Chore Pockets, Dividend Allowances, and Summer Jobs in Winter: Weekly Family Finance Picks (#31)

We’re constantly scouring the Internet looking for articles related to family finances and teaching kids good personal finance habits. You can visit the FamZoo delicious page to see our ever growing list of family finance bookmarks. We’re up to 911 now! Each week, we pick our favorite articles from the previous week and post them here.

This week, we’ve got chore pockets, dividend allowances, and summer jobs (already??):

Resolutionize: Chores vs. Allowance

by Nikki on Coupon Cookin’

Nikki’s following up on her New Year’s resolutions by rolling out a new chore system for her young children. She’s come up with a pocket-based chore chart that I thought was really clever and unique. If you’re looking for a hands-on physical chore chart for your youngsters, check it out.

By the way, there’s no reason you can’t use a physical chore chart with a virtual bank. Just credit the appropriate virtual account(s) at the end of the week instead of doling out cash.

Paying Allowances From Dividend Stocks

by Don on Money Reasons

Here’s another novel idea that I’d never heard of before: funding your child’s allowance from dividend stocks. Read Don’s short post to see how it works. I like how the approach combines an allowance with a natural incentive for your child to learn about investing (or at least, at minimum, understand what a dividend is).

Don laments that he’s waited too long to use the approach with his kids, but I disagree. If you’re starting late, just combine an initially meager dividend allowance with a regular allowance. That way, your child’s “base salary” comes directly from you and a “variable comp” component comes from an incrementally growing dividend stream over the years.

8 Ways for Kids to Find a Summer Job

by Dan Kadlec on CBS MoneyWatch: Bank of Dad

It seems a bit nuts to be talking about nailing down teen summer jobs in the dead of winter, but Dan makes a good case for getting started (really) early and provides 8 job hunting tips for your teens.

In fact, if you follow up on his suggestion to search the US Government job database for student summer gigs, you’ll see that the closing dates are very near — late January to mid February. So, get hoppin’.