. she'll have to decide whether to save those that are not spent or spend the money to buy cute stationary in the school's bookshop, which most of the time are not necessary.

Well, occasionally, she'll buy cute things to show me (that's when I usually say she's spending unnecessarily, unless what she bought was really good). Anyway, she'll usually save the money in her piggy bank and when she has saved up to $20, I'll put the money in her OCBC Mighty Savers bank account.

[cmm]

Thanks for all the information !


Guess I'll check out the food price at her school canteen like mumwgals suggested ..... but I guess for a start $1.50 +- should be about right.

[MMM]

We started off with $2. This will cater for food, drinks and snacks in school. But she seldom buy so many thing so she will actually save the balance on a daily basis. She asked to go for some maths enrichment classes so I am asking her to contribute since she asked for it. She is currently paying $10 a month for that though not on a regular basis ever since I changed the piggy bank to one that cannot be open. In between if she does well, we will reward her (eg. full marks for a difficult paper, we will give her $5) or if she does badly (eg below the last test results) she needs to pay for it. I really made her pay so she become conscious of her performance.


Now hubby considering to raise to $2.50 in view of inflation. She told us that those $0.50 noodles is really little and miserable.

[jedamum]

MMM:

or if she does badly (eg below the last test results) she needs to pay for it. I really made her pay so she become conscious of her performance.

hm...this needs to be tread on carefully as I am guilty of trying to cheat cos I was promised of monetary rewards on achieving of full marks. :oops:
I have since reformed.

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

Hi MMM


I like your approach. The only different is that my children gets to buy tidbits once in a while with their piggy bank money that comes from the balance of their daily allowance. The saved money can be used to buy families birthday presents. I give them daily $1 each which my daughter often spend all & my son only spend at most $0.50 (sometime a miserable of $0.20 & the rest in the piggy bank).

Since I’m a working mother, any extra work that they put on revision, will earn them $1. I try $0.50 but was told off by my son that $0.50 can’t buy much things & he won’t get rich saving $0.50 per day.

So in all it is either $1 or $2 unless it is eca day which usually is more.

[ctct61t]

sunflower:

The price of food in her school's canteen is not too expensive, so I don't really give much. When she was in P1, I usually packed some snack for her to bring to school. So on those days, I didn't give pocket money.


P1 -> $0.50 daily (on days without snack brought to sch)
P2 -> increased to $0.70 daily
P3 -> $0.70 daily, $1.50 if needed to stay back in school for CCA
P4 -> $6.00 weekly, including the one day that she needs to stay back for CCA.

The reason I give weekly in P4 is so that she learn to manage her money. ie. she'll have to decide whether to save those that are not spent or spend the money to buy cute stationary in the school's bookshop, which most of the time are not necessary.

Well, occasionally, she'll buy cute things to show me (that's when I usually say she's spending unnecessarily, unless what she bought was really good). Anyway, she'll usually save the money in her piggy bank and when she has saved up to $20, I'll put the money in her OCBC Mighty Savers bank account.

This will be my prefer method.