How Much Pocket Money Did You Get As A Kid ?

[rareboy]

It started at 50 cents a week when we were about 6 years old. We were only allowed to spend half; the other 25 cents had to go into our piggy banks. And we had to do some chores in order to get it.

I started doing odd jobs for neighbours when I was about 9 and working in the summer and on weekends when I was 14.

 

[peeonme]

We didn't get an allowance, but we were still expected to do chores both indoors and outdoors. Indoors, it was mainly helping with the dishes, keeping the wood box full, and keeping the vegetables in the basement organised. Outdoors, it was tending the gardens and harvesting them for meals, chopping wood, picking fruit, gathering walnuts, etc.

Dad got me a job when I was 13. I made $1.10 per hour and worked anywhere from 65 to 75 hours per week grading cucumbers for Bick's Pickles. I gave Mom my money packet and she gave me back $5 out of it for the week.

Even if kids were inclined to do such labour and hours these days, I doubt if labour laws would allow them to do it.

That's child abuse.

 

[jaysizzles]

Never got an allowance. I learned from an early age just not to ask for anything when we went in a store because I just wasn't going to get it...only what my mother planned to buy. I won't say I was deprived though and if I needed some for an event I'd usually get it. In my early teens I mowed neighbor lawns and my great aunt's too...didn't make much for that though and pretty much saved it all. My great aunt gave me $4 and a half can of 7up to mow her 1/2 acre (or more?) yard. Always had a job from then on. Only other money I got was as presents for birthdays, 1st communion, graduations, etc.

 

[NotHardUp1]

That's child abuse.

No. It sounds more like it was poverty. There's a difference, and a longstanding practice that the whole family works to get by in subsistence cultures. Until there was adequate social welfare, it was the norm across this continent for young teens to be expected to begin to take their place in helping, like the Amish did.

 

[gsdx]

Until there was adequate social welfare, it was the norm across this continent for young teens to be expected to begin to take their place in helping

Indeed. I grew up picking tomatoes for my grandfather. I was about 10 or 11 when he retired from that and concentrated on grains. I just did our home gardening as usual, helped with threshing the oats, barley, and timothy. Did a lot of gathering of hay and straw as well.

Then Dad came home one day and said, "You've got a job at Ross P_____. Be there Monday morning." I knew where that was and what happened there. My next-older brother worked there for a summer. I really didn't have a choice not to be there, but that's the way things were back in the 50s and 60s.

 

[peeonme]

No. It sounds more like it was poverty. There's a difference, and a longstanding practice that the whole family works to get by in subsistence cultures. Until there was adequate social welfare, it was the norm across this continent for young teens to be expected to begin to take their place in helping, like the Amish did.

Working a 13 year old 65plus hours a week is just wrong. We don't do that in America, we passes a law against it back in 1936. In a family business such as a farm all family members pitch in. But sending children to work at that age is immoral.
My dad and mom's families did the same thing, they sent them to work in town and took their money. When I was 16 I was supporting my mother, I made damned sure that I supported my wife and my son, it was my duty as a husband and father to do so.

 

[gsdx]

^ We were poor. Both Mom and Dad worked to support 7 kids. We all did our share. We grew a lot of our own food. We had paper routes, mowed lawns, shovelled snow, racked leaves, did deliveries for grocery stores, did housecleaning, babysitting... whatever it took. Having 4 older brothers, I got hand-me-downs until I was 14 years old when Dad bought me a pair of beige, wide-wale cords and a new, light-blue shirt so I could go on a school trip.

Life was hard for us and I'm not ashamed of it, and I certainly won't apologise for it. Most of all, though, I may have resented my parents at the time, I certainly don't resent them now. They taught me how to meet life head-on, and that's something a vast majority of kids never learn these days.

 

[peeonme]

^ We were poor. Both Mom and Dad worked to support 7 kids. We all did our share. We grew a lot of our own food. We had paper routes, mowed lawns, shovelled snow, racked leaves, did deliveries for grocery stores, did housecleaning, babysitting... whatever it took. Having 4 older brothers, I got hand-me-downs until I was 14 years old when Dad bought me a pair of beige, wide-wale cords and a new, light-blue shirt so I could go on a school trip.

Life was hard for us and I'm not ashamed of it, and I certainly won't apologise for it. Most of all, though, I may have resented my parents at the time, I certainly don't resent them now. They taught me how to meet life head-on, and that's something a vast majority of kids never learn these days.

You have nothing to be ashamed of, but 65 hours for a 13 year old is a lot of work. Lots of children did that in America before child labor laws were enacted. I was surprised to find that it was allowed in Canada in the 60's though.

 

[mbamike]

Nothing. I didn't start having money until I started working.

 

[LT1Buick]

I started working 2-3 hours after school and Saturdays at the car dealer my Mom was the office manager at around age 12/13. Cleaned the offices, parts department, washed cars, worked in the office, sold cars, whatever needed done. The owner saved that money back and when I turned 16 I had enough for a very nice nearly new car.

As far as money from parents, I helped around the house with usual stuff like laundry, cleaning, feeding & watering the livestock, picking up dog poop, baled hay, etc. Got pretty much everything I needed or asked for as long as I did that, stayed out of trouble, and didn’t get any F’s on my report card. I also did volunteer work every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and sometimes on Sundays. The only expensive things I asked for were name brand clothing from the mall, an occasional computer game, and keeping my vehicle clean, insured, and full of gas.

 

[PrinceCory]

Us 5 kids had chores to do around the house. I think we started with a 25 cents a week plus 10 cents for each grade completed in school. We were required to put half of the allowance into the bank savings account (not a piggy bank). Whatever we deposited into the bank our parents would match that amount. I don't think we were ever allowed to take money out of the saving account. The allowance stopped once we got to high school. We still had chores and since I was the oldest male I had to mow the lawn. I hated mowing the lawn.

I had a part time job starting when I was 13'ish at a family owned fast food place doing dishes or food prep. I don't ever remember asking my parents for money. Mostly the youngest of us kids got treated differently. He never kept a job, asked for gas money, got an occasional traffic ticket (for every dollar we would pay in a fine you were grounded for that amount in days...such as $50 fine, grounded for 50 days), more than once he was allowed to stay home from school because he didn't have an assignment completed or there was a test he wasn't ready for).