Search for how much allowance to give and you will find a rule: a dollar per week per year of age. Seven years old, seven dollars.
It is memorable, it is easy, and it answers a question nobody actually has. The real question underneath is not "what is normal" but "what should this money be doing", and until that is settled, any number is arbitrary.
Two families both giving a ten-year-old ten dollars a week can be running completely different systems. In one, the ten dollars is pocket money on top of parents buying everything that matters. In the other, it covers sweets, small toys, birthday presents for friends, and the difference when the child wants the more expensive trainers. The first child has ten dollars of fun. The second has a budget, and will learn roughly ten times as much.
Start from the job, not the number
The useful way to set an allowance is to work out what you want to stop deciding.
Make a list of the things you currently buy, one at a time, after a conversation, often in a shop. For most families it includes some combination of sweets, small toys, app purchases, birthday presents for school friends, stickers and trading cards, and the upgrade from the sensible version of a thing to the version the child wants.
Every item on that list is a recurring negotiation. Handing it to the child, with money attached, removes it from your day and gives them something real to practise on.
Then the amount is simply arithmetic: what does that list cost in a typical month, divided by four, rounded to something clean.
An allowance that covers nothing teaches nothing. If a child can spend their entire allowance on nothing in particular and still get everything they actually want from a parent, the money is a gift, not a budget.
This is also why the same number can be too much or too little depending on the house. There is no national figure that knows what your child is responsible for.
What changes at each stage
The amount should rise with age, but the thing that really changes is the scope, the time horizon, and how much rope you give.
Ages 4 to 6: coins and one decision
Small, frequent, physical. Coins or paper bills they can hold, handed over weekly, on a fixed day.
At this age the allowance does one job: making the connection between wanting something and paying for it. The list it covers should have about two things on it, usually sweets and small toys. The horizon is a week at most, because a four-year-old planning for next month is not a realistic ask.
The most important design choice here is physical money over a number in an app. Under about six, an abstract balance does not register. A jar that visibly empties does.
Ages 7 to 9: the first real budget
This is where most of the learning happens, and where the system is worth building properly.
Children this age can count, want things that cost more than a week of allowance, and are capable of holding a goal in mind for a few weeks. The list expands to include birthday presents for friends, which is the first time they experience buying something for someone else with their own money and noticing the cost.
Two structural things matter more than the amount:
- Split the money by purpose. One pot means the sweets decision and the saving decision compete directly, and sweets win every time because they are now. Separating spending, saving and giving lets each one be learned on its own terms. This is the entire idea behind running several named currencies rather than one balance.
- Let them fail on something they care about. A child who blows six weeks of saving on a disappointing toy has learned more than one who was steered away from it. The steering feels like parenting. The failure is the parenting.
Ages 10 to 12: longer horizons, bigger stakes
The allowance rises, and more importantly the planning horizon stretches to months. This is the age for a first real savings goal, something that takes eight to twelve weeks and that they choose.
Add one element: a way to earn beyond the baseline. Not chores that were already expected, but extra jobs with a known price. Children this age start noticing that effort and money are connected, and an allowance with no ceiling on ambition is more interesting than a flat one.
It is also the right time to hand over a category that used to be yours. Clothes beyond the basics is the classic, and the first time a child sees what a hoodie costs when it comes out of their own money is educational in a way no lecture is.
Ages 13 and up: a budget, not pocket money
Teenagers should be running something closer to a monthly budget with real categories, paid less often, covering more.
The move here is from weekly to monthly, because monthly is how adult money works and because getting it wrong in week one of a month is a genuinely instructive four weeks. Add anything predictable and recurring: phone credit, transport, going out, some clothing.
The parental job shifts almost entirely to review. Once or twice a year, sit down, look at what the money covers and what it costs now, and adjust. Between those reviews, stay out of it.
The three decisions that matter more than the amount
Pay on a fixed day and never miss it. An allowance that arrives when someone remembers teaches that money is unpredictable and that asking is part of getting paid. Pick a day. Saturday is popular because it precedes the weekend's spending. Then treat it as non-negotiable in both directions: they get it without asking, and it is not withheld as a punishment.
Do not lend against it. An advance on next week's allowance converts the whole system into a line of credit and removes the only real constraint. The answer is that the money arrives on Saturday. This is hard in the shop and worth holding.
Decide whether it is tied to chores before you start. Both approaches work, they teach different things, and switching between them mid-stream produces a child who thinks everything is now negotiable. That question is big enough to deserve its own treatment, and it is covered here.
So what about the number?
If you want a starting point rather than a method: for a child aged seven to nine whose allowance covers sweets, small toys and the occasional friend's birthday present, something in the range of five to ten dollars a week is where most families land in the US, less in most of Europe, and the exact figure should move to match what you have handed over.
But treat that as a sanity check, not an answer. If your seven-year-old's allowance covers four categories and your neighbour's covers one, you should not be giving the same amount, and comparing is how a perfectly good system gets talked out of.
Questions parents ask
How much allowance should I give a 7 year old?
Add up what you currently buy them in a typical month across the categories you want to hand over, and divide by four. For a child of seven that list is usually sweets, small toys and the occasional present, which lands most families somewhere between five and ten dollars a week. The list matters more than the number.
Should allowance increase every year?
It should increase when the scope increases, which is usually every year or two rather than automatically on a birthday. Tying a rise to taking on a new category, like buying their own presents for friends, makes the increase mean something and avoids an allowance that grows while the responsibility stays still.
At what age should a child start getting an allowance?
Around four or five, if it is small, physical and weekly. The goal at that age is not budgeting; it is the link between wanting and paying. Real budgeting, with saving and tradeoffs, becomes possible around seven.
Should I take away allowance as a punishment?
Generally no. An allowance that can be confiscated is not the child's money, and the whole educational value depends on it genuinely being theirs. Fines for specific, known, agreed things are different, because the child can see them coming and can choose. Arbitrary withdrawal teaches only that money depends on a parent's mood.
What if they spend it all immediately?
Then they have a lean week, which is the cheapest possible version of a lesson they will otherwise learn at twenty-two with a credit card. Do not top them up. Do not lend against next week. Say it is hard and mean it, then leave the consequence alone.
Should the allowance be one amount or split into parts?
Split it, at least into spending and saving, and ideally into giving as well. A single balance forces a seven-year-old to weigh sweets today against a bike in three months, which is a comparison adults struggle with. Separate pots let each habit be practised without the others crowding it out. KidCash runs five, one for each habit, which is the same idea with the arithmetic done for you.