Over 40s Club

[Miss Chicken]

It has been a while since we had a meeting of the "Old Farts Club".

Today's topic is

How much allowance (pocket money) did you get as a child and what did you spend it on.

When I was a primary school I got 20c on a Saturday. That was enough to buy a large chocolate block or a comic.

I remember how once my sister and I were in the shop ready to spent our money when we saw the thickest comic book we had ever seen. Its cost was a whole dollar so went home and asked how mother to mind our money for us. The next week Mum still kept our money and we went down to the shop to see if the comic book was still there. On the third week we ran down to the shop as fast as we could as we were afraid that someone might buy the comic book if we took time to walk. Once purchased, my sister and I decided to take turns reading the comic one story at a time.

On Fridays we got 20c to buy lunch. For this we could buy 5c chips (French fries), 2 potato cakes for 5c, a soft drink for 8c and 2c of lollies (candy). Most lollies were 2 for cent.

When we were at high school our pocket money increased to $1 a week (late $2) and our lunch money was $1.

 

[Aeronef]

One dollar a week. That was in the late seventies and (very) early eighties.

It didn't go very far, even back then. Mostly it went as far as the arcade.

 

[auntiehill]

I was lucky to have well-off parents. I didn't have a set allowance. I just got money whenever I asked. Not a lot of money, mind you, but if I asked for a few bucks, I got it.

I remember my mom giving me money, as I was going to hang out with a friend all day during the summer. She dropped me off at the movies, and gave me a $20 dollar bill. I bought a ticket to the movie, had popcorn and a drink, and then my friend and I went over to the Woolworth's (dating myself here), and had snacks and slushies at the counter. I still had money to buy a poster of Tom Selleck and take the bus home. I felt like the richest kid in the world.

 

[Mary Ann]

I think I got $2 Cdn a week when I was 9 or 10 (I'm 44). I never saved a penny of it, as I used to buy a chocolate bar every day after school. I could earn a bit more money by doing chores and doing well at school, but seeing as I was a lazy little git this didn't happen often.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Allowance? When I was in junior high, I got 35 cents a day for lunch. If I wanted to buy comics or a paperback, I had to hang onto it-- in a contest between food and books, books always won. By the time I got home, I'd be ready to pass out, but I'd have something to read. Aside from that, my only source of income, until I got a paper route, was washing my uncle's car (one dollar) or being allowed to keep the change when I went to the store for my grandmother (variable).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I don't think I had an allowance.

 

[TheSeeker]

I think my first allowance was around the age of 5 or 6 and it was 25 cents, but it went up to 50 cents shortly after that.

I would use it mostly for popsicles and chocolate bars. As I got older and did more chores around the house it went up to $5. I only started getting more than that when I got a paper route.

 

[Star Wolf]

Enough to get the occasional model airplane or electric football team, the 5 or so comic books I was collecting and to save for the major ticket items like those first generation BMX parts as we retrofitted our Stingrays which we had made into choppers just the year before.

By the late 70s enough for gas to school and running my little brother around, the weekly or so movie. And the after the football game hanging out at Burger King

 

[Velocity]

Back in the 50's I got probably around a quarter a week if I did my chores (more if i did them without being told) until I was old enough to babysit (in the 60's). Some of the stores within walking distance had penny candy, so a quarter went farther than now. A Dairy Queen chocolate soda (which they don't sell anymore) was 35 cents. I miss those sodas. That's what a 'soda' is to me--not a soft drink. Yeah, i'm old!

 

[teya]

Got 25 cents a week until I was 10 or so & started taking city busses to school, then I got a dollar. We had mason jars in the kitchen to store it in. My brother's was always full of coin. Mine was always empty.

When I hit jr. high, the allowance went up to $2 a week, and out of that I had to buy my school lunches & whatever snacks I wanted, etc. Of course, lunches were only 25 cents & a burger & fries was 50 cents.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I had about 50 cents a week until I was 10, then I got $1 until I was 17. From then on I got 10$ a month.
Like with RJD, most of it was spent on books. During the three years I was at boarding school all my money went into rolled oats (20cent per lbs - cheap and filling) which I used to smuggle through the controls in a pillow as they let us starve there. Paradoxely, I still like oats

 

[Miss Chicken]

I never had to spend pocket money on books. My mother wasn't very well educated but she was a bookish person and she didn't hesitate buying books for her children and she never expected us to use our pocket money to obtain them. all four of her children grew up to be as bookish, or more bookish than she was.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ I was the only bookish person in my family. They were always making fun of me for reading and trying to get me to play sports.

I miss those sodas. That's what a 'soda' is to me--not a soft drink. Yeah, i'm old!

Where I come from, stuff like Coke or Pepsi was called "tonic." Everything else still sounds stupid to me. Especially "pop."

 

[trekkiedane]

I don't recall having had an actual allowance before I was a teenager.

Sweets was something I got from the grandparents or (when I reached biking age) as a bribe for being sent to the local supermarket for something the grown-ups had forgotten to buy.

We'd go to the childrens library every month (possibly because it was in the same building as the 'music library' ), magazines (the Danish version of the Disney mag: "Anders And & Co."¹ mostly) was just something I'd get if I wanted one that week.

As I was the only child of two people without siblings for the first seven years of my life, I was showered in gifts on xmas and birthdays

so there was never really a want in my life -not that I recall anyway.

When judged old enough to get an allowance I got the equivalent of a record every fourtnight, LPs (or even CCs) weren't as cheap in those days as CDs are today, I should add.

During summer/fall I'd sometimes make a little extra by picking strawberries, apples, cherries or whatever else the local growers needed picking. Being a kid that didn't make a lot of money meant you didn't have to pay income tax

The allowance was adjusted so I'd get a raise every time my parents got a raise (way to learn about the power of unions!!!) and didn't stop until I had a real job of my own -at eighteen (which was the first time I'd actually earned it when I had a bill with three zeros after the 1).

____________
¹ - 'And' is Danish for 'duck' so in order to rhyme they had given him the normal first name of Anders... the mag-title then read: Anders And [ampersand] company!
(Mickey Mouse was never a favourite character in these parts.)

 

[J.T.B.]

I think I was getting $1 a week if I kept up my chores, mid to late '70s. When I was 11 I started working for my grandpa on the farm in the summer, for which I was paid a calf. The proceeds from the calf took care of me for the year; no more allowance though I still had the chores at home.

Justin

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Zero pocket money........ although we did collect gingy bottles(empty soft drinks bottles), and took them to the ice cream van.......2p per bottle, got you some MB bars, some beef crisps and some whoppers bars for black spit. lol

We were easily pleased back then in the 70s.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

what is a beef crisp?

 

[propita]

Born in '63 (older brother and sister); we didn't get an allowance. Nada. Zilch. Zero. When I was 12, I started babysitting at 50-cents/hr.

My parents gave my siblings money for their report cards--25-cents for an A, 10-cents for a B, 5-cents for a C. There were, I don't know, between 8 and 12 grades on a report card, all those little subsections in grade school. My sister (born in '60) got mostly Bs, a few As, a couple of Cs. My brother (born in '61) got mostly Cs, a couple of Bs, maybe an A.

Then I got my first report card in first grade. Lots of As, a few Bs, no Cs. And...that was the end of giving money out for grades. My parents said giving me so much more than my older siblings would cause too much jealousy. Um....yeah. So I was taught the lesson early: Do well and you'll get punished. My parents didn't mean to teach that lesson, but it's all tied in to worsening my depression, my avoiding people, no friends, etc. Worst part? I think it really stifled my ambition and drive at a seriously young age. And then my parents wondered why I hated to hear them say, "But you have so much potential...."

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I don't remember what it was but it wasn't much. i mainly bought comic books and candy with it.

 

[trekkiedane]

what is a beef crisp?

I'm thinking; beef-flavoured crisps.

But am also curious...