How to start an allowance for kids — the no-spreadsheet version.

Starting an allowance is one of those parenting decisions that sounds like it requires a strategy, a system, and possibly a spreadsheet. It doesn’t. You can be paying your kid their first allowance by the end of the day. The trick is to start very small, very simple, and almost certainly wrong — and then iterate.

Step 1: Pick an amount

The default rule of thumb is $1 per year of age, per week. A six-year-old gets $6. A ten-year-old gets $10. Halve it if you’re uncomfortable with those numbers. Double it if your kid is taking on more.

Whatever you pick this week, plan to leave it alone for a year. A consistent number teaches the lesson. A number that fluctuates with your mood teaches nothing.

(If you want the full per-age table, the how-much-by-age post has it.)

Step 2: Pick a rhythm

Weekly is the universal default and it’s the right default. Daily is too noisy. Monthly is too slow for a kid to feel the loop. Pay it on the same day every week — Saturday morning is the most common choice — and don’t skip.

Step 3: Decide what they pay for

This is the part most guides skip, and it’s the most important step. Allowance only works as a money lesson if it actually covers something. Otherwise it’s pocket money for snacks, which is fine but isn’t teaching anything.

Pick one or two categories the kid is now in charge of. Examples:

• Treats and candy at the grocery store — they can have them, but they pay.
• Small toys under $20 — outside of birthdays and holidays, they fund their own.
• App purchases or game currency — you stop paying for V-Bucks; they save up.
• Gifts for others — birthday gifts for friends or siblings come out of their balance.

You’re not trying to balance their budget. You’re trying to make the "is this worth it?" question real. That requires real money actually leaving their balance.

Step 4: Decide on a saving incentive

Without an incentive, kids will spend their allowance the day it lands. That's not wrong — it's a valid choice — but if you want them to also experience saving, you need something on the other side of the equation.

The two patterns that actually work:

• A savings goal with a fun target (a Lego set, a game, a bike) and a visible progress meter.
• Parent-paid interest — you pay 0.5% to 1% a week on whatever they have saved at the end of the week.

The interest approach is the one most parents underestimate. A weekly compounding rate that actually shows up makes saving feel like winning, in a way a piggy bank never will. (We explain the mechanic in detail in teaching kids compound interest, and the allowance calculator lets you preview the math for your family.)

Step 5: Decide how you’ll actually pay it

This is where most allowance experiments quietly die. Options:

• Cash — works for young kids, breaks down when you don’t have ones on hand, hard to save without a piggy bank.
• A mental ledger — fails inside three months when you both forget what they’re actually owed.
• A spreadsheet — works for the kind of parent who keeps a spreadsheet. (You are not that parent. Be honest.)
• A tracker app — pays automatically, never forgets, and survives the move from a six-year-old who needs quarters to a twelve-year-old who wants Roblox credits.

We built KidCash specifically for this — an iPhone tracker that pays allowance on schedule, can pay interest on saved balances, and stays parent-only. It’s a one-time $4.99 purchase, not a subscription. See how it works if you want the tour.

Step 6: Don’t fix it for the first year

Once you’ve started, the temptation is to tweak. Resist it. Spend-happy week? Don’t bail them out. Save-everything stretch? Don’t pull the goal forward. The first year of allowance is mostly about teaching the loop — earn, choose, save or spend, repeat. The numbers and rules get sharper in year two.

Birthdays are the natural cadence for review. Bump the rate, adjust the categories they pay for, change the interest math. Then leave it alone for another year.

The one-paragraph summary

Pick an amount ($1/year of age is fine). Pick a day. Pick one or two things they’ll start paying for themselves. Set up a savings incentive — a goal, parent-paid interest, or both. Automate the payment so you don’t forget. Don’t tinker for a year. That’s allowance.