Flashback: Money Talks

Yesterday, I collected my pay stub from work and opened it up to see how much had been deposited into my bank account. Let me tell you, it was a far cry from what I earned as a child in my parents’ home. Today Linda’s asking us about money…

Prompt: How was money handled in your family when you were growing up? …Did you have an allowance? Whether received as an allowance or through other means such as gifts, when you had your “own” money, were there restrictions on how you spent it? … Did your parents tithe or give money to the church on a regular basis?

We children were responsible for doing the dishes in our home (My dad cracked that he had no need for a dishwasher–“Why, I have seven dishwashers,” he’d say.) In return for our work, if well done, we received a dime a day.

Which meant that every week, we could earn a maximum of $0.70. Ten percent was automatically deducted for tithe and ten percent was automatically deducted for savings, leaving us with a net pay of $0.56 per week. If our work performance was unsatisfactory, of course, we would earn less.

Now, even in my day (which wasn’t THAT long ago), $0.56 didn’t go far. In those days, you could still find off-brand soda for a quarter a can, but that was pretty much all we could have purchased. My parents recognized this and developed a workable solution. They purchased candy and novelties in bulk and resold them to us at cost.

A dark gray toolbox was both the store and the bank. Locked within its dark plastic walls were tubs of candy, an organizer with change, and printed off spreadsheets that itemized who had been paid what when.

We were supposed to be paid every Saturday, but we were far from consistent. Usually we’d beg Dad to open the store after several weeks and he’d open it up and pay out with quarters and dimes and pennies.

Most of the time, I promptly re-spent everything I’d earned on candy. Dum-Dum pops and Nuclear Warheads were three cents each–but the wrapped candy was never my favorite. What I really loved to get was Skittles or Runts or Boston Baked Beans, a bargain at 10 cents per 1/8 cup.

We’d bring out a cup and Dad would scoop our candy in, careful to fill each scoop exactly the same amount, lest any of us cry foul. Then we’d spend the next several hours wandering about with our cups of candy–going about our days as normal, but eating candy while we did it.

When I was in seventh grade and my sister was in eighth we asked for a raise. Actually, we wanted an allowance like the other kids we knew. My parents acquiesced and asked us to write up a budget of our needs and to submit a proposal for an allowance to them.

Anna and I carefully worked up our budget, considering the cost of makeup and movies and the occasional fast food splurge. We settled on $25 a month. 25% was for short term savings, 25% for long term savings, 10% for tithe, 5% for offerings, 35% for immediate expenses.

Mom and Dad accepted our proposal and, from then on out until we graduated high school, Anna and I received $12.50 direct deposited into our (interest bearing) checking accounts and $12.50 in cash.

Of course, we liberally supplemented our allowance all the way through with jobs done for friends and neighbors: babysitting, washing dishes, mowing lawns, cleaning houses. We actually ended up having plenty of money, considering that we really had very few expenses.

Wanna hear how other families handled money? Visit Linda and follow the links to hear some more money talk.