Allowance Dilemma

I have three kids (ages 12, 10 & almost 9)  ....   I pay absolutely no allowance to them BUT require them to do daily chores.   They are all involved in after school and outside school acitivities.  Hate to say this but they are pretty much spoiled.  There is absolutely nothing they need (it's so nice to say that ...after being previously married to someone for 15yrs and having to struggle financially through most of it). 

Anyway ...... here's the problem. 

Because my family and I live very active lives, the kids are required to pitch in and help with housework, without receiving any allowance for it.    MY  PHILOSOPHY IS:  No one pays me to clean up after them ... so why should I pay them to clean up after themselves.   

The kids have been pushing us recently for allowance money, but they cant come up with any reason why they need it, only because their friends receive it or it would be nice to have some money of their own.   

After my 12yr  came home last week and asked (without blinking) if she could go on a ski trip with the school (which ONLY cost £600, yeah right) .... this was just after I paid for her weekend Scout camping trip, not counting those "little extras" I paid  at school and lets not forget the dance lessons!   WELL ....  I realized maybe the kids dont fully understand the value of a pound  (heck no she aint goin ..#1 money and #2 age). 

I've been doing some research and trying to figure out the best way to teach them ....  but keep within my values of "shared responsibilies within the home ". 

Do you give your kids allowance?
How much?
What do they have to do for it?
How ofter do you pay it out?

Any suggestions would be very helpful ....Thanks! 

What the ex and his partner do with my younger girls is they have chores to do, but the "allowance" is something like going to the movies or some other type of treat.  If they don't do the chores, no treat.  Needs are taken care of.  We kind of followed on with this philosophy but there were some weeks where we gave them money for their chores.  It wasn't a great amount, maybe £5.  They usually spent it at the pound store on things like jewellery or whatever.  Sure, we could have bought it for them, but they felt a sense of confidence in being able to buy something with money they could call their own.

When my oldest was younger, we used to give her an allowance but she was required to save a certain percentage of it.  So say she got $10, we would require that she put $2 or $3 in savings.  If she wanted something that was fairly pricey, then she had to save her dosh and then she could buy it. 

I think there's a number of ways it can be done.  I would recommend also looking on Motley Fool and seeing what suggestions you might find there as well. 

A great way that my sister does it is she gives the brats a monthly allowance...when it's gone--it's gone.  Want more?  Too bad, so sad.  You should have budgeted better.  It took a few months, but now they have money left over at the end of the month for savings.

If I were to use her basic framework, I would do this:
Figure out a fair price, and what they would be responsible for with that money (entertainment, clothes?, hair cuts and personal care items or will it just be for movies and CDs).  Choose an amount based on the preceeding.

After an amount has been agreed on, offer up "bonuses" paid a month in arears.  If they meet all of the pre-determined requirements, they get a small bonus (reqs could be not getting in trouble, grades of ? or better, responsible attitude etc).

Make them see that it is like a pay check--you get what you get, and that's it.  No begging for more money (with the exeption of "raise talks" every year or 6 months). 

If they learn to budget now, maybe they won't have as much credit card debt later in life...

The way my parent did it was great and I plan on using it when the kids are old enough to need money.

Chores were done reguarless of money.  You didn't clean your room or got bad grades you lost TV time and extra-cirricular activities.  The allowance money went towards Girl Scout dues, school lunch, anything we did with our friends, and any extras like music or the fancy pen that cost $5 more than a normal one.  The catch was, there wasn't enough money to buy lunch at school every day and do the fun stuff too.  So if you wanted to goto the movies or swing by McDonalds with you friends, you had to pack a lunch and save the money.

If we wanted more money every week, we had to write a memo outlining what the money was spent on, and where our expenses had gone up.   If you ran out of money you were SOL.  I could get $.25 for milk if things had gone realy wrong, but you had to get up early and pack you own lunch or starve. The thought of having nothing for lunch ( I wasn't getting up early, I needed my beauty sleep) made me learn to set asside the money.

I think the reasons kids like getting an allowance is because they have a level of control then.  They can decide how to spend their money and don't have to ask for things.  There's no debate, no begging, no saying no.  And to be honest it does take some of the pressure off us-if they have the money they can get whatever, if they don't they're out of luck. 
My big girls get £15 a month. And that's to spend as they choose.  They can blow it or save it.  It's up to them. 
The little one(7) only gets a couple of pounds which she pretty much 'puts towards' something and we pay the rest.  It gives her an idea of what it's like to prioritize what she really wants.  We still buy things for them-but more stuff that they actually need. 
We're currently in the process of negotiating a clothing allowance with the girls.  This is what most of our friends do-give them a certain amount of money towards clothes a month-but that's it.  Everything they want/need has to come out of that.  Again, I think it's the control that they want. 
I'm not a person who believes in working for money-I grew up on a farm and worked my butt off.  I also feel that they should be pitching in like everybody else.  Our one exception to this was last year when the oldest walked the little one to school every day.  We paid her a pound a day because it was such a huge responsibility.  And occasionally we'll pay for big jobs like painting the fence-the same way we'd pay anyone to do it. 

My mother had a basic budget for clothes, school fees, and extra curricular activities that she told us and we could pick and choose what we wanted within this budget.  We didn't get any allowance for chores because it was part of our responsibility for being a member of the household.  For pocket money she had a job list and the pay rate for each job on the fridge and we could earn as much money as we wanted or needed.  All the jobs had to be contracted before starting and were paid after they were finished just like the real world. 

I liked this so much I am going to do it for my own children when they are school age.  It takes some work to set it up but after that it can run smoothly.

I really like the idea KOLC has given it seems to be perfect way of doing the allowance thing for  a one child family

BUT

I have one question on it though what if 2 kids want to do the same thing that say pays 15? I can see this being a argument causer.

It works for more than one child.  There were 5 kids in my family.
Since all the jobs have to be contracted it is the first one to get the contract who would be paid for it.  If someone contracted a job and didn't complete it, it would go back up on the list as being open again.
We never had too many problems with fighting over who got the job since most of us didn't do the bigger paying jobs unless we were desperate for money.