How to decide a child's budget? I tried thinking of a formula for our family.
The first thing I was going to try was an allowance system where
I give the child 100 yen times their age per week.
Furthermore, I wanted them to basically manage their own stationery, school supplies, and daily necessities from that allowance. Ultimately,
I want to give the child the entire budget and have them make their own decisions within that amount.
This is my ideal.
However, when I actually tried to do it, I thought, "In addition to weekly support, isn't it worrying for both me and the children to suddenly leave all decisions to them?"
So, I stopped for a moment.
To begin with, is "age x 100 yen" enough?
Another thing I was concerned about was
"In the first place, is a budget of age x 100 yen right for our family?"
That was the question.
If they have to pay for shoes and uniforms out of their allowance, it's nowhere near enough.
On the other hand, if I start thinking about what to include and what not to include, it just keeps getting more complicated.
So, I tried consulting ChatGPT for a bit.
I asked, "If you exclude medical expenses, school-related costs, lessons, cram school, leisure, and high-cost expenses over 100,000 yen, what is a monthly budget for a child?"...
Then,
2nd grade elementary school... about 20,000 yen
5th grade elementary school... about 25,000 yen
These were the figures that came up.
Of course, this is just a guideline for our family to consider. But it became a starting point for me to think, "Well then, how should I decide on this amount?"
I also want to consider price increases five years from now!
Even if I decide on the current amount, prices might change in five years. In reality, prices are not constant.
So,
"It's a hassle for me to review the budget every year..."
For that very 'me' reason (lol), I wondered if I could come up with a simple calculation formula.
And what I came up with was,
Age × last two digits of the year × 100 yen
is the formula.
If it's 2026, the last two digits of the year are '26'.
For a 2nd grader, 8 years old
8 years old × 26 × 100 yen = 20,800 yen/month
For a 5th grader, 10 years old
10 years old × 26 × 100 yen = 26,000 yen/month
For now, this way the budget increases as they get older, and the amount will also rise little by little as the year changes.
It's not a perfect formula, but I think it might be able to account for inflation to some extent.
That is what I am thinking.
I decided not to leave everything to the children all at once
That said, handing this amount directly to the children and saying,
"Okay, now you need to figure out stationery, clothes, and daily necessities from this!"
is impossible for me right now (lol).
So, first I will think about
each person's budget - current allowanceand check how much of the daily necessities and such can be included within the remaining amount.
After actually trying it out,
"This budget isn't enough"
"It was fine not to include this in the budget"
"It seems okay to leave this to the child"
I plan to check these things one by one.
Ultimately, I want the children to make their own decisions
What I am ultimately aiming for is
"thinking for themselves about what to spend this money on".
However, there is no need to do everything right away.
I myself do not yet know what kind of system will suit our family.
So, I will start small for now.
As my children grow, I would like to gradually increase the scope of what they can decide for themselves.
I still plan to add more rules as we go along.
The ideal is to give the children their entire budget and have them think about how to manage it themselves.
We are taking it one step at a time toward that goal.
*This budget does not include leisure activities, lessons, cram school, or school-related expenses paid via bank transfer.
#ElementarySchoolMom #Allowance #AllowanceSystem #MoneyEducation #ChildrensFinancialEducation #FinancialLiteracy