Kid's Allowance Calculator

This calculator starts from a simple age-based baseline — about 75 cents per week for every year of the child's age — then scales it up or down by household income, since a dollar figure that fits one family's budget can be wildly off for another. The income adjustment compares your entered household income against $70,000 (roughly a US household median) and multiplies the base rate by that ratio, but the multiplier is clamped between 0.5x and 2x so extreme incomes don't produce an absurdly tiny or enormous allowance. If you mark the allowance as chore-based rather than purely age-based, the calculator adds a flat 20% on top as an incentive for completed work.

From the resulting weekly figure, the tool then applies the classic save/spend/give framework: you set percentages for saving and giving, and whatever's left over (100% minus those two) becomes free-spending money. The savings-after-5-years figure assumes the weekly saving amount continues every week for five years, invested at a steady 5% annual return compounded through an annuity formula — a reasonable illustration of how consistent small deposits compound, though real kids' savings accounts rarely pay anywhere close to 5%, so treat this figure as a teaching tool about compounding rather than a literal projection. Common mixups: the saving and giving percentages must together stay under 100%, since spending automatically absorbs whatever's left — enter numbers that sum to more than 100 and the spending share is floored at zero, not negative.