Our church offered a web seminar with Dave Ramsey - he's a financial wizard and he's funny too, which makes the financial part not near as painful. One of the topics he covered was allowance and it made Todd and I spend some time thinking about how we want to deal with that. Personally, I was always opposed to allowance, I figure the kids are part of the family and should pitch in, FOR FREE. I mean, seriously, why should I give my kids money when they take every last bit of it to begin with. But we realized that they will never know how to handle money if they don't have any. And if we wait until they get a "real" job, it's a little late to start forming good habits. So I made a chore chart for the bigger Rufflings, I figure it's pushing it to make the twins take out the trash or pull weeds. We made a list of things that we feel are in the pulling-your-weight category, and things that are worth a little cash. I got some little plastic coupon organizers and set aside a folder for savings, spending and giving/tithe. They made their first paycheck ($1 each and a glass of Coke) by picking up pinecones, loading them up and dumping them in the back so Todd could mow. They asked for gloves because the pinecones kept pricking them (sissies, I'm the only one in our family that doesn't use gloves to do yard work) and they looked so cute out there slaving away. In fact, I don't think they've ever been cuter than while doing manual labor. We have four kids for a reason - some day we'll be sipping a nice cold one on the patio while they wash the cars, and do the mowing, and the weeding, and the raking, and the painting... 
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And don't forget the cooking and the baking and running errands......which by the way I miss horribly.....My "little slavies" now have some of their own!
You know Laura, we pay our kids as well. They each have a spending, savings and tithe jar. They must tithe first then 50% goes to savings and the rest spending. At the end of the year we match what they have saved that year. We figure it's a great college fund and it teaches them to want to save. Connor almost cleaned us out this year but he's going to have a nice college fund.
First of all...you are brave to give your kids a coke. Ava might just fly to the moon if I gave her that. Second, I love the idea of doing chores...did he say how old they have to be to start? ;)
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