BARNARD, Vt. (WCAX) – Household chores can be a chore for kids, but a new “Allowance Academy” is making the work fun while teaching them basic financial literacy skills.
The Kendall kids are hard workers. While eight-year-old Knox vacuums, his younger sister Henley puts away the dishes. Chores are part of the weekly routine.
“Vacuum, fold and put away laundry, dishwasher,” Knox said.
But like many kids, Knox doesn’t necessarily understand the value of a dollar, something his mom, Abby, found out watching him play an arcade game. “He quickly blew through $20, and he wanted to continue playing, trying to get one of those little balls that probably cost 10 cents,” she said.
But she says her kids are learning quickly now, thanks to Aldo’s Allowance Academy10 cents. They get paid individually for each chore and can work as much as they want. “We divide it up into the save, spend, and give jars so they can then log it in their ledger,” Abby said. She says basic money management is level one. Taxes, insurance, and interest are lessons down the road.
Barnard General Store co-owner Jillian Minerva created the academy after realizing many of her new hires, growing up in a digital world, could not make basic change. “They are never actually handling cash, so they never have that tangible item in their hand to learn how to count back change or anything like that. So now, all of a sudden, they get a job as a cashier and they have never held a quarter before,” she said.
Each of the three workshops comes with a guide for parents. “It is just introducing so many real-life concepts that you really don’t learn until you are an adult, and why are we waiting to teach these kids these things?” Minerva said.
Regular family money meetings and games are part of the coursework. The kids don’t even seem to realize they are learning, let alone working for it. “Know in particular, it’s really incentivized him, and the friendly competition between siblings has also helped as well,” Abby said.
Each level is available online for just under $20. A modest price tag that the kids can likely budget for themselves, once they figure out how.
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