Reality Check: Allowances

Reality Check is a new feature here on RLF where I will look at one of the monthly spending categories I listed when figuring out our monthly expenditures, and break it down a little further, exploring options for cutting the expenditure down. Today's expenditures: allowances.

When I was working, we would take $180 in cash every payday (bimonthly) for family allowances and split it as follows:

• Christmas Envelope: $27 (saving toward Christmas expenses, which oftentimes gets raided for birthdays or other times when we need cash)
• Husband personal spending: $77 (he has a large DVD collection, which is where most of his $$ goes)
• My personal spending: $42 (half of which I put into a special "mental health fund" to pay for things like occasional massages, pedicures, etc.)
• Boys' allowances: 50 cents for each year of their age, plus an extra 50 cents (for example, my 12-year-old gets $6.50), then 10 cents for each mark on the chore chart
• Leftover: (usually less than $20) goes into a community cash wallet to spend on other incidentals requiring cash.

I have already cut my own personal spending allowance in half, and I am trying to get my husband to do the same, though I am facing a bit of opposition to that right now. I'm considering just taking $10/pay period for my own personal spending, but only if my hubby agrees to cut his back as well. Sorry, but I am not going to make all the sacrifices here!

I've debated about cutting the Christmas envelope contribution down, but one thing I am really hesitant to cut back is the boys' allowances. I think that would only serve to worry them unnecessarily.

Sound off on this topic if you have opinions--what do you think about the whole spending money issue? I'd love to hear from you.