allowance for 9 year old

In article
,
Beliavsky wrote:

then there are the "pay day loan" places, where you can
borrow against your paycheck (you need money on Monday & don't
get paid until Friday) at rates exceeding 50%. tell me these
aren't designed to prey on the poor...

Your general philosophy seems to be that businesses are evil and prey
on stupid consumers who have not reached your level of enlightenment.

You've never encountered such a business? Never ever been dudded? Nobody you
know ever been ripped off?

Wanna buy a bridge?

Suppose someone takes out a $500 pay day loan for one week. Weekly
interest of 1%, which would be more than 50% a year, would be $5.

Just quickly, http://www.cashnowperth.com.au/ charges you 1.64% per DAY. It
appears to be simple interest; that's over 11% per week.

What kind of person has a passion for a small business that 'helps' poor
people by charging them so much for short-term loans?

The sad thing is that some charities DO offer interest-free loans for these
sorts of emergencies, but it's not widely known.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

Zipadee wrote:

On Jan 25, 4:59 pm, Jeff wrote:
Using ethanol to extend gasoline and to make it cleaner (instead of
MTBE) does have its problems, as does using MTBE.

What's MTBE?

-- Zip

methyl tertiary butyl ether

From Wikipedia

volatile, flammable and colorless liquid that is immiscible, yet reasonably soluble in water. MTBE has a minty odour vaguely reminiscent of diethyl ether, leading to unpleasant taste and odour in water. MTBE is a gasoline additive, used as an oxygenate and to raise the octane number, although its use has declined in the United States in response to environmental and health concerns. It has been found to easily pollute large quantities of groundwater when gasoline with MTBE is spilled or leaked at gas stations. MTBE is also used in organic chemistry as a relatively inexpensive solvent with properties comparable to diethyl ether but with a higher boiling point and lower solubility in water. It is also used medically to dissolve gallstones.

The problems with it - other than that it contaminates ground water
which is a BIG problem - is that if you have an oxygenate in your
fuel, and you have a fire, the usual methods of fire fighting won't
work or won't work as well.

"Kim" wrote in message
...
My 9 year old step-son has no concept of money and thinks my ATM card
provides an endless supply of cash whenever I need it. When he asks
for something I tell him I can't afford it, his response is, "well
just use your card." When he gets money of his own, he immediately
wants to go wherever anyone will take him, be it the dollar store,
7-11, even the grocery store, just so he can spend it. He ends up
missing out on bigger ticket items he wants because he's not able to
hold onto his cash for more than a day or two.

Anyway, obviously I think some changes need to be made and I'm hoping
an allowance will help. He already does a number of chores around the
house and doesn't currently get any financial payoff for them.

So my questions a

What is an appropriate allowance amount for an almost 10 year old?

What do your kids use their allowance $$ for? Are there certain
things they're responsible for buying or can they use the money for
whatever they want? I'd like to open a savings account for him and
make him save a certain %... but I'm not sure what % would be "fair."

At that age, my kids (and I) got enough money to pay their dues (like
Girl Scouts), and have money for church plus a little bit extra to
save or in my case to buy candy or something when walking home from
school. (A favorite of mine was Turkish Taffy which IIRC was about 5
cents at that time.) (My case because my kids didn't walk home from
school) My parents explained clearly to me what I was expected to use
the money for, and how much was discretionary.

The only reason I see for non-discretionary allowance amounts is that
it does give them an early sense of obligations money.

I'm with the people who don't like tying the chores to the allowance,
although I did once write a contract up for dd#2 that I would pay her
what I would pay a cleaning person if she would do what the cleaning
person would have done. But dd#2 was in HS and was about 16 years old
at the time.

I'm not sure whether I think that enforced saving is a good idea or
not.

When I was 12, my mom conceived of giving me a clothing allowance. In
the beginning, she forced me to buy a winter coat and some dresses for
a dancing class that I needed, and she had to lend me money out of
future allowances so that I could do that as I hadn't had enough time
to save it yet. And I also bought some wool plaid and made myself a
dress out of it (with some help from her). But I tend to be one who
does not like to spend money, and I HATE shopping for clothes. So my
mom was forced to give up on this idea because I would never buy
anything, and insisted on saving the money. Enforced savings was not
necessary for me.

She tried it with my sister, and my sister spent all her money and
then was unhappy with the clothes that she had. She's still the same
way today - when her children got married, she had to employ a
personal shopper to help her get a MOB dress. Mom had to give up on
her too. I don't know whether enforcing savings would have helped my
sister - she's quite frugal with money now.

In my case over the years she was frequently reduced to buying stuff
ostensibly for herself and then giving it to me with some excuse
because it was really what she wanted me to have, and I wouldn't shop
for it myself. That worked pretty well for me because both of us have
about the same tastes and body type. Didn't work at all for my sister
though. She never could buy stuff for my sister.