Ten cents a minute?

A few months ago Suzy Ormon did an Oprah show about kids and finances. Among other things, she said that kids should never be given an allowance "for no reason." She suggested paying them minimum wage -- which works out to ten cents a minute -- and then either increasing or decreasing it if they do a good or poor job.

"Even for things like making their 0wn bed?" Oprah asked.

"Yes," said Suze, "if making their bed is something that helps you."

So ... I was thinking about this some while I went about because my business, because I am Obsessive and Weird.

Let's take Rachael, who is my oldest, who just turned eight yesterday. Here's what she does that is helpful to me:

Pretty much every day she "mostly" unloads the dishwasher, makes her own bed and often Bejamin's bed. She and Rebecca set the table for dinner and help clear the table after we eat. I've never timed all this (I'm not quite that Obsessive and Weird, although I did consider it), but I'm guessing all that adds up to about 7 minutes a day. Eh, let's even say that not all of it happens on the weekend, so ... about 40 minutes for the week.

About once a week I go grocery shopping, and both girls help me load the conveyor belt and unpack the groceries when we get home. Let's say they give me five minutes of helpfulness in that area. Okay, now we're up to 45 minutes a week.

Several week during the week she'll do Miscellaneous Things That Need to be Done; for example: cleaning up the playroom or bedroom, getting Benjamin dressed, sorting and putting away clean laundry, wiping the bathroom counter. I would conservatively guess that all those things add up to about twenty minutes a week.

So that's a conservative grand total of 65 minutes a week. And I am quite sure that many people reading this have their eight years old do more that that!

So if I understand Suzy correctly, I would be paying her $6.50 a week. Is that right?

Gosh, that sounds like an awful lot to me!

Although I understand Suze Orman's point -- or at least think I do -- I personally have never liked the idea of tying allowances to household tasks. First of all, it gives the impression that if the money isn't worth it to them, they can skip it. Second, I hate the idea of them thinking, "What am I gonna get for it?" every time they do every little thing in life.

Here's what we do: Every weekend the girls get an allowance, which is exactly ten cents per year old they are. (I picked this for the scientific reason that it is not a huge amount of money, and it is easy to calculate.) So Rebecca gets sixty cents a week, and Rachael get eighty cents a week.

Hopefully nobody tells Rachael that she deserves to be paid over six dollars a week, or else there might be a revolt.