Guides
Guides for parents
Everything we have worked out about pocket money, chores and what children actually understand at each age. Free to read, no signup, no email required.
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Teaching kids about money
Money is not one lesson. It is four, they arrive in a fixed order, and trying to teach the fourth one to a five-year-old is why so many well-meant conversations bounce off.
Read the guide — 5 min →
Allowance & pocket money
How much, how often, and what to do when it stops working.
How much allowance should you give?
How much pocket money to give a 5, 7, 9 or 11 year old, why the dollar-per-year rule breaks, and how to pick a number from what the money is meant to cover.
Ages 4–12 · 6 min read
Starting an allowance: the first month
A four-week plan for starting pocket money: the conversation to have first, what to do in week three when it stops being exciting, and how to tell if it is working.
Ages 4–10 · 5 min read
Chores & responsibility
What to expect at each age, and whether to pay for any of it.
Should you pay kids for chores?
The case for paying for chores, the case against, and the split most families settle on — plus what to do when a child refuses to do anything unpaid.
5 min read
Chores by age: what kids can actually do
A realistic list of chores for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 year olds, how to hand a job over so it sticks, and why "done badly" still counts as done.
Ages 3–10 · 5 min read
Why chore charts die in week three
Chore charts almost always fail in the same week, for the same four reasons. What to change so yours survives the novelty, plus free printable charts to start from.
Ages 3–10 · 5 min read
Teaching money skills
Saving, spending, waiting, and understanding what things cost.
Saving goals that actually work
Why children abandon savings goals, the three fixes that keep one alive, and whether to match or pay interest on what they put aside.
Ages 5–12 · 6 min read
Needs and wants, without the lecture
How to teach the difference between needs and wants to children aged 4 to 10, why the usual sorting game backfires, and the grocery-store version that works.
Ages 4–10 · 5 min read
Age by age
What actually lands at four, at seven, and at ten.
The app the guides keep mentioning
Sock Market does the tedious half of all this: it reads every job aloud for children who cannot read yet, keeps the running total so nobody has to, and turns a price into “that's twelve jobs”.