Tuesday, August 31, 2010

September - Beginning the New Thriftier Me

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We renewed something at our house this week.


We have renewed my son's allowance. When we moved to Arizona we just kind of stopped with that. My son always did extra work around the house when he needed money, and that was enough, but lately, I have been thinking how important it is to get him to learn how to handle his own money and budget. He is a sophmore in high school, and he goes off campus every day and occasionally he wants to buy a snack. I am not going to bankroll off-campus snacks.

Alex (my son) and I discussed what kinds of chores he can do around the house that I am willing to pay for. Bedroom cleaning and playroom tidying do not count. Those are his spaces, and he should make his own effort to keep things clean. Afterall, no one is going to pay him to keep his own home clean someday. The criteria for me was basically what load can he take off of my shoulders since this money is coming from my wallet. We decided on vacuuming, sweeping, and landscaping. Twice a week, my son will vacuum the living room, sweep kitchen, vacuum the bedrooms (there are two), sweep the hallways, and vacuum the playroom. He has early days on Wednesdays so he will vacuum on then and the other day will be Saturday or Sunday. Landscaping really involves weed pulling right now and other yard maintenance for two hours on Saturday or Sunday.

I have a dual purpose on the yard work. I hate the weeds, but more than that I want him to spend more time outside. Vacuuming is something he really might as well get accustomed to as well. He was already vacuuming his room, but now he is learning about moving the furniture, edging along the wallAs for a rate, we agreed on paying him his age in cash. He is 15 so he will be making $15 a week.

Out of that $15, he needs to pay for his texting. He wanted this extended texting plan which is an additional $10 a month from what we pay. So he will be taking care of his texting plan. We also agreed that he needs to put money away. He figured that since he is already putting roughly $2.50 a week towards his text plan that it would be a decent idea to put $2.50 away in savings.

We are only a week in, but I have to say things are looking good!

Now my big concern is budgeting his allowance into my budget. I figure I will work it out in the next three months because in the next three months I will be writing down every dime I spend. Not easy to do but necessary. It is totally time to figure out where everything is going. :)

1 comment:

  1. I think when you start tracking how you spend, you develop a far greater respect for the little wasteful expenditures that add up! I'm sure you'll cover his allowance ok. :)

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