Why Adults Need an Allowance Too

When we think of an allowance, most of us think about children.  An allowance is a great way to teach children about money, and it can be an extra incentive for kids to learn good work ethic.  I love the concept and we hope to start something similar with our own kids at some point.

But have you ever thought about having an allowance as an adult?

The Teacher and I have learned to work together when it comes to our finances, but it’s taken some time.  I’m the budget nerd and he’s the free spirit..  Our weekly budget check in meetings have been a huge help in that regard.  We’ve been able to work together on executing our budget and to problem solve together as the month unfolds.

Despite all the positive progress we’ve made over the years, there was still some frustration.  We worked so hard to plan out and execute our budget, but we never felt like we had our own spending money.

I had read stories about an allowance for adults, but it never seemed like we had enough money to spare to be able to implement the idea.  But with the continued frustration, I proposed the idea of a monthly allowance.

It has been a total game changer for us.

After doing this for over 6 months now, here is why I think adults need an allowance too.

1. Provides freedom

The word budget sounds really constricting to people and often prevents people from even giving it a chance.  While I would disagree with that thought and argue that a budget is actually freeing, I can at least understand where those people might be coming from.  It’s not always fun to change your behaviors in order to stick to your budget.

An allowance gives you the freedom to spend money on whatever it is you want, outside of monthly budget categories.  Since you’ve planned ahead for it, there is also no guilt!  You can spend your allowance as you please, without having to check to see if there is money left in the cash envelope (or in your account if you use debit cards).  Who doesn’t like having at least a little bit of “blow money” in their wallet?

If you have been hesitating to budget because you felt like it would be too restricting, then giving yourself an allowance may be exactly what you need to get you on board.

2.  Helps you stick to your budget

We have found that our allowance helps us stick to our budget.  Before we gave ourselves an allowance, we felt like we never had any cash to spend on ourselves.  We slipped up and overspent more than we would have liked.

We may not have gone on huge shopping sprees, but those little purchases had to come from somewhere so we either ended up stealing from another budget category or we just ended the month slightly in the hole.  By giving ourselves a little spending money, we feel like we have some money in our pockets and aren’t tempted to be rebellious and spend money we don’t have.

3.  Makes it easier to track your spending

We are proponents of cash (Thank you, Dave Ramsey*), but even if you use cards for most purchases, you should use cash for your allowance.  It’s so much easier that way.

When we meet to discuss our budget, we don’t have to worry about reviewing those personal expenses or keeping up with receipts so that we can log them into our budget spreadsheet.  It just makes life so much easier to use our cash allowance!

4.  Forces you to think before you spend

Now that we have an allowance, we are more intentional with how we spend it.  We know that when it’s gone we won’t get any more until pay day.  It’s been really helpful in making us think ahead of time about how we want to use it.

5.  Keeps you motivated

For years, The Teacher struggled with discouragement when it came to our finances.  He felt like he worked so hard, but never had any spending money in his pocket.  I understood how he felt, but we held off on giving ourselves an allowance because we didn’t think we could afford it.

Now that we give ourselves an allowance, we feel more motivated to stick to our monthly budget.  We feel like we are able to enjoy a little bit of our money in the midst of trying to be responsible.  That feeling has been huge for us!

What if you don’t have extra money to spare?

As I mentioned already, I put this off for a long time because I just couldn’t see how we could make the numbers work in our monthly budget.  There was always something else that seemed like it was more important (car repairs, home repairs, you name it).  After years of frustration, we discovered that we couldn’t afford  to NOT give ourselves an allowance.

Your allowance doesn’t have to be a lot of money for you to see some of the benefits that I listed above.  Even if it’s a small amount (ours is not large, by any means), that little bit of spending money has kept us both motivated to stick to our budget and continue working towards our financial goals.

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Do you think an allowance would help you?

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