Today’s guest post comes from Ben.
I was thinking about money and how our son hasn’t figured out the ‘saving’ part of it yet. (How long does that take anyway??)
The first thing I bought when I had my own checking account was a digital watch. Digital watches had just come out and I got a fancy Timex one like this.
The fact you had to push a button to see the time wasn’t such an inconvenience as you might imagine. Especially at 17 and having just bought a watch.
I started getting an allowance about age 8. It was a quarter each week. When I turned 9 I got a raise to $0.50 per week. When I turned 10 and was expected to start helping with the milking every night I asked for $0.75 and Dad offered me $1. I had already gotten a raise and I hadn’t even started!
I was in the barn all the time anyway so that milking requirement didn’t actually mean much. Although maybe Mom stopped calling me to come back to the house for my bath.
And it’s odd; I don’t really remember what happen to my allowance after that.
I bought a lot of Dennis the Menace comic books, the big ‘Pocket Full of Fun’ books. And I was pleased to have the entire collection.
When I was 18 we worked out an arrangement that I got part of the milk check and I paid related expenses. And I remember Mom telling me I was more responsible with money than my brother. Not that he and I ever talked about it.
The next big thing I remember buying was a waterbed. Mom and Dad went out of town for the weekend and when they came home I had a waterbed. Mom said she didn’t care, but I had to wash the sheets and make the bed myself. And that’s probably how I got in the habit of making the bed in the morning.
Our son was 10 when we started his allowance at $5 / week. But we weren’t very good at keeping up with it and he didn’t always ask so it gradually became $20/ month and then IOU’s and then it just sort of faded away. I’m not proud of that.
It’s interesting how spending money has changed. If we wanted something, we had to drive into town and actually write a check or pay cash. ‘ONLINE’ hadn’t been invented yet. But for kids today, middle of the night on their computer they order movies, music and camouflage Frisbee carriers. It takes awhile to get the concept that it’s still ‘real money’. How’s that old joke go? ‘I can’t be broke; I still have checks left.’
Did you get an allowance? What did you buy?
Trail Baboon 
Good Morning, baboons! If my memory serves, digital watches began appearing in the early 1970s. A young radio commentator at the time, Garrison Keillor, was outraged at the idea you had to use a hand to turn on the time display. He speculated about a watch that would be worn on the ankle so that it would take “two arms and a leg” to tell the time.
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Good morning. Thanks for the story about your introduction to money management, Ben. I was also given a small allowance when I was young and I think at first I spent most of it at the local grocery store for candy. There was a tempting selection of penny candies and 5 cent candy bars available there. Some of the money was also spent at the downtown Woolworth’s where they had a big selection of inexpensive toys I could purchase including rolls of caps for my cap gun.
My brother put me to shame by saving his money instead of spending it. Younger brothers can be irritating. I earned a small amount of extra money by catching crickets and selling them to a guy who sold them as fish bait.
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oh yeah caps . under the thumbnail sulfur burns remember?
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“Younger brothers can be irritating,” gives me a big smile, Jim.
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As a younger sister, I can also speak to our ability to be irritating… 🙂
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Having a younger sister, I can too!
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Being the little brother I will also attest to that.
I miss the rolls of caps. I laid them out on the steps and hit them with a hammer.
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This was my favorite method as well.
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We used rocks with our caps – love that whiff of gunpowder-y goodness.
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All right. I appreciate the comments both about younger siblings or being a younger sibling as well as the comments about caps. Those were the good old days or not so good old days.
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Greetings! We received a small allowance as children and we spent it on candy generally. It wasn’t enough to buy magazines or music. And saving money, no matter how I try — just doesn’t happen. We received a significant federal refund that I was hoping to pay off bills and put a couple thousand in savings. But just after paying a couple bills and paying back people we owe money, my job was cut from 40 to 20 hour a week, so we’ve been living off that refund for the last 6 weeks and now it’s gone. But still no job despite daily frantic searching, applying for everything I’m vaguely qualified for and interviewing.
After my parents died and left the kids a few thousand, Jim took a class and got a newsletter in penny stock trading. Picked a few good winners to try and invest the money. The winners we held on to while they rose, but then they fell drastically and we lost money. The losers actually gained money after a while, so we held them — but they, too dropped too quickly again for us to make any gains. Watching the little money we had fritter away was just too nerve-wracking, so we leave investing to the professionals. It’s all rigged against the majority of investors anyway it seems. I think we just have bad money karma.
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I know a few people who must have bad money karma. And it is frustrating when you’re trying your damnedest to make something, anything! work.
So sorry for your struggles.
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1974 or 5 is my first recall of the watch. we used to have sales promotions and the buyers could get free stuff if they ordered lots. a digital watch was one of the prizes you could claim
my allowence in 1960 was a dime. i worked my way up to a quarter by 3rd or 4th grade. it wasnt enough. i started working in 6th grade with a weekly paper route that eolved into a daily route. first afternoon then the coveted morning and sunday route. i think the paper route paid 35 a week so i was living high on the hog.
baseball cards when i was a little kid was the main expense. had to choose the 1 card for a penny with gum in each one or the 5 pack for a nickle with only on piece of gum but not as many doubles. tdaring cards riding bikes and building forts were the main occupations of my youth. clothes became inportant somewhere in there. going to catholic schools left me fashion deprved. bue cords blue shirt blue tie and black loafers is not very exciting so the cool stores downtown were only a 25 cent bus ride away. shoes for 10 dollars and buying a ring at the ring store on hennipen were big outings back then had a couple very cool mens stores too with all those late 60’s styles with psycodilic and hippy influences. great time to blow the dough.
i hated to see the banking at school go away. farmers and mechanics used to send the envelope to school every week and youd put a dime or a quarter in ther and eventually it would be 25 bucks or so. no one ever withdrew, only deposited. one girls had hundres but her grandparents and parents put big deposits int her for her regularly. she was kind of snotty about it. used ot save pop bottles found in the ditch for the 3 cents they would fetch, today i do hats. buy for 30 sell for a hundred. i have lots of hats today. kind of like pop bottles. i am stil not good at savings. one motovational tapes i listened to said it is possible to make 10,000 dollars a month and still be in financila trouble. how? spend 11,000 dollars a month, i think of that often and regret long term commitments made in weak moments. i learning still.
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I don’t remember any saving program for kids at my school. I did have a saving account where gifts of money given to me for my birthday and at Christmas were saved along with any other extra money that came my way. That saving was used up when it was needed to help with my college expenses.
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I remember the Farmers & Mechanics savings – it sort of petered out at my school long about 2nd or 3rd grade. I remember getting a notice maybe in high school or early college that whatever bank had bought F&M was going to close my account due to inactivity if I didn’t come and cash it out. You’re right – I think I had about $25 in it.
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I didn’t have an allowance as a kid. Back then, it was easy for a kid to do small jobs and get a little money for it. I mowed lawns for fifty cents (acquiring, in the process, a lifelong hatred of lawn maintenance). As I’ve posted earlier, I had paper routes for much of my childhood. I was allowed to keep a small amount of the earnings, with the rest going into savings.
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like linda i can hide my own easter eggs. i dont remember paper route stories. ever have a bag of papers so full of wrapped papers that when you went down to pull that bag strap up to your forehead so you could carry it you went over backwards? 75 sunday papers would tip me over on thanksgiving thursday and sundays after until christmas. what would they be 3 or 4 lbs. times 70 papers. no wonder i had a hard time . pulling a wagon or sled to get the papers to the neighborhood and doubling back for 15- 20 papers at a time and then off in the other direction. good planning exercise for a kid
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Running a paper route was a fascinating education, tim. Paper boys had to buy their own papers, which meant that if you couldn’t collect from the customers, you were left with a negative profit. That’s a quick way to learn some harsh economic realities. When I was just a little kid–too little to appreciate it–one of my female customers was a nudist. That was educational, too. It was oddly exciting to get up at 5 in the morning to go out in a nearly silent, dewy world to pick up your papers and then go up and down your route, putting papers right where they would be easy to pick up for some barefoot, half-awake customer. I used to have a golden retriever, Danny, who would wear saddlebags that were stuffed with newspapers. As we walked the route, I took papers from alternating sides of Danny so he wouldn’t have to walk with an unbalanced load. On “collection day” we would walk around with little metal coin changers on our belts, and we could kick out exact change by flipping the little levers (conductors wore the same things). When you ran into a customer who lied rather than paying up, you got another sort of education. One of my customers was a Polish woman who cooked cabbage in a way that filled her apartment with an odor that just about knocked me to my knees. I tried to hold my breath while collecting from her! One of my adventures doing my paper route involved my little beagle, who thought she was a cat. I’ll tell that sometime later.
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I have time go ahead
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I’d like to hear about the beagle. And the nudist! 🙂
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I helped with a paper route which I found interesting, but never had one myself. I learned to fold papers into a very tight wedges that could be propelled a long distance onto the front steps of customers.
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ot…daughters voice lesson dowtonwn yesterday at 430 was an interesting program. traffic on side streets was moving through bumper scraping muck with two wheel tracks throught he city. switching lanes was not advised. back roading it took 45 minutes to get form downtown to edn prairie,
11 inches of muck in chaska. got to be close here. i was very impressed that my snowblower was able to handle deep snow cone muck. i hour of blowing out the stuff and by the time i was done it was an inch deep again. 4 more this morning.
son arrived form la last night . plane held up a couple of hours to wait for the airport to get a hole in their landing schedule. he is not impressed buy his april welcome. but think of the poor bride and her vision of a beautiful spring wedding.
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It is deep here. I did not come home from work last night until rush hour was done–about 7:00pm. Took about 40 min. I was pouting about all this snow until I heard that Grand M on the N. Shore got 22 inches and it is still snowing. Oh My.
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cleveland to river road to 494 to cedar to old shokopee to riverview rd? 494 was a parking lot
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16 inches of gludge at the bottom of my driveway from the plows this morning. I came down 100 and saw three different places where someone earlier had swerved off the main lanes (just between 50th street and 494). But 100 was remarkably clear and not nearly as much traffic as on regular days.
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I like gludge; well actually I don’t, but I like the word.
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Into the glossary for gludge.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I always, always got an allowance as a kid, and as a parent I always gave one for chores performed. We were expected to save part of it, so our folks opened a savings account for us and monitored our saving for summer camp and college. My allowance started with a dime in Kindergarten and ended at $20 when I was in high school. I had to buy clothing, school supplies, and pay for activities out of that in combo with babysitting money. Meanwhile, my son played poker at recess with his allowance. He and his high school pals started an off-the-books Dr. Pepper business in the school cafeteria with their allowances–entrepeneurs of a sort–then played poker with that, too.
I guess actions always have consequences, even when unintended. I never saw poker and pushing Dr. Pepper as a consequence of an allowance.
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Daughter prides herself on “supporting” herself since she got her barista job, meaning that she buys all the clothes and doodads and whatnots she wants without my having anything to say about it. She was pretty chagrined last week, though, when we did her taxes and she saw how much she had earned and realized she hadn’t saved anything. She and best friend are planning a trip to Winnipeg this summer and aside from paying for the hotel, (I want then to stay in a safe and secure place) I’m not giving her a penny for anything else related to the trip. All and any birthday money went into her savings account yesterday, I was told, preparatory for the trip to Winnipeg.
I haven’t owned a watch in decades. They bug me, and I usually break them since I don’t like to stop and take them off in the middle of a task.
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dont stay at the radisson. the downtown area is not a good area even in the best hotels. do not leave anyhting in your car. windows mean nothing other than a very good replacement business for the local glass guys. i fell out of love with winnegeg a couple of years ago. the city and area are fine. the downtown bums and poor are a serious problem. maybe staying outside the downtown would be advisable. a little motor lodge with bad carpet instead of high profile downtown problems.
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I remember having an allowance of $2 a week. I think it got raised to $5 when I was around 12 or so and ended at $10. I bought books, of course; I still have the Earthsea trilogy (from back when it was a trilogy), the Riddlemaster trilogy, and the illustrated Bulfinch’s Mythology I bought with my very own money at B. Dalton. I never bought candy because my mom was a good baker and always had cookies and bars around if I wanted something sweet, and I seldom had to buy toys, since I was an only child and my parents generally let me have what I asked for.
I’ve always been a weird mix of saver and spender–as a kid I would fill up my bank (I thought wrapping coins in those paper sleeves was great fun), working toward the usual goal of $100, then suddenly blow everything I had on something or other. I remember one time when I was about 10, I’d saved up to buy my mom a cookie press for Christmas, only to fall in love with a huge stuffed dog and buy that instead (my dad ended up buying the cookie press for me).
Right now, with my roommate out of work, I’m regretting the money I spent on stuff like DVDs and collectibles for now dead or moribund fandoms. As part of my personal austerity measures, I’ve put back in play my mom’s pre-purchase ritual, which is to ask, “Is it something I need or want? Will I actually use it? Can I get by without it?” and then walk away and see if I still remember the thing at the end of the day or week. Not surprisingly, it works more often than not.
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need or want is a great question. i ask my kids often. they ask me too often
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Books reminds me of saving my allowance for the Scholastic book sales at school. I’d often get a bit more from my parents specifically to spend on books. I still have a few books I bought with the quarters and dollars I saved (“Stuart Little,” “Winnie the Pooh,” and all of the “Little House” books). The 45s I bought at Woolworths or Musicland? Long gone…
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I didn’t get a regular allowance as a child, but I’d earn small sums by doing the occasional chore for someone. One of the ladies in our neighborhood had arthritis, and she would pay me for dusting the baseboards in her house. Mrs. Carlsen, who lived across the street from us would give us raisins and candies and other stuff we could use to set up a small shop on the sidewalk. She was also our best customer! When I was 11 we moved to Copenhagen, and when dad was home, he’d pay me 50 cents for mowing the lawn; I’d turn around and pay one of the neighbor boys 25 cents for doing it. Mom didn’t believe in paying for doing chores. I started babysitting when I was 13, so there would be the occasional influx of cash sufficient to actually buy something other than candy or ice cream. I’d buy records, clothes, shoes and make-up. I still have some of those old records. I had just turned 16 when I graduated from high school, so that’s when I got my first job and had a small, but steady, income. My first job was as a house keeper for a couple of teachers and their two 8 and 9 year old boys. I lived with them, so room and board was part of my compensation. The first many years of my working life, I spent every penny I earned. That wasn’t hard to do as I didn’t earn much. I was well into my thirties before I earned enough to start saving.
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16 at graduation would be early here . denmark too and you are an exceptional student or just a different program. i had my daughter tell me the other day that i eed to put the two younger daughters on allowance. make them responsible for clothes make up and movies so there is a sense of something. we did that with the older two maybe the middle one (my brain) but have not done that at all with the younger ones.
we first got the idea in disney parks which we used to go to every year either around christmas or on spring break. the lines were long and the beauty of disney is that there is so much to just loo at. well it was interesting to me, the kids were always wanting to buy the tee shirt instead of enjoying the attraction. sea word wasnt about the fish it was about the sea world sweat shirt, so… i gave them 50 bucks each and told them to make it last the 10 days we would be there. my oldest son never spent a penny. 5 dollar cokes… thats ridiculous, 46 dollars for a sweatshirt? who would pay that? like turning on the light switch. so we carried it over to the everyday world for them. thank you ben for the reminder. i will have that discussion with my wife and put the girls now in 6th and 8th grade on an program where they get out figure out how to earn and divvy up their riches. i have a job for one already established. i just bought a pretty large jazz record collection and will combine that with a defunct radio stations cast offs form a very interesting existence ranging in genres diverse enough to keep me from being pigeon holed as a distributor of a particular taste in music. jazz will be very strong (brass and big band, 40’s 50’s mainly) i am going to have her list it on the internet for me and see what we can make as vinyl moguls.
other daughter is the theater major who wants to nothing but immerse in the theater. she may as well get used to starving early. money is an inconvenient pursuit that cramps her style. thats ok skinny is good in the theater.
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I was a year younger than the other students in my class, tim, I had skipped a grade. If it weren’t for the Cs I got in comportment, I would have been a straight A student.
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what the heck is comportment
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Don’t know, tim. Whatever it is, I obviously wasn’t good at it.
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🙂
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Morning all!
I didn’t get an allowance when I was a kid, but by the time I started high school, I was benefitting from how my sister’s struggles with school. My parents tried to give her an incentive by paying her $5 for every A, $4 for a B, etc. And so to be fair, they offered me the same deal. So four times a year I completely cleaned up. Unfortunately didn’t work for my sister at all!
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i had a friend who had a family of report card stories. oldest cleaned up , second did ok third was a bozo who never got a nickle, lawyer , sales manager of big firm and silicon valley entrapreuner. then 3 or 4 more younger ones that had a different set of rules (good catholics) my dad always said do your best we dont pay for that. just do your best.
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I remember graduating from first grade at age 7 with As in every subject. As a reward, dad took me by the hand, and together we walked down to the Stubbekøbing’s favorite deli. There I got to choose whatever I wanted for the open-face sandwiches that I was going to bring along on the following day’s class outing. I chose a tomato, and a mackerel salad, my two favorites. I couldn’t have been happier had he given me $10.00.
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My parents barely looked at my report cards, and they had little to say about them then. That was a time of much more relaxed parenting.
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Considering that there’s only an age difference of 10 months between us, Steve, I don’t attribute the difference to the time but rather to individual parenting styles.
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You could be right, PJ, but there is a HUGE difference between the current “hyper-parenting” culture and the culture that prevailed in central Iowa in the 1950s. I’m sure some of my classmates had parents who attended closely to their grades, but I’m equally sure I wasn’t the only kid back then who was allowed to grow up like a weed. My folks had too many adult things to worry about. They didn’t see my development as their business.
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I’d have to agree w/ PJ… not very relaxed at my house anyway!
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I earned $5 a week for housecleaning. I became very good at housecleaning. My mother is the type who used a white cotton glove to sweep a finger along the top of the door sill to see if I’d left any dust.
I used my $20 per month to buy two horses, then to pay for their board on a nearby small farm. Chief only cost $50 dollars. He was a Shetland-Welsh pony with a bad temperament. I really wanted him and begged constantly. Finally my parents knuckled under and loaned me the $50 to buy him. When I’d paid them back, I started begging for a “real” horse. We found a two-year-old Arabian gelding, Ben, for $200, and I borrowed again. I repaid the loan again and then used my money to pay for their board, feed and supplies.
The old farmer didn’t want very much from me to board my two horses. All he really wanted was my companionship. He was old and thin but could throw two bushel baskets filled with corn up on his thin shoulders and carry them to the barn. I was fascinated with his skinny legs and his work ethic. We were good friends. He taught me a lot. I was free to roam his barn, pastures and outbuildings. I watched his sows give birth and allowed his little steers to suck on my fingers. I helped him feed chickens and occasionally gather eggs. After riding, feeding and grooming my horses I often helped him with some of the chores. Then we’d go in his house and watch Hogan’s Heroes. I could look from his living room window down to my own house and the lake beyond.
His wife had died many years before and he was lonely. He talked about her a lot. He had a small Cocker spaniel, Chance, who followed the tractor into the fields and got hit by the plow. He survived but he was lame. Tractors didn’t have cabs with AC in those days, so Chance couldn’t ride with Farmer Christie, but he never stopped trying to follow the tractor when the farmer went into the fields.
I think my allowance was well spent.
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very nice. makes me think of clydes neighbor in the story of his youth.
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I spent a great deal of time driving around in farm country, trying to find farms where I would be welcome to hunt. When I approached a landowner asking permission to hunt, I was asking for something for nothing. And a boorish hunter can damage a farm, so the landowner had something to lose. In time I began to understand that what I could pay many landowners back was “company.” They were lonely, quite a few of them, and they enjoyed chatting with someone who has always respected farm folks and found them interesting.
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I assume you wanted a horse so you could ride, Krista. Do you ride, still? I love the idea of children being given the responsibility of taking care of an animal. My dad bought me a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat on one of his sea voyages to the US; I wanted a pony to go with it. It never happened. He bought me a box turtle instead; it was easier to keep in the house.
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Nice story, Krista. I wish I could afford to pay for your housekeeping talents now!
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That’s a nice story Krista.
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I’ve always been a champion saver and not so terrific at bringing home the bacon. I have this feeling that I have to work, and work very hard and long hours at that to justify being paid to do anything. I have no entrepreneurial instinct whatsoever.
Never got an allowance and don’t give one to the s&h either. All the cash he has is either saved from gifts from family members or small cash our neighbor gives him for doing little chores when she calls him up to come do them. He is also a saver (when reading is your passion and the library has books for free….) .
One of the things I learned really quickly with my parents was that the having your own funds was the path to freedom and independence. If it was their money, they got to dictate all the details. I started babysitting early and took every gig I could get. Was the accompanist for the Junior Choir at church (big money there), and as soon as I could do so legally, got a job in the kitchen at the nursing home.
Being as thrifty as I am meant that when I decided to buy a really great pair of shoes, they were quality and I adored them-same thing with a good meal out.
Things change with parenthood and home-ownership, but I still like the well-planned (or totally spontaneous) splurge now and again (good cheese, real maple syrup, accept no substitutes).
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It’s an interesting concept of work, mig; do you have any idea where it came from? I had a somewhat similar affliction: If the task at hand was enjoyable, it wasn’t work. I had a real struggle overcoming the guilt I felt when I was being paid for doing something I enjoyed doing. Small wonder I ended up in business administration!
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Good Afternoon–
Great stories today; thanks for sharing everyone. Thank Dale for editing this into a better story.
Wants vs. Needs. That is a good one that comes up at our house often. And my son replies ‘Well, I really want to need this’. Ha– good try! I suspect in that regard he’s really not much different than most kids.
He got a tech job at college about a month after he started college and has pretty much been supporting himself with that. (Well, other than the whole ‘tuition’ thing) but I’m trying to get him to not be down to his last $2 when pay day comes round again. And while he’s saying yes, he knows he should do that, it hasn’t really happen yet.
Kelly is a saver. She’s been a good influence on me and I know I wouldn’t be where I am with out her. And our daughter; she’s a saver too. I don’t think one child influenced the other child though.
When we were milking cows, there just wasn’t enough money some months. And you have to just accept that debt is part of the deal and pay the bills you can and make it work. Especially in spring with seed and fertilizer and fuel. I think all farmers have a crop loan. I remember just one year I had saved enough to pay cash for everything. And the last few years with the high prices farmers have received in the fall, while I am able to pre-pay something on seed and fertilizer, there’s still loans.
My parents taught me the value of having a good credit rating.
The ag banker I started with was the same guy my parents had for many years. We could go in there, talk a bit, sign some papers and walk out with the loan a few minutes later.
It doesn’t work that way anymore.
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Distinguishing between wants and needs is a biggie.
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I must have had a small allowance, quarter or something, in grade school – I just put in an email to my sister to see if she remembers. We would have spent it on candy at the Little Store down the block, or comics, paper dolls maybe. I was never required to buy my own clothes, but maybe when the allowance got into the “dollars” realm, had to buy most other stuff.
I’m lucky I married a saver – and I’ve probably said before how he’s here on earth to teach me to save $, and I’m here to teach him how to spend it.
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no youtube for Jingle in my Jeans but you can listen here:
http://www.myspace.com/davestameymusic/music/songs/jingle-in-my-jeans-73374223
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I was stumped, Holly, and waiting to see what you would come up with. Good one.
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I didn’t get an allowance. When I was in the 10-12 age range, I was given some small change to spend on candy at the Ben Franklin, or the occasional Mr. Misty at the Dairy Queen.
As a teenager, I was invited to take over the mailing of refund offers for grocery products. My mother would pick up the refund forms at the grocery store – might be something like 50 cents back for the purchase of three packages of some canned or frozen product. I’d cut out the proof of purchase from the package and fill out the form and mail it in. When the money came back my sister and I would split it. I think I usually did the work, but it had to be evenly split between the two of us. No arguments regarding fairness.
Although I loved reading, I don’t think I spent money on books very often, as you could get books from the library. Mostly I bought records, which were harder to acquire – the stock available at garage sales tended to be outdated and/or scratchy, so I considered it worth the investment to go to a record store and purchase something new. I still have many of the records I bought in the early 70’s – Every Picture Tells a Story, Harvest, Court and Spark, Tea For the Tillerman. At the time you could get a new release for about four dollars with the sales tax.
I was a pretty good saver, too – had maybe close to a hundred dollars in the bank when I graduated from high school. Bought a stereo system. Still have the Pioneer tuner.
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I just talked to my mom – she remembers my sister and me getting $15 month when we were in high school. But then she remembered that we “adopted” an African child and sent an certain amount of money every month, and $2 came out of each of our allowances. I remember pictures we would get of the child, but I don’t remember the $2 donation we gave.
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Thanks for the comments everyone. It was interesting to hear about whether you got an allowance or how you handled money. And as always, some great interesting stories! This group sure is a pleasant place to hang out.
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