Hi fellow seniors, were you ever given pocket money in your youth?

Question

Hi fellow seniors, were you ever given pocket money in your youth?

Answer 1

At around 12 years of age, I had to hand milk, and muck out, 6 cows, before I went to school. It was a hard job, but the small wage helped out!.....

Answer 2

Never had pocket money. We were very poor when I was a kid and anyway, I had to leave school when I was 15 to go out to work. My brother and I left school early to help put food on the table. I was earning three pounds a week and my Mother gave me ten shillings every week as pockets money but, of course, I earned it, doing a 9 hour day as a young teenager.



Apart from the 'once a week going to the cinema' I don't remember what I spent it on. All I do remember is, the money always ran out by mid-week. Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays were 'skint' days.



These days, for my grand-children's 13th birthday, just to keep up with The Family, it has to be at least $100 dollars birthday gift and the kid rakes in over $1,000 dollars from the entire clan. A thousand dollars, back then, would have made me a millionaire.

Answer 3

Both my brother and I received pocket money to buy sweets and to save up to spend when we went away for a week in a caravan in the summer. We were given no extra for that. We were expected to do what was necessary and within our ability, around the home, at a particular age. Washing up was the main chore, sometimes a little gardening. In my case I had to do the dusting and help to change sheets on the beds. We were not being paid 'for' doing the chores but I guess it might have been stopped as a punishment if we didn't do them. Children did not get away with refusing to do as they were told back then.

Answer 4

Yes it's a good way to bring up kids, but you also need to reward them at times, so that they don't just associate you with working hard in order to get money. You need to play a loving indulgent grandfather once in while to let them know that you love them, and expect nothing in return but love, Children need an adult just to love them for their sake and not to lecture them and stuff. Your sons however can do the discipline and the teaching thing. It's time you enjoyed just being their friend. But don't spoil them either.



I was give a allowance and it was never enough, but then it is never enough when you are young right? Remember how you felt, when the only time you recieved money is when you worked, from the people who were your parents and whom you loved. Would have been nice to recive some extra cash just because .

Answer 5

Like you I warned my pocket money ,I was a youth in the 1930s when the world was going through the worst depression for centuries,it was hard going.

Answer 6

We had to earn our money when I was a child. Nothing was considered a given. I recall working in my mother's garden many a day hearing, Natty, you gonna 'preciate this come winter. You'll see. Your work now to eat later. And sometimes she would sell a few "extras for milk money." The only allowance we received were younger and we were given an allowance for our age (that allowance being we didn't have to carry in as heavy a load as the older children and adults.)

Answer 7

I was given 2 shillings a week until I was 13, then got a paper round that paid 10 shillings a week. My father financed a bicycle for me 20 pounds, which I paid for out of my paper round wages. This was fair enough, as I owned the bike after 2 years, but 6 days a week delivering newspapers in the English weather was not funny ! However it taught me the value of money, and the discipline of getting to work on time etc. Great days, now they pay me almost 400 pounds a week in pensions, but I saved all my working life to ensure that I could retire comfortably. hope this generation see the merit in this, but I'm not confident in that. They all seem to want anything for nothing. owt for nowt.

Answer 8

Never actually given money to spend.A 5 shilling postal order from an Aunt for Christmas was put into saving bank.There were treats bought for me on the odd occasion.

Answer 9

Like you I had to earn it.



We lived on my grandfathers farm and he set the rules. As his grand daughter I was given an allowance. But if I did not do my chores I got nothing. Also at certain times of the year (lambing for instance) I had to many things to do to get them all done before going to school or after I got home. So I had to allocate some of my chores to the farm workers kids and pay them out of my allowance. If I had nothing left for myself, that was tough. I did not get more.



After he died and we left the farm, my mother gave me pocket money for household and garden chores. I also earned extra cash by helping in a local stable at the weekends and in school holidays.



Beulah

Answer 10

No pocket money for me

Dad was not one for 'wasting money'.

He did however get me a morning and evening paper round, a Saturday job at the Hardware Store, a job under the railway viaduct helping to saw, chop, bundle, and pack firewood, and an evening job lighting and extinguishing the gas lights at the Grove, the local cinema.

This question got me thinking - Looking back now, how I found time for the housework, laundry, and school, I don't know. (Mother skedaddled when I was about 5)

Still, believe it or not, happy days.

Answer 11

My parents were against giving an allowance. They felt that I would spend it

frivelously. Instead, if there was something I really wanted and could justify why

I needed it, they would give me the spending money on many occasions. But it

was never a large amount. Sometimes it was for a comic book, or an ice cream

treat in the summer, or later in my teens, enough for a burger basket a few

miles away at the only fast food place we had at the time. Once in awhile, I was

given a nickel to buy penny candy. There was only so much that we could buy for

that amount, so it wasn't a worry for a cavity, with so little sugar. The two things

never permitted in our house, was pop, and candy and crunchy snacks. And yet, we would get a pop for a Sunday drive, or a riverside picnic. But we wouldn't get any dessert.

Answer 12

Yes, I got an allowance every week, but if I didn't earn it, I didn't get it. When I was in the 8th grade (13 y/o), I got a paper route (100 daily, 125 Sunday), so I worked 7 days a week, and actually twice on Sunday because the papers were so thick. On Sunday afternoon, I went around to everybody and collected, so I could pay the bill for the papers on Tuesday night.



I actually started working when I was 12 and have been doing it ever since, that's 51 years now.

Answer 13

Until I turned about twelve I got an allowance.Then I had to earn my money but cutting the grass which I did not like because we had a large yard.



I got my first real job a newspaper carrier.Had to get up and deliver newspapers on a fixed gear coaster bicycle.(I had to repay my father for purchasing the bike.).Nothing will teach a person the value of money then getting up early (4:00 a.m) and carrying a 30 lb.Load of newspapers over rolling terrain.



I think every youngster should do some good "sweat labor" to learn earning an income is not easy.Incidentally the beautiful person I'm dating grew up on a farm.Now earning an allowance doing rural labor is hard work.

Answer 14

I honestly cannot remember ever being given pocket money when I was growing up. My father didn't have a great wage and my mother, like most women back then, gave up her work when she married to become a housewife, so there wasn't much money about.



I didn't receive a weekly amount, but if I wanted money for something I would ask my mum and if they could spare the money, I got it. I remember asking for money to go to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon. I didn't manage to get it every Saturday but some Saturdays I even got an extra 6d.(two and a half pence) for an ice lolly.



It is changed days now, though, and most children do get money for doing chores.

Answer 15

Like many others I had chores to do and my pocket money was dependent upon my cooperation. Living in army married quarters for some years, I cleaned my own room, and on one or two occasions I was given a sixpence or shilling after the quarter master visited. I also ran errands to the NAAFI shop for some of the soldiers and earned a few coppers for doing that. One could become quite a young entrepreneur living in a barracks with soldiers who wanted the odd task doing. I was given 10/- per week for looking after a dog belonging to a Captain Bowater, who would be off at the weekend playing Polo. The money was to feed and exercise the dog over two days, and I got to keep the change, I felt quite rich for a kid in 1958 and had Post Office savings book account.

Answer 16

Same as you, we got "allowance" if we did chores. We got 25 to 50 cents a week, depending on how old we were and how many chores we did. I also got 10 cents a shirt for starching and ironing each dress-shirt for my Dad to wear to work (no crows feet allowed).



We also had a system for our report cards. If we got an A, that earned 50 cents.

B earned 25, C broke even. D would cost 25 cents and a spanking, and well, we didn't dare get an F!



We always were given what we needed (we didn't know about brand-consciousness then). Usually for Christmas, we got what we wanted too, but we knew better than to get too expensive.

Answer 17

I can only recall of being given pocket money rather school lunch money when I was in school, otherwise I never had what society calls an allowance money as a youngster. I started earning my own money during the last summer vacations by picking pears and the orchards out in the country. I made enough to buy my own school clothes and having my own pocket money.

Answer 18

I, too, had to earn my pocket money. At the youngest years it meant keeping my room clean, helping with the dishes, sweeping out the garage or basement. As I got older I was lucky enough to have pretty regular baby-sitting jobs around the neighborhood. I never took money for granted. Today I think I am a nice combination of generous and thrifty.

Answer 19

There were six of us kids living at home at the same time and we did not get an allowance at all, they couldn't afford it. We got what we needed, though. I did give my daughter an allowance because I could but she earned it doing chores around the house. She also went to work at age 14 and developed a good savings habit. I think that she and her husband give their children too much, but that's their business and not mine.

Answer 20

Our mother never gave us an allowance, we were expected to work around the house for free as part of being a family member.

We got what we needed and sometimes we did get to buy something nice and extra for ourselves if our mom and step-father approved buying it for us.

When we were of age, we were allowed to babysit neighbors children for our pocket money which we could spend any way we wished, usually I bought Rolling Stones albums or Led Zepplin albums with my cash.

We worked hard around the house too, evey Friday after school was a weekend long marathon of washing floors, doing lawn work and general cleaning inside and out.

The only time my older sister got out of working was a few weeks before she got married as she didn't want broken nails so our mom spoiled her for a bit.

Before age 4 or so, many of my relations used to give me pennies for my piggy bank, my German grandfather gave me quarters and dimes, he was a nice old guy.

We moved away from our large family from Conn. to Calif. and life wasn't as easy after the move.

Answer 21

Yes, a tickey a week. Roughly 2.5 cents for those that don't remember the English monetary system. Pre 1980's or even '70's

Peace.

Answer 22

Yes but like others I had to earn it (very reluctantly though), I used to get half a crown from dad and a shilling from mum, that would be approx 17p today, LOL, unless I have worked it out completely wrong.

Answer 23

oh yes! good times i remember the ritual of going first to the toy store and get a model to build then off to get mad or cracked magizine then off to the magic market for a soda all for around 2.50

thanks for that memory and great question

Answer 24

We got some each week, but we did things around the house etc.Helped out a lot, we had a house next door to us that mom and dad rented out, my dad wall paprered it and i remember cutting out the borders. and doing other lttle things.the good old days.

Answer 25

Given no I had to earn my spending money.

Answer 26

I was working and making very good money (which my parents managed) at the age of nine!

Answer 27

Every Friday provided I completed small tasks and hadn't been naughty.