As soon as your child can solve their first maths problems, you can consider whether you want to introduce pocket money. This will be the case towards the end of kindergarten or at the latest during lower school.

Pocket money is a good way of teaching children how to handle money and giving them their first experience with their own money at an early age.

Think about the framework in advance. These 3 things are the most important:

1. Recommended amount of pocket money

Basically, pocket money depends on the family budget and the age of the child. Various Swiss platforms (e.g. budgetberatung.ch) recommend paying out 1 franc a week at the age of 6 and then adjusting the amount annually. From middle school onwards, pocket money should be paid monthly, as it will be later in professional life.

2. Pay out pocket money reliably

Just as important as an appropriate amount and frequency is that you give your child their pocket money on time and without being asked. It’s best to fix the payment dates in your diary.

Also avoid cancelling your child’s pocket money as a punishment. Think about why you are giving pocket money. Your child should learn how to handle money. They should learn to plan and organise their money. If you can’t count on money reliably, it’s difficult to plan.

3. Pocket money is for wishes and pleasure

Children are free to decide how they want to spend their pocket money. Parents continue to buy the necessities.

It is important that the family rules continue to apply regardless of the pocket money. For example, if the child decides to buy sweets, they are still not allowed to eat them in the evening if no sweets are eaten in the family in the evening.

Personal tips for inspiration

I have done a lot of research on this topic and have been inspired by the website simosackgeld.ch, among others. Here are some tips based on my experience as a mum and primary school teacher that I would like to recommend to other parents.

Saving with 3 cash boxes

My son is 7 years old. He gets his pocket money every week. He has 3 transparent boxes to keep his money in. One for saving, one for spending and one for good deeds, i.e. donations.

At Clanq, we recommend that adults keep several accounts for different areas of expenditure. With the 3 cash boxes, this recommendation becomes a matter of course from an early age.

  1. Spend: My son can put this money in his wallet at any time and buy himself something with it. He likes to treat himself to a little something in between. That’s why there are usually only a few coins in this purse.
  2. Saving: He saves for dreams in this cash box. For example, he once bought himself a bright green floorball stick. Gifts of money also go into this box.
  3. Donations: We collect donations for different projects from holiday to holiday. I always choose 3 fundraising projects that might interest my son and briefly present them to him. The first one he chose was a WWF donation project to save endangered sea turtles. 

We printed out the picture of the sea turtle and fixed it as the background image in the donation box. 

As my son is supposed to divide his pocket money into these 3 funds, it wouldn’t make much sense to pay him 1 franc a week. Firstly, at his age it’s easier to calculate in full franc amounts and secondly, 30 to 40 centimes per box doesn’t really get you very far when you consider that a comic book costs around 10 francs.

So I give my son 4 francs to distribute every week. The only condition: A maximum of 1 franc goes into the spending box. This brings us back to the official recommendation for immediate spending.

We’ve been doing this for about a year now and I always find it exciting to see how he distributes his money, because it’s not always the same. It often happens that he puts 2 francs in the donation box and 1 franc in the savings box. The latter is nevertheless the fullest, as he also keeps his gifts of money there.

Keeping a playful record

We keep a record of the money by recording the coins inserted and writing down the date and amount. This teaches my son to keep track of his money at all times.

Conclusion: It’s worth giving it some thought

There are various ways to teach your child how to handle their own money. Each family must decide on the appropriate framework for this. In any case, it is important that you as parents think about it and accompany your child.

Here you can find more tips on how children learn to handle money.