Parent Thread

The lesson is priceless, so many young adults have no concept of paying bills. Besides, in the long run $100 a week per kid is not bad, esp after $25 goes back to mom and dad, and then $25 more goes into the savings account.

+1 man, better than what we do. We give a $50 stipend each month (in cash, not magic debit card money). The deal is that we pay for food and shelter, all her other stuff comes out of the $50 a month that she decides to spend. I actually like LUrkingdirk's thing better and I plan on approaching the wife about it. Will give you credit heh.

Jalynfane said:

The lesson is priceless, so many young adults have no concept of paying bills. Besides, in the long run $100 a week per kid is not bad, esp after $25 goes back to mom and dad, and then $25 more goes into the savings account.

+1 man, better than what we do. We give a $50 stipend each month (in cash, not magic debit card money). The deal is that we pay for food and shelter, all her other stuff comes out of the $50 a month that she decides to spend. I actually like LUrkingdirk's thing better and I plan on approaching the wife about it. Will give you credit heh.

Click to expand...

He puts out $2000, $500 comes back in rent, $500 comes back in paying bills (remember, $25 per week per kid pays bills), so hes really out $1000 a month.

Of that $1000, he's putting $500 into a savings account for his kids. so he's really only handing out $500 a month. $100 per kid per month into an individual savings seems like not that much. I garun-fucking-tee you they can afford move in fees for their first apartment, and a car.

Lets say he did this starting at age 5, thats $1200 a year into savings, or by time their 16, $13,200. Say they buy themselves a nice used car at 16 years old for $7000, that leaves $6200, they have a car and a decent savings account to start working with. If they were to work part time, they're probably pulling in at least $400/mo. This would allow them to put back double, and pocket double, what Dirk is paying them. that gives them another $4800 by time they move out at 18, for $10,800. They then either go to college with a chunk of money or move into the workforce with a chunk of money. They will also have a car that'll last them another few years at least.

All while having a good, solid concept of how to budget, use money, etc..

He's setting the up for fucking success. Thats worth $1000/mo. If I could turn my TWO kids into productive, smart citizens for only $1000/mo, I fucking would.

Half the money comes back immediately, half of the remaining goes into savings for college. Yeah, the initial outlay may feel big, it works out to be pretty good for everyone, including us providing the money. We're going to give the kids spending money anyway, and we're going to be saving for college anyway, and all of those things are covered in this. $2K a month to get ready for college, teach kids about money, have everyone saving money for the future? I'm good with that.

Oh definitely, not arguing the method, just suggesting where the $2k figure arrived from. Might do something similar to my little fella when hes old enough. Chances are were going to start dropping cash into an account for him now, so he has a few pennies to go to university with.

lurkingdirk said:

Half the money comes back immediately, half of the remaining goes into savings for college. Yeah, the initial outlay may feel big, it works out to be pretty good for everyone, including us providing the money. We're going to give the kids spending money anyway, and we're going to be saving for college anyway, and all of those things are covered in this. $2K a month to get ready for college, teach kids about money, have everyone saving money for the future? I'm good with that.

Click to expand...

No, dude, I'm on board, it's a great idea. It has always bothered me how school taught me a bunch of worthless shit or stuff i could have learned on my own time, but didn't teach finances, paying taxes, civics, etc. This is a great teaching tool. My only concern was for the money. For me, it would be about 1200 per month. When they're older I could swing that, when day care isn't such an expense and the wife has steady income. Of course by then money will be worth less so I'm fucked either way.

chaos said:

No, dude, I'm on board, it's a great idea. It has always bothered me how school taught me a bunch of worthless shit or stuff i could have learned on my own time, but didn't teach finances, paying taxes, civics, etc. This is a great teaching tool. My only concern was for the money. For me, it would be about 1200 per month. When they're older I could swing that, when day care isn't such an expense and the wife has steady income. Of course by then money will be worth less so I'm fucked either way.

Click to expand...

Dude, make it 20$ a month instead of a 100$. Do whatever works for you guys. This started with the idea from my kids' classroom. They had a teacher who did a classroom thing with monopoly money. Kids had to pay rent for desks, and they had a whole structure like that. We developed it for at home. We think these are good lessons that we wish we had been given as kids.

Jalynfane said:

The lesson is priceless, so many young adults have no concept of paying bills. Besides, in the long run $100 a week per kid is not bad, esp after $25 goes back to mom and dad, and then $25 more goes into the savings account.

+1 man, better than what we do. We give a $50 stipend each month (in cash, not magic debit card money). The deal is that we pay for food and shelter, all her other stuff comes out of the $50 a month that she decides to spend. I actually like LUrkingdirk's thing better and I plan on approaching the wife about it. Will give you credit heh.

Click to expand...

I actually just spoke to my wife about a similar plan. I really like it a lot in the fact that it gives a child defined responsibility. Currently my daughter has none (she's 5, we don't see a problem with her being a kid). But I really do like the idea of how things work. She's under the impression that if she wants something, she just has to beg until it appears. She's asked neighbors to buy her toys before, which is bullshit. She got in trouble for that one.

Anyway, we live in an apartment complex where we aren't really responsible for anything except what's in the house. She's a little too small to handle the vacuum cleaner, but she can clean up her room. She can't reach the sink to do dishes either.
In a situation like ours, what type of jobs would you give a child to earn an allowance? We aren't quite at the $100/week range that lurking appears to be in. But we can probably justify enough, assuming that guaranteed $$ is coming back to us every month in the form of rent or food. Now we just need to come up with chores. As well as a "raise" system. That way she's never intimidated by bosses.

Get a good dust-buster sized vacuum, have her vacuum the cars out and remove trash from the vehicles each week. We started there. There are also tasks that won't actually get you anything, but will give her duties each week - have her wash windows. They's look terrible, but she'll have something to do each week. We try to find crap for the kids to do so they have responsibility and can say "I did this every week!" You'd be surprised how much that actually motivates kids.

One additional thing we do is that each of my kids helps me make dinner one night a week. One on one we cook a meal for the family. It's expected of them, and they find ways to help out. And, in the mean time, they're learning how to make meals for a family. Also, I get to spend about 45 minutes with each of my kids every week, one on one, doing something we both like to do. They get to choose the menu, they tell the family what it is, there is pretty good vibes all around.

Windows is a great idea, thanks. Also the car vacuum & trash.

lurkingdirk said:

Get a good dust-buster sized vacuum, have her vacuum the cars out and remove trash from the vehicles each week. We started there. There are also tasks that won't actually get you anything, but will give her duties each week - have her wash windows. They's look terrible, but she'll have something to do each week. We try to find crap for the kids to do so they have responsibility and can say "I did this every week!" You'd be surprised how much that actually motivates kids.

One additional thing we do is that each of my kids helps me make dinner one night a week. One on one we cook a meal for the family. It's expected of them, and they find ways to help out. And, in the mean time, they're learning how to make meals for a family. Also, I get to spend about 45 minutes with each of my kids every week, one on one, doing something we both like to do. They get to choose the menu, they tell the family what it is, there is pretty good vibes all around.

Click to expand...

That's good stuff man. On the cooking stuff - my wife left home with no idea how to cook for herself, do laundry, do dishes, clean bathrooms, etc. Because of the way I was raised, I was a goddamn pro at it. We did a lot of chores and my wife acts like my parents robbed me of my childhood but the truth is they set us up to be self-sufficient. They did many things wrong but that wasn't one of them.

Yeah. I met a lot of grown men in the military who couldn't do basic shit. Operate a washing machine, load a dishwasher, follow directions on a box of mac and cheese. I'm pretty insistent that my kids do not end up like that, and they're already learning some basic stuff.

Noodleface said:

That's good stuff man. On the cooking stuff - my wife left home with no idea how to cook for herself, do laundry, do dishes, clean bathrooms, etc. Because of the way I was raised, I was a goddamn pro at it. We did a lot of chores and my wife acts like my parents robbed me of my childhood but the truth is they set us up to be self-sufficient. They did many things wrong but that wasn't one of them.

Click to expand...

chaos said:

Yeah. I met a lot of grown men in the military who couldn't do basic shit. Operate a washing machine, load a dishwasher, follow directions on a box of mac and cheese. I'm pretty insistent that my kids do not end up like that, and they're already learning some basic stuff.

Click to expand...

This is so much part of what my wife and I want for our kids. Yeah, we work them hard, but they have their free time and friends and electronics and so forth. When my kids leave home (they all seem university bound with one possible trade school), they are going to know how to cook, do laundry, manage a budget, and so forth. I love my kids like you can't believe, and I will do nearly anything for them. Preparing them for adulthood seems like a good gift.

Now, I screw plenty of things up as a parent, too. I find it is really hard to be totally consistent with different children. The rules for my oldest (the twins) about when they are out and when they have to be home and all that are not the same rules for my second oldest (2 years younger). The twins we don't have to make rules. They'll always be home before midnight, they'll never drink, they'll be responsible. My middle one? She's going to need strict rules as soon as she can drive, and she's going to call us out on this because her sisters didn't have the same rules. Does that make me a shitty parent? I dunno.

Also, how do you folks deal with getting kids going in the morning? Believe it or not, my youngest, 9 years old, is just impossible to get out of bed in the morning. Consequently, there are many mornings that begin with yelling and fussing and fuming. There are days he simply has to get up and going (like school days), and he outright refuses. There have been times I have physically picked him up and stood him up. That goes over big. What do you folks do?

Grats.

I think my 3 year old is going to be a lawyer. My wife gave her the spiel about teeth under the pillow getting 1 or 2 bucks and she asked if she put her sister's teeth under the pillow would be worth more, being that older sister is "bigger" (16).

My little lad just turned 5 months and is right on the cusp of crawling, he gets properly angry when it doesn't go right though heh. He's worked out that he can barrel roll pretty much where he wants to go though, and for some odd reason loves it with his head under the chair. Take your eye off him for 2 seconds and he rolls himself under, take him out and he pulls himself back in, hes a weirdo.

Huge huge YUGE relief that our little guy did awesome today before my wife went home. I figured he'd be fine but my wife was stressing out majorly about it.
That's the worst part of the surgery. Not seeing him for at least a week. No body slams, suplexes, or powerbombs for the foreseeable future too. Talk about major bummer.

Kalaar kururuc said:

My little lad just turned 5 months and is right on the cusp of crawling, he gets properly angry when it doesn't go right though heh. He's worked out that he can barrel roll pretty much where he wants to go though, and for some odd reason loves it with his head under the chair. Take your eye off him for 2 seconds and he rolls himself under, take him out and he pulls himself back in, hes a weirdo.

View attachment 147740

Click to expand...

Little guy is a mechanic