Customer Reviews

Allowance Magic: Turn Your Kids Into Money Wizards

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is packed full of information about Allowances from parents to experts. Dave's way offers a simple, easy to follow method for deciding the ever important question 'How much do I give'.

I would consider this book to be an excellent source for information. One that I will continue to review as my child gets older.

I have reviewed the book for my online class, "Money Skills for Kids". I must say I am impressed with the simple (yet very detailed) plan the author proposes. Additionally, I find that not only the children will benefit from the teaching tools he presents, but their parents will also undergo a valuable education in money management.

One of the sections that stood out was the one on the "Sharing Money Challenge." I like the way the author helps children to integrate giving into their weekly routine, and the way he emphasizes that giving is just as much a part of spending an allowance as buying candy.

Please note that I have included the book into my course's required reading list.

Was hoping to have much better tips for younger kids--as in the 5-year-old set. There was a Wall St. Journal article featuring the author, and his tips in that article were more succinct and what I was looking for regarding starting an allowance than this book was. But this is awesome for the tween and teen set with complete budgeting, spending and charitable donations worksheets. Would like more info. on the charity for the kids--like how to research, and invest in causes you believe in.

I was very disappointed with this money guide for children. It is probably more suited for late teens, but certainly not for "kids". Some of the concepts are too detailed and difficult to understand and the format presentation makes for difficult reading.

This is a great book. We have worked through it and have just started the program with our kids, ages 10 and 7. I appreciate that we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

This product has very few pages, yet it is one of the most concise and clear cut plans for teaching your kids about money via an allowance. I love this book.

I found this book to be a very clear approach to helping kids manage money. The examples are good, the worksheets are clear and the text is direct and easy to understand. We showed it to our 13 year old daughter and she was excited about it and couldn't wait to get started.

If anything is missing its that the background information is minimal or absent. For example, the author states that some parents choose to pay their children to do chores or make good grades and ends that brief discussion with the statement that it simply doesn't work. Its clear therefore, that the author chose to focus strictly on the mechanics of the allowance system and since you can find more detailed background about parenting styles and philosophy elsewhere it isn't a big detractor.
Reading the book brought to light the need for me to make many decisions about the different categories of money. You don't just decide to give you child x dollars, you must decide how much for spending, how much for saving, how much for gifts to friends and family (birthdays holidays, etc). Parents are shown that they can and should make age appropriate decisions for the child relating to money. Parents can elect to not include some categories for their child. For example, a portion of the allowance might be for clothing which you would likely give to an adolescent but probably wouldn't give to a 5 year old.

The author encourages you to involve the child in the decision process and the format and tone of the book clearly would appeal to kids.

The workbook is packed with great worksheets, tips and examples, but is presented in a very confusing manner. The explanations in the beginning pages of the book are very helpful, but once I arrived at the second worksheet page where you figure percentages, I started to get confused, because apparently, info from later in the book is needed to complete the page. It took 2 adults looking at it to work it all out, but now that we have the whole picture, we can make this work for us. This plan is much better than the divided piggybank type plan, where you just plunk coins into the spending, saving, charity sections, that sort of thing. Having said the above about being confused, I'd still recommend it, and would just explain where to find the needed information. Basically, if buying this, read the entire book (not a huge book) before embarking upon this new plan.

This book is a tool to be adapted to each parent's needs. In fact the book is a tool that shows you how to use "allowance" as a tool to teach kid money management.

The goal is to teach your child money management before they leave home. Let them make mistakes now, while you can be there to advise and assist them.

You provide an allowance to your child along with a requirement for your child to pay for some of their own expenses. (In a sense it is a wash for the parents.) You give your child the power to make spending decisions and as a result, you give your child the chance to make mistakes. Allowance in this book is NOT free money because there are restrictions on how your child should spend the money received. (Charts and ideas for restrictions are provided.)

If you use the rules in this book to set up an allowance plan, suddenly your child will have to choose between spending money on a movie with friends or buying a gift to attend an upcoming birthday party. That is what the book is about, teaching responsibility and how to make good choices (or suffering the consequences of poor ones).

If you are like me, and don't believe in allowance, you can still use the rules in this book to set up a spending plan with your child. Since there is no allowance, the child's money will have to come from gifts or a job like babysitting, lawn mowing, cashier, etc. This book can be ideal for a child who just began working! It will be a little more challenging for you because you will have to convince your child they should pay for a percentage of their own expenses. I told my children, "Everyone in this house who earns an income or has access to money (if money comes from gifts), must help contribute toward their own expenses." Kids think twice when it is their money being spent!

Whether money is from allowance or other means, using the guidelines in this book will help your child learn how to make the right (or wrong) financial decisions before they leave home!

Let's just say this isn't what I expected to come in the mail when I ordered it. It seems more like a magazine article published in book-form rather than a book. The text is small and even appears in columnar form, just like a magazine or newspaper article, with a few illustrations for flavor. The information itself is reasonable and practical, and I would like to try its suggestions...but even as an avid reader of all media, I'm having a hard time getting into it because of the format. Larger font, a more pleasing spacing, organized into more of a book format, would have been much better received and easier to utilize.