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Kids allowance – to give or not to give?

Kids Allowances

People seem to ask the same questions about kids allowances again and again.

“Should I give my child an allowance?”

“How much should I give my child as an allowance?”

“When should I start giving my child an allowance?”

“Will an allowance ruin my child’s entrepreneurial spirit?”

Allowances are a very touchy subject and it really comes down to each individual’s personal strategies for financial education for their child.
Teaching children about money can be very difficult and confusing for the parent as well.

Most of us were raised with the value that “money is evil”, or “you don’t need to have money to be happy.”

But have you had a good look around you lately? Can you find me a family who are in a lot of bad debt that are not stressing about their finances? Maybe money doesn’t make you happy but not having money will make you a lot more unhappy, I can tell you that for sure.

Just imagine, you have a recurring income of more than $10,000/month.
How would that feel? Would you feel stressfree because you are now able to pay off all of
your expenses and thereby not create any bad debt?
How will you feel when you have money left over at the end of every month instead of living paycheck to paycheck?

What if you were financially able to give away 10% of your income, every month, without even noticing the fiancial impact?
What would you give it to? Who would you like to help? How would it feel to be able to help others in need with the extra money that you are earning without even feeling the financial impact?
It would be a pretty awesome feeling right?

So how does this tie into the topic of allowances?

Some people suggest that Allowances are a way to teach their children about money.
Others suggest that allowances gives their kids the chance to learn to handle money without losing their shirt.

Here are some of my own suggestions on the topic to get your financial juices flowing.

Maybe when we give our child an allowance it might start to create the feeling of entitlement in our child?

What if by giving our child an allowance we were actually hindering their financially creative minds?

Would they be so used to just getting money that they wouldn’t even bother to come up with creative new ways to earn their own money?

And what about pride of ownership that comes when we are finally able to acquire our dreams by our own means instead of just as a gift from someone else?

These are just a few of the topics discussed in Allowance Secrets and for a limited time you can get it for free.

Allowance Secrets is the ultimate Guide to allowances. Over 20 experts have
contributed to this project.

Like to learn more about the subject? Click here

Celebrities, kids and money

Tori Spelling Will Teach Her Kids About Money
By Mia Saini – Anchor/Reporter for Forbes Video Network in New York City. 

 

Tori Spelling is synonymous with many things: 90210, Aaron Spelling’s daughter, and being super skinny. But few would categorize her as a businesswoman. But, over the past few years Tori Spelling has done a great job at excelling in the world of business and making a name for herself as an entrepreneur. She came into the Forbes studio do an interview with me about the business ventures she’s involved with. Check out my video interview with her to see how she balances business and motherhood.

Video: Tori Spelling Means Business

As the mom of two young children, Tori Spelling has her hands full constantly. She always wants to make sure that her children learn life’s lessons every day. On the topic of money, Tori was very candid. She told me she will make sure she teaches her children how to handle money, how to make great investments, and how to handle a checkbook.

“I had a very luxurious life, a life of wealth. Unfortunately, my parents really didn’t discuss money with us. We weren’t taught how to handle money. So when I started to make my own money on 90210, I didn’t know about savings, I didn’t know about investments. I had to learn the hard way. I had to go from having everything, to making it on my own, to losing everything, and then having to rebuild again the right way, but the smart way.”

What Celebrities Teach Their Kids About Money

The July issue of Money Smart Magazine contains an elightening interview with Terry Starr and Bradi Nathan founders of www.myworkbutterfly.com – a global social network providing a safe haven and resources for mothers contemplating a return to work while guiding working mums trying to manage it all.

Among their well known members are actors, designers, TV hosts and models.

Read the following extract from the interview.

Talk show host, Kathie Lee Gifford said  she’d be happy to do an interview with us and our site wasn’t even built yet, she really, truly believed in the mission and understood that this was something that women needed. We  have Emme who was the first plus sized super model, Gloria Allred, well known lawyer here in the States, she was actually recently on the Tiger Woods case. We also have designers, Liz Lange and Dana Buckman, Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of New York City and Dina Manzo from Real Housewives of New Jersey among many others.

Money Smart – In your view is being a celebrity parent a help or a hindrance to the children?

T & B – What we learned at the end of the day interviewing so many mums is that they are truly no different to Terry and me. They struggle with the same things that we do. Malaak Compton-Rock, for example, her husband is famous actor and comedian Chris Rock.

She constantly wrestles with guilt, she is a huge advocate for children’s rights and travels extensively to South Africa and at the same time as she is holding these orphans she thinks to herself I feel horrible that I am not home driving my children to their gymnastics class.

 So even though she is a celebrity in a sense, she still wrestles with the guilt that we do, so I don’t think she is any different. Just she has money or because her husband is more well known than ours. She has the same obstacles that we do.

Money Smart- So how much of an issue is it teaching their children about money?

T & B In an interview we did with Malaak she talks about rent is the service we give for living –  her children know that when they get a toy, they give a toy and they actually have a separate room in their house for those times when Malaak is going to go to South Africa. She brings those toys to the South African children and on the occasions when her kids come, they get great satisfaction  to see that child holding their toy. Great lessons. 

When she was sharing the story I thought wow, I sure wish I’d thought of that when my children were young because I think it’s a wonderful lesson that she’s teaching her children.

And then we have the celebrities that we’ve interviewed talk about the fact that it’s important for them to know that, and these are their words, they are blessed and they want their children to know that it’s important that they make a difference in the world and to give back.

It’s very inspiring.

Read the rest of the interview in Money Smart Magazine and listen to the full audio