When you were a kid did you get an allowance? IF so, what did you spend it on?
When I'd get my allowance on Fridays my friend and I would ride our horses to the 7-11 tie them up outside, and go inside, buy a Reeses and a Slurpee. Then we'd get a sugar high and ride around on our horses for a few hours like that.:p
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
-
WonderWendy3
- Posts: 12412
- Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 7:44 am
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
I didn't get an allowance, but every once in a while I'd get money for doing chores here and there....and I'd go down to the drug fair and spend it ALL on candy!!! back in those there days $2.00 bought a LOT of candy!!
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
i babysitted for alot of people and earned my own money...when i was as young as nine i kept three kids during the summer for their parents to work twelve hour shifts..i always thought i was grown...:p
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
I remember getting about 50p a day for helping round the house and i just used to get a drink, packet of crisps and a couple of choc bars.
So when my mum gave me £3.00 once, i thought i was loaded :wah:
So when my mum gave me £3.00 once, i thought i was loaded :wah:
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
cinamin;715050 wrote: When you were a kid did you get an allowance? IF so, what did you spend it on?
I have a vivid memory of this question arising though it was a generation later than the OP raises. A deputation of all four of my children accosted me in the kitchen when the eldest was in Grade 2. They'd been discussing her discovery that alone among her cohort she received no pocket money and they felt this was a matter into which they could legitimately enquire. Why, they asked in aggrieved tones, were they penurious in this age of plenty. How had they offended to the extent that they were singled out for insult in this manner. Where, in effect, was their share of the loot. Divvy up, they said, fix a respectable going rate and satisfy their equitable demand for justice.
We started by negotiating what they felt was a fair sum in this day and age. I provided them with an historical context, explained the nature of inflation and brought out instances of their classmates' (I thought) boastful claims of as much as £10 a week clothing allowance and how much of that was expected to transform into chocolate and toys. We found a figure they were excited at, thereby completing phase one of the meeting.
But are you quite sure you want to fall for that old con trick, I asked them. I know perfectly well what the mechanism exists for and you'd do well to stay away from accepting. It's a trap. Once you start down this hand-out route, every time you want something from a shop you'll be expected to buy it for yourself. Any self-respecting parent who hands out a fixed dole does it in order to make the child aware of the value of money, of the need for planned saving and the essential role that "no" has in making the child realize money can only be spent once, when it's gone it's gone, choose what you want most and give up all hope of satisfying all desire. That's no way for a child to be introduced to the world and I was trying to protect them from grim reality by isolating them from cash and its logical consequence.
You may, I told the four of them, sign up for this fixed payment at which point I'll be obliged to limit their outgoings to the sum agreed. The alternative is for them to ask me nicely never to go near the idea of pocket money with them and to invariably buy them whatever they could offer a coherent reasonable request for until they left home at some unimaginable distance into the future. Now's your moment, I said, choose for all time, do you want pocket money or do you want to rely on your wide-eyed soulful appeal from an authentic position of true poverty. They went off for a five minute huddle and came back begging to shelve the pocket money issue for all time, they wanted none of it. They learned two important things that day, the second of which was the word "obliquity".
They did, of course, get cheques from relatives on their birthdays and at Christmas, they had a respectable income from relatives' visits in the form of hard cash and they all became familiar to the staff of the local Bradford and Bingley branch office where they opened savings accounts. The younger boy became notorious for showing up there early on Saturday mornings to draw £5, to spend all day with his siblings around the thrift shops on the student drag and to return before closing time to deposit £4.38 or so back into his account having negotiated acceptably low prices on the trinkets in the windows that he'd been most attracted to during the week. He came home with an obsolete schooldesk one weekend, did it up and his sister used it for homework study until she left for university. It's surprising how rarely they needed to invoke the pact as far as "we get no allowance, could we please have..." which they'd extracted, but they always remembered it existed and they fell back on it when their sense of humour came to the fore. I did check a couple of years later and sure enough, they were the only children they knew of who received no weekly allowance. They felt quite smug about it when they told me.
I have a vivid memory of this question arising though it was a generation later than the OP raises. A deputation of all four of my children accosted me in the kitchen when the eldest was in Grade 2. They'd been discussing her discovery that alone among her cohort she received no pocket money and they felt this was a matter into which they could legitimately enquire. Why, they asked in aggrieved tones, were they penurious in this age of plenty. How had they offended to the extent that they were singled out for insult in this manner. Where, in effect, was their share of the loot. Divvy up, they said, fix a respectable going rate and satisfy their equitable demand for justice.
We started by negotiating what they felt was a fair sum in this day and age. I provided them with an historical context, explained the nature of inflation and brought out instances of their classmates' (I thought) boastful claims of as much as £10 a week clothing allowance and how much of that was expected to transform into chocolate and toys. We found a figure they were excited at, thereby completing phase one of the meeting.
But are you quite sure you want to fall for that old con trick, I asked them. I know perfectly well what the mechanism exists for and you'd do well to stay away from accepting. It's a trap. Once you start down this hand-out route, every time you want something from a shop you'll be expected to buy it for yourself. Any self-respecting parent who hands out a fixed dole does it in order to make the child aware of the value of money, of the need for planned saving and the essential role that "no" has in making the child realize money can only be spent once, when it's gone it's gone, choose what you want most and give up all hope of satisfying all desire. That's no way for a child to be introduced to the world and I was trying to protect them from grim reality by isolating them from cash and its logical consequence.
You may, I told the four of them, sign up for this fixed payment at which point I'll be obliged to limit their outgoings to the sum agreed. The alternative is for them to ask me nicely never to go near the idea of pocket money with them and to invariably buy them whatever they could offer a coherent reasonable request for until they left home at some unimaginable distance into the future. Now's your moment, I said, choose for all time, do you want pocket money or do you want to rely on your wide-eyed soulful appeal from an authentic position of true poverty. They went off for a five minute huddle and came back begging to shelve the pocket money issue for all time, they wanted none of it. They learned two important things that day, the second of which was the word "obliquity".
They did, of course, get cheques from relatives on their birthdays and at Christmas, they had a respectable income from relatives' visits in the form of hard cash and they all became familiar to the staff of the local Bradford and Bingley branch office where they opened savings accounts. The younger boy became notorious for showing up there early on Saturday mornings to draw £5, to spend all day with his siblings around the thrift shops on the student drag and to return before closing time to deposit £4.38 or so back into his account having negotiated acceptably low prices on the trinkets in the windows that he'd been most attracted to during the week. He came home with an obsolete schooldesk one weekend, did it up and his sister used it for homework study until she left for university. It's surprising how rarely they needed to invoke the pact as far as "we get no allowance, could we please have..." which they'd extracted, but they always remembered it existed and they fell back on it when their sense of humour came to the fore. I did check a couple of years later and sure enough, they were the only children they knew of who received no weekly allowance. They felt quite smug about it when they told me.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
Who has a spare two minutes to play in this month's FG Trivia game! ... My other OS is Slackware.
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
We all had chores we were expected to do. We did not get an allowance for those. If we needed money for something like going to a movie with a friend, there was always something extra we could do to earn the money.
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
That's a really interesting and thought-provoking post Spot. 
I also had no allowance and like guppy I was babysitting from the age of 9 in order to earn pennies to spend. I used to charge the grand old sum of 10p per hour and remember caring for my mum's friends daughter for 9 hours at a time and being paid 90p. I remember being quite miffed that she didn't round it up to a pound.
My sister, the apple of my mothers eye, was given all of her weekly child benefit to spend, about £13 per week, at the time. She also used to steal clothes, books and food from shops, God knows how she was never caught! Meanwhile, I was always scrupulously honest and never did any of those things.
Interestingly, she lied on her mortgage application and now owns her own house. I can't afford a house and live in damp rented accomodation. Its interesting because, going back to an earlier post of Spot's, what goes around doesn't seem to come around. I'm honest but poor, she's always been a deceitful toe-rag but she has everything she wants.
Sorry to hijack your thread, cinamin, I was just thinking that life isn't always fair and people get what they don't deserve.
I also had no allowance and like guppy I was babysitting from the age of 9 in order to earn pennies to spend. I used to charge the grand old sum of 10p per hour and remember caring for my mum's friends daughter for 9 hours at a time and being paid 90p. I remember being quite miffed that she didn't round it up to a pound.
My sister, the apple of my mothers eye, was given all of her weekly child benefit to spend, about £13 per week, at the time. She also used to steal clothes, books and food from shops, God knows how she was never caught! Meanwhile, I was always scrupulously honest and never did any of those things.
Interestingly, she lied on her mortgage application and now owns her own house. I can't afford a house and live in damp rented accomodation. Its interesting because, going back to an earlier post of Spot's, what goes around doesn't seem to come around. I'm honest but poor, she's always been a deceitful toe-rag but she has everything she wants.
Sorry to hijack your thread, cinamin, I was just thinking that life isn't always fair and people get what they don't deserve.
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
spot;715076 wrote: I have a vivid memory of this question arising though it was a generation later than the OP raises. A deputation of all four of my children accosted me in the kitchen when the eldest was in Grade 2. They'd been discussing her discovery that alone among her cohort she received no pocket money and they felt this was a matter into which they could legitimately enquire. Why, they asked in aggrieved tones, were they penurious in this age of plenty. How had they offended to the extent that they were singled out for insult in this manner. Where, in effect, was their share of the loot. Divvy up, they said, fix a respectable going rate and satisfy their equitable demand for justice.
We started by negotiating what they felt was a fair sum in this day and age. I provided them with an historical context, explained the nature of inflation and brought out instances of their classmates' (I thought) boastful claims of as much as £10 a week clothing allowance and how much of that was expected to transform into chocolate and toys. We found a figure they were excited at, thereby completing phase one of the meeting.
But are you quite sure you want to fall for that old con trick, I asked them. I know perfectly well what the mechanism exists for and you'd do well to stay away from accepting. It's a trap. Once you start down this hand-out route, every time you want something from a shop you'll be expected to buy it for yourself. Any self-respecting parent who hands out a fixed dole does it in order to make the child aware of the value of money, of the need for planned saving and the essential role that "no" has in making the child realize money can only be spent once, when it's gone it's gone, choose what you want most and give up all hope of satisfying all desire. That's no way for a child to be introduced to the world and I was trying to protect them from grim reality by isolating them from cash and its logical consequence.
You may, I told the four of them, sign up for this fixed payment at which point I'll be obliged to limit their outgoings to the sum agreed. The alternative is for them to ask me nicely never to go near the idea of pocket money with them and to invariably buy them whatever they could offer a coherent reasonable request for until they left home at some unimaginable distance into the future. Now's your moment, I said, choose for all time, do you want pocket money or do you want to rely on your wide-eyed soulful appeal from an authentic position of true poverty. They went off for a five minute huddle and came back begging to shelve the pocket money issue for all time, they wanted none of it. They learned two important things that day, the second of which was the word "obliquity".
They did, of course, get cheques from relatives on their birthdays and at Christmas, they had a respectable income from relatives' visits in the form of hard cash and they all became familiar to the staff of the local Bradford and Bingley branch office where they opened savings accounts. The younger boy became notorious for showing up there early on Saturday mornings to draw £5, to spend all day with his siblings around the thrift shops on the student drag and to return before closing time to deposit £4.38 or so back into his account having negotiated acceptably low prices on the trinkets in the windows that he'd been most attracted to during the week. He came home with an obsolete schooldesk one weekend, did it up and his sister used it for homework study until she left for university. It's surprising how rarely they needed to invoke the pact as far as "we get no allowance, could we please have..." which they'd extracted, but they always remembered it existed and they fell back on it when their sense of humour came to the fore. I did check a couple of years later and sure enough, they were the only children they knew of who received no weekly allowance. They felt quite smug about it when they told me.
that is awesome!
It should be published somewhere.
We started by negotiating what they felt was a fair sum in this day and age. I provided them with an historical context, explained the nature of inflation and brought out instances of their classmates' (I thought) boastful claims of as much as £10 a week clothing allowance and how much of that was expected to transform into chocolate and toys. We found a figure they were excited at, thereby completing phase one of the meeting.
But are you quite sure you want to fall for that old con trick, I asked them. I know perfectly well what the mechanism exists for and you'd do well to stay away from accepting. It's a trap. Once you start down this hand-out route, every time you want something from a shop you'll be expected to buy it for yourself. Any self-respecting parent who hands out a fixed dole does it in order to make the child aware of the value of money, of the need for planned saving and the essential role that "no" has in making the child realize money can only be spent once, when it's gone it's gone, choose what you want most and give up all hope of satisfying all desire. That's no way for a child to be introduced to the world and I was trying to protect them from grim reality by isolating them from cash and its logical consequence.
You may, I told the four of them, sign up for this fixed payment at which point I'll be obliged to limit their outgoings to the sum agreed. The alternative is for them to ask me nicely never to go near the idea of pocket money with them and to invariably buy them whatever they could offer a coherent reasonable request for until they left home at some unimaginable distance into the future. Now's your moment, I said, choose for all time, do you want pocket money or do you want to rely on your wide-eyed soulful appeal from an authentic position of true poverty. They went off for a five minute huddle and came back begging to shelve the pocket money issue for all time, they wanted none of it. They learned two important things that day, the second of which was the word "obliquity".
They did, of course, get cheques from relatives on their birthdays and at Christmas, they had a respectable income from relatives' visits in the form of hard cash and they all became familiar to the staff of the local Bradford and Bingley branch office where they opened savings accounts. The younger boy became notorious for showing up there early on Saturday mornings to draw £5, to spend all day with his siblings around the thrift shops on the student drag and to return before closing time to deposit £4.38 or so back into his account having negotiated acceptably low prices on the trinkets in the windows that he'd been most attracted to during the week. He came home with an obsolete schooldesk one weekend, did it up and his sister used it for homework study until she left for university. It's surprising how rarely they needed to invoke the pact as far as "we get no allowance, could we please have..." which they'd extracted, but they always remembered it existed and they fell back on it when their sense of humour came to the fore. I did check a couple of years later and sure enough, they were the only children they knew of who received no weekly allowance. They felt quite smug about it when they told me.
that is awesome!
It should be published somewhere.
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
spot;715076 wrote: I have a vivid memory of this question arising though it was a generation later than the OP raises. A deputation of all four of my children accosted me in the kitchen when the eldest was in Grade 2. They'd been discussing her discovery that alone among her cohort she received no pocket money and they felt this was a matter into which they could legitimately enquire. Why, they asked in aggrieved tones, were they penurious in this age of plenty. How had they offended to the extent that they were singled out for insult in this manner. Where, in effect, was their share of the loot. Divvy up, they said, fix a respectable going rate and satisfy their equitable demand for justice.
We started by negotiating what they felt was a fair sum in this day and age. I provided them with an historical context, explained the nature of inflation and brought out instances of their classmates' (I thought) boastful claims of as much as £10 a week clothing allowance and how much of that was expected to transform into chocolate and toys. We found a figure they were excited at, thereby completing phase one of the meeting.
But are you quite sure you want to fall for that old con trick, I asked them. I know perfectly well what the mechanism exists for and you'd do well to stay away from accepting. It's a trap. Once you start down this hand-out route, every time you want something from a shop you'll be expected to buy it for yourself. Any self-respecting parent who hands out a fixed dole does it in order to make the child aware of the value of money, of the need for planned saving and the essential role that "no" has in making the child realize money can only be spent once, when it's gone it's gone, choose what you want most and give up all hope of satisfying all desire. That's no way for a child to be introduced to the world and I was trying to protect them from grim reality by isolating them from cash and its logical consequence.
You may, I told the four of them, sign up for this fixed payment at which point I'll be obliged to limit their outgoings to the sum agreed. The alternative is for them to ask me nicely never to go near the idea of pocket money with them and to invariably buy them whatever they could offer a coherent reasonable request for until they left home at some unimaginable distance into the future. Now's your moment, I said, choose for all time, do you want pocket money or do you want to rely on your wide-eyed soulful appeal from an authentic position of true poverty. They went off for a five minute huddle and came back begging to shelve the pocket money issue for all time, they wanted none of it. They learned two important things that day, the second of which was the word "obliquity".
They did, of course, get cheques from relatives on their birthdays and at Christmas, they had a respectable income from relatives' visits in the form of hard cash and they all became familiar to the staff of the local Bradford and Bingley branch office where they opened savings accounts. The younger boy became notorious for showing up there early on Saturday mornings to draw £5, to spend all day with his siblings around the thrift shops on the student drag and to return before closing time to deposit £4.38 or so back into his account having negotiated acceptably low prices on the trinkets in the windows that he'd been most attracted to during the week. He came home with an obsolete schooldesk one weekend, did it up and his sister used it for homework study until she left for university. It's surprising how rarely they needed to invoke the pact as far as "we get no allowance, could we please have..." which they'd extracted, but they always remembered it existed and they fell back on it when their sense of humour came to the fore. I did check a couple of years later and sure enough, they were the only children they knew of who received no weekly allowance. They felt quite smug about it when they told me.
I did the same with my kids but I think I did it by just saying " I buy what you need and if you think you need more than I acquire for you then save your B-day money or get a job." I reckon our family meetings were probably less time consuming than Spots.:wah:
We started by negotiating what they felt was a fair sum in this day and age. I provided them with an historical context, explained the nature of inflation and brought out instances of their classmates' (I thought) boastful claims of as much as £10 a week clothing allowance and how much of that was expected to transform into chocolate and toys. We found a figure they were excited at, thereby completing phase one of the meeting.
But are you quite sure you want to fall for that old con trick, I asked them. I know perfectly well what the mechanism exists for and you'd do well to stay away from accepting. It's a trap. Once you start down this hand-out route, every time you want something from a shop you'll be expected to buy it for yourself. Any self-respecting parent who hands out a fixed dole does it in order to make the child aware of the value of money, of the need for planned saving and the essential role that "no" has in making the child realize money can only be spent once, when it's gone it's gone, choose what you want most and give up all hope of satisfying all desire. That's no way for a child to be introduced to the world and I was trying to protect them from grim reality by isolating them from cash and its logical consequence.
You may, I told the four of them, sign up for this fixed payment at which point I'll be obliged to limit their outgoings to the sum agreed. The alternative is for them to ask me nicely never to go near the idea of pocket money with them and to invariably buy them whatever they could offer a coherent reasonable request for until they left home at some unimaginable distance into the future. Now's your moment, I said, choose for all time, do you want pocket money or do you want to rely on your wide-eyed soulful appeal from an authentic position of true poverty. They went off for a five minute huddle and came back begging to shelve the pocket money issue for all time, they wanted none of it. They learned two important things that day, the second of which was the word "obliquity".
They did, of course, get cheques from relatives on their birthdays and at Christmas, they had a respectable income from relatives' visits in the form of hard cash and they all became familiar to the staff of the local Bradford and Bingley branch office where they opened savings accounts. The younger boy became notorious for showing up there early on Saturday mornings to draw £5, to spend all day with his siblings around the thrift shops on the student drag and to return before closing time to deposit £4.38 or so back into his account having negotiated acceptably low prices on the trinkets in the windows that he'd been most attracted to during the week. He came home with an obsolete schooldesk one weekend, did it up and his sister used it for homework study until she left for university. It's surprising how rarely they needed to invoke the pact as far as "we get no allowance, could we please have..." which they'd extracted, but they always remembered it existed and they fell back on it when their sense of humour came to the fore. I did check a couple of years later and sure enough, they were the only children they knew of who received no weekly allowance. They felt quite smug about it when they told me.
I did the same with my kids but I think I did it by just saying " I buy what you need and if you think you need more than I acquire for you then save your B-day money or get a job." I reckon our family meetings were probably less time consuming than Spots.:wah:
-
Indian Princess
- Posts: 1953
- Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:55 pm
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
Blamo bubble gum and Coca-Cola, raised out in the country would walk about a mile and a half to a place called Holz Apples, and you could get home made butter,etc. It was a chicken farm so I never understood where the name came from
WW that is sooooooooo cool, I am doing it
WW that is sooooooooo cool, I am doing it
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
Never got an allowance. When I was 7 I started my first business washing cars at an apartment complex that also included a neighborhood of actual owned homes. By the second week I had two neighborhood boys working for me and one of their older sisters handling the money. I was clearing, after paying the boys and the girl, 100-150 a week in cash. This was 23 years ago. let me tell you 150 bucks a week in cash for a 7 year old in 1984 was a lot of money.
Life ain't linear.
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
What's an allowance?:wah:
Did You Ever Get an Allowance?
Oh when I was 10 I sometimes worked in my parent's saddlery and tack shop. Because customers would go in and ask my mother for a hackamore or a certain type of saddle and she knew nothing about tack. So she'd call me and I'd have to go in and help, but it wasn't like work. And my dad had a side business with a man who had a horse ranch. They bought and sold untrained horses that were too small to be called horses and too large to be called ponies. The horses where 13 1/2 to 14 hands high. They'd give then to me for a few weeks. I'd ride them around on the trials and get them used to being around people and other horses. I'd ride them everywhere, bareback and saddled. And after a few weeks they'd be trained and could take jumps or just go trail riding. Then my dad and that man would sell them for lots more money than they bought them for. And I pretty much did it for fun.
Attached files
Attached files