Poll: Did You Receive An Allowance?

[DSK-]

Yeah I had pocket money, and to earn it I had to do household chores. When I was really young it was something 50p per week, and by the time I grew out of having pocket money it was about £1.50 per week. I bought some seriously expensive stuff for a kid thanks to saving up.

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised my parents could afford to do that back then :x

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Nope, not at all. Was pretty poor growing up, so my parents just straight up giving us kids money wasn't exactly common and was usually less than $5. Even after things got better for us financially during my mid-teens, it still was uncommon for any of us to get much outside of our birthdays and Christmas, let alone get consistently paid.

 

[karloss01]

I got £5 a week up to the age of 23, when i managed to finally get a job. all they expected of me was to be a good boy, which for the most part i was.

 

[Scott Rothman]

I got like, two dollars a week or something. It took me months to save up for a game

 

[FoolKiller]

$2 a week when I was younger and got to $5 a week when I was about 12.

 

[Tropicaz]

I remember when I was a youngster I got allowance in the form of 1 pokemon booster pack on a sunday after going to church. They cost about £2 or £2.50 IIRC.

 

[barbzilla]

I never got an allowance, and I worked harder than most adults (my parents owned a horse ranch). I didn't even have the option of taking on extra work for money from my parents, they always said if you see extra work, just get it done (so I consequently would never "see" extra work). I was very enterprising though and would find ways to make money off of my school m8s and teachers (probably why I own my own business now).

My most profitable venture was selling pornography. I had a m8 of mine who looked much older buy porn from a local discount store for dirt cheap, then I'd sell it at $10 a mag and $20 for a video to the kids at my school. The teachers were on to me, but they couldn't ever catch me doing it. The best they ever had were some kids who got caught with the magazines word that I sold them to said kids. Since they couldn't get any evidence though, they didn't punish me. Afterwards I got a bit more clever with my schemes, but they were never anything too dangerous. My worst was selling stink bombs, after a few childhood terrorist events, I stopped selling them. I didn't want to be responsible for stinking out the cafeteria.

 

[triggrhappy94]

No. Whenever I asked for one my mom just told me about how when I was five I had one, but didn't do choirs.
I guess that meant I wasn't ever allowed one again.
In retrospect, that sums up my childhood pretty well.

 

[KOMega]

Sometimes they gave me money, but I usually try to refuse.
Why'd I refuse free money? Well...

After a while I felt as if they were favor bargaining and trying to guilt trip me or something.
Going "Oh but what about that time I did this... or gave you that..." or "I always gave you this..."
blah blah blah all the time.
I don't mind if they want me to do things, but the way they go about asking just makes me so angry.

 

[Nickolai77]

My most profitable venture was selling pornography. I had a m8 of mine who looked much older buy porn from a local discount store for dirt cheap, then I'd sell it at $10 a mag and $20 for a video to the kids at my school. The teachers were on to me, but they couldn't ever catch me doing it. The best they ever had were some kids who got caught with the magazines word that I sold them to said kids. Since they couldn't get any evidence though, they didn't punish me. Afterwards I got a bit more clever with my schemes, but they were never anything too dangerous. My worst was selling stink bombs, after a few childhood terrorist events, I stopped selling them. I didn't want to be responsible for stinking out the cafeteria.

Nice. I have a sneaking respect for people who run schemes like that even if they are illegal. So long as they don't seriously harm other people that is.

OT:

I get an allowance for my university studies which allows me to live with relative comfort. In earlier years i should have got a job when my workload was lighter but i opted to try and find work during the holiday periods instead. That didn't work, but now in my final year of studies i don't have the time to work at university. I'm just glad my parents are willing to support me. I wouldn't think twice to do the same to any kids i may have in future.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah I started to get allowance when I start wanting to buy games (Gameboy Colour) or Pokemon stuff when I was around 13 or 14. I was getting £10 per week and I get another £10 if I had to help out my parent takeaway during the busy period.

 

[Jamieson 90]

If I remember correctly I didn't really get any pocket money up until around the age of five, which makes sense really since any younger than that is probably a bit too young, but I do remember my parents getting me occasional treats like gingerbread men or sweets from stores and stuff. After that I received £3 between the ages of 6-10 and that was for helping out and behaving well.

Once I got to around 10-11 it was upped to £5 and pretty much remained that throughout all my teen years, although that isn't to say I never received any treats or anything; £5 was basically the absolute minimum because my parents would give me £10 here and there when I was going into town or to the cinema with my friends, usually if I'd been behaving exceptionally well, and if I'd been really good maybe even a new game VHS/DVD/CD, fond memories.

 

[Hero of Lime]

No, but only because I never did anything to deserve any. Once in a while I could ask for money, or my mom would succumb to my whining and buy me a little toy or some candy. As I got older, when my parents gave me lunch money for high school, I would rarely spend it on food, but hoard it every week. I wound up with about 900 dollars by the end of high school. I gave most of it back out of guilt, but my dad allowed me to keep some for whatever I wanted.

 

[kasperbbs]

Not really, but i didn't do any chores either, well i did wash the dishes and vacuum the room occasionally and they would give me a few bucks if i asked for no reason.

 

[Raggedstar]

I had it for a few months off and on when I was a kid. It wasn't very consistent, though then again I had no real set of "chores" to do so it was just a few bucks for a lot of smaller tasks when they asked me to do it (like taking laundry out of the dryer, watering the garden, etc). I was usually just directly paid for doing stuff like looking after my (autistic) sister for several hours, which usually earned me about $5 (more for longer times or looking after her daily before/after school). If they didn't pay me, then it went to a sort of "karma" where they would tally up all the things I did and put it towards a more expensive gift.

 

[Aris Khandr]

My father was absent most of the time, and completely incapable of expressing any sort of affection when he was, so he compensated with money. Starting when I was 14, I got $100 a week in lieu of actual love. And I ended up spending most of it on my friends. I wish I'd saved it now.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

No, but by and large I didn't really do anything to warrant one either. Plus, I've been kinda mooching off them for the past couple of years. >.>

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Nope. Too poor growing up for anything like that and when I moved in with better off family at 16 I was a slave that did backbreaking work for a room and food.

Once spent an entire summer building a house working 12 hour days every day.
Didn't see any form of compensation.

 

[Johanthemonster666]

What is this allowance you speak of?

Looking back I realize my family always had what we needed, but getting paid to do that stuff in the yard and around the house like I did from ages 7-18....never occurred to me that it was 'a thing'.

I think the most hard cash I've been given by family was during major birthdays (8,10,13,18,21) in the cards.

 

[Miss G.]

I was under the impression that 'allowance' was an American thing. Growing up I certainly hadn't heard of the term outside of American television shows until I was around 8-9 years old. The only money we saw was Birthday/Christmas related or as a little something as a reward for an achievement like graduating high school. Otherwise we got it from summer jobs.