Daily Allowance

D

Damaged Goods

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Location
Maryland
Five cents a day. Of course, parents also covered the Saturday matinee and a new baseball glove when the old one was falling apart.

But for that daily nickel I would choose five hard pretzels or a pack of five baseball (or football) cards with bubble gum. I often craved a sour pickled onion that was the size of a tennis ball but they were six cents. :( So the trick was to forgo the pretzels or cards for a day and save the nickel and thus have enough for five days of onions. :)
 

No allowance when I was little but we were always given two or three dollars if we went to a field day, carnival, etc...

When we were old enough to walk along the side of the road we used to pick up bottles 2 cents for single-serve and 5 cents for quarts.

In junior and senior high school we each got five dollars a week to cover school lunches and pocket money.
 
Aunt Bea said:
In junior and senior high school we each got five dollars a week to cover school lunches and pocket money.
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You were given a sense of responsibility (school lunches) along with "pocket money," but if I were given the $5, it would have all gone to "pocket money" for frivolous things and the school lunches be damned.

Yeah, there were some well-to-do kids who'd get much more than $5 but they were expected to take care of hair cuts, even clothes. If that were me, it would all have been "pocket money.":giggle:
 

Damaged Goods said:
You were given a sense of responsibility (school lunches) along with "pocket money," but if I were given the $5, it would have all gone to "pocket money" for frivolous things and the school lunches be damned.

Yeah, there were some well-to-do kids who'd get much more than $5 but they were expected to take care of hair cuts, even clothes. If that were me, it would all have been "pocket money.":giggle:
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I was a good money manager but truth be told more of it went for cigarettes than lunch.
 
Lee said:
No allowance here either. I would pick up pop bottles to cash in.
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That's what we did too. My older sister, in her last couple of years of high school, made summer money by strawberry picking and shrimp peeling, so she had lunch money. Occasionally, I would get 10 cents or a quarter for lunch milk or a bag of chips.
 
No allowance here either.... aside from when I was in one of the 3 foster homes..

they gave us pocket money , doled out to us on a Saturday morning , we had to line up in age ..oldest first to last... I was 9 and then 10 so I got 9 pennies.....the children who were 12 got 1 shilling...the younger ones got 5 or 6 old pennies.. ...then the ''aunties' would take us to the cinema, on Saturday mornings to see the a film, mainly the Beatles.. obvs they wanted to see them.. and we youngsters would just immediately spend out pocket money on sweets..

My parents never gave us pocket money...they were horrified the one time I asked.. . When I pointed out my friends got pocket money for doing the dishes..and I already did that every night for 6 people, and many more chores...I was told that was my rent for being allowed to live there.
 
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I never got an allowance. I was just expected to keep my room clean and help my mom with everything. My younger brother though did get an allowance though because he did things like mowing the lawn and fix it projects when Dad was busy.
 
I started getting an allowance in my later single digits, the result of my mom making an executive decision in the home to share a portion of the Family Allowance monies families received every month for every child. I remember it wasn't much, but I was thrilled over it, and I recall my mom telling me, you're going to have to save most of it, because that will be your money to buy school clothes for yourself, if you spend it all, I won't be able to help you.

I was a mature kid, and I knew there was no-nonsense about what mom said, and between the allowance I got and the babysitting money I saved, I always had enough to outfit myself with something nice and something new at the start of each school year.
 
I got an allowance and I think it started when I was maybe 7, not sure but it was a dime and got up to 30 cents. I worked in a store when I was 9 for 35 cents per hour. My dad tried to teach me how to budget money and I never blew my money as did a lot of my friends. I recall having a savings booklet when I was a teen.
 
fmdog44 said:
I got an allowance and I think it started when I was maybe 7, not sure but it was a dime and got up to 30 cents. I worked in a store when I was 9 for 35 cents per hour. My dad tried to teach me how to budget money and I never blew my money as did a lot of my friends. I recall having a savings booklet when I was a teen.
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I always had a savings account, too. It's a good thing.
 
My Dad didn't call it an allowance, but every Sunday Morning he would put $10.00 in my bedroom and $10.00 for my Sister. He said he wanted us to get whatever we wanted with it. Even when I went to a dance with a neighborhood boy my Dad gave me money to call home if the boy annoyed me.
 
I never had an allowance when I was growing up...It didn't really matter....But sometimes I would ask my Mom if I can go to the candy store
after school....She gave me 5 cents....Licorice was cheap...We also came home for lunch....My Mom didn't have the money for the lunch room
in school.......Sometimes she would pick us up for lunch....if it was raining...Sometimes she would call the lunch room to have me and cousin
to have lunch....Mom would pick us up after school and I went into the lunchroom to pay our lunch...

When I went to High School, my parents were doing better, so I did get lunch money....Dad brought us to school....But we always told him to leave us out before we were near the school...
....My Dad was a painter....He had the ladders on top of the car, I was embarrassed....How silly was that....
When we were in the last year in High School....My cousin's Dad gave her the car so we could drive to school alone.

..I was the driver, cause I was 5 months older then my cousin....
She had to wait to drive in the summer...
 
50 cents a week. Somehow they were always silver dollars, so I guess it was a dollar every two weeks. Saturday matinee and a MilkyWay candy bar.
I'd save up to buy a jar of green olives !!??!!?? The silver dollars were SO HEAVY to lug around in my jeans pockets.
 
Gaer said:
50 cents a week. Somehow they were always silver dollars, so I guess it was a dollar every two weeks. Saturday matinee and a MilkyWay candy bar.
I'd save up to buy a jar of green olives !!??!!?? The silver dollars were SO HEAVY to lug around in my jeans pockets.
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When I was a kid in the early 60s, we would vacation at Ocean City, MD. There was all the old-time boardwalk stuff, including the arcade called Marty's Playland. He had every kind of machine a kid could shove a coin into.

My mother would save up dimes and roll them all year long so we got $5 to spend there. This was in the 60s. Mercury head dimes. Tons of them. Brand new. Fifty to a roll. Shoved into damned machines. Makes me sick just to think about it.

Regarding your green olives...I was gonna start a thread asking people what childhood food dislikes they moved beyond, but changed my mind. Green olives is about the only thing I still will not eat unless they are a small component of another dish. I've had a couple of friends in my adult years who would open a jar and eat them like M&Ms. I could not watch. Still can't.
 
In The Sticks said:
When I was a kid in the early 60s, we would vacation at Ocean City, MD. There was all the old-time boardwalk stuff, including the arcade called Marty's Playland. He had every kind of machine a kid could shove a coin into.

My mother would save up dimes and roll them all year long so we got $5 to spend there. This was in the 60s. Mercury head dimes. Tons of them. Brand new. Fifty to a roll. Shoved into damned machines. Makes me sick just to think about it.

Regarding your green olives...I was gonna start a thread asking people what childhood food dislikes they moved beyond, but changed my mind. Green olives is about the only thing I still will not eat unless they are a small component of another dish. I've had a couple of friends in my adult years who would open a jar and eat them like M&Ms. I could not watch. Still can't.
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Yes, On the way home from school, the other kids would stop at the little store on the way home and buy candy but I would buy green olives, eat all the olives and drink all the olive juice. Weird, Huh!
 
hollydolly said:
My parents never gave us pocket money...they were horrified the one time I asked.. . When I pointed out my friends got pocket money for doing the dishes..and I already did that every night for 6 people, and many more chores...I was told that was my rent for being allowed to live there.
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Yup
My dad would become quite sarcastic and facetious;

'Dad, Bob and Billy are getting 25 cents a week
They call it allowance'

'So, is 25 cents gonna be enough?'

'Well, yeah, I think so
A tube of BBs is 10 cents
3 in one oil isn't much more'n that
So, yeah'

'Well, OK
So, $5 a week sounds pretty good, right?'

(heart.....palpitations)
'Uh, YEAH!!!!'

'Done
Let's see now.....what do you pay for your room?
Oh, and food, how much are you kickin' in for that?'

Back to road side beer bottles at one penny each
...and fir cones in spring when green....at a dollar a tote sack full
And pickin' beans with Grampa and Gramma out on Sauvie island

Allowance?

For us, allowance was being allowed to live there

Until my little brother came along
Little turd
He even got my boots when I left for awhile
 
Gary O' said:
Yup
My dad would become quite sarcastic and facetious;

'Dad, Bob and Billy are getting 25 cents a week
They call it allowance'

'So, is 25 cents gonna be enough?'

'Well, yeah, I think so
A tube of BBs is 10 cents
3 in one oil isn't much more'n that
So, yeah'

'Well, OK
So, $5 a week sounds pretty good, right?'

(heart.....palpitations)
'Uh, YEAH!!!!'

'Done
Let's see now.....what do you pay for your room?
Oh, and food, how much are you kickin' in for that?'

Back to road side beer bottles at one penny each
...and fir cones in spring when green....at a dollar a tote sack full
And pickin' beans with Grampa and Gramma out on Sauvie island

Allowance?

For us, allowance was being allowed to live there

Until my little brother came along
Little turd
He even got my boots when I left for awhile
Click to expand...
I forgot about picking up bottles to make money. I used to pull my wagon around and fill it up, cleaning out the ones that were REAL muddy.

I never did understand how adults could literally just throw money out the window like that.
 
My father started me off with an allowance of 25 cents biweekly as a young boy thinking that it would teach me how to manage money. Of course, you could actually buy things with a quarter back then, with candy bars going for five cents. After frittering away a few quarters, I once scraped together seven dollars by saving, and thought that I had amassed a fortune...
 


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