Allowance Tracker - Chores: a family chore chart and allowance tracker

The useful ones share three things: a separate ledger for each child, a step where a parent confirms a chore was really done before it is paid, and a dated history to check when payday is disputed. Allowance Tracker - Chores does all three — an Approval Queue for one-tap approve or reject, a per-kid ledger of every payment, bonus and deduction, and reports on chores completed and money earned. Free on iOS and Android. It tracks money rather than moving it.

Opinion genuinely splits. One view is that some chores are part of belonging to a household and should not carry a price, with paid work sitting on top of that baseline — washing the car, clearing the garage. The other is that money is easier to learn with than to talk about, and a paid chore makes the link concrete. Many families run both: unpaid family jobs, plus a separate list that earns. There is no settled answer; it is a household decision.

The amount usually comes from two things: what the household can comfortably spend each week, and what the child is expected to cover with it. A child buying their own snacks, gifts, and small extras needs more than one whose allowance is pure surplus. Age matters mostly because expectations grow with it. Many families set the figure once, note what it is meant to cover, and revisit it yearly rather than renegotiating weekly. Allowance Tracker - Chores stores a weekly allowance per kid, so the agreed number is on record.

A flat allowance is a fixed amount paid on a set day, usually with an agreed chore list as the condition for getting it. Per-chore pay varies week to week: each task carries an amount, and the total is whatever actually got done. Flat is simpler to budget and predictable for the child; per-chore ties effort to money more directly but takes more tracking. A mix is common — a base amount, plus extra jobs that earn on top. Allowance Tracker - Chores supports all three, per kid.

Write it down at the moment it happens, and separate two events that usually get merged: the child saying a chore is done, and the parent agreeing it is. If both are recorded with a date, payday stops depending on anyone's memory. That is how the Approval Queue in Allowance Tracker - Chores works — a completed chore waits there until you approve or reject it with one tap, and only an approved chore reaches the ledger. If you tap the wrong one, Undo puts the balance back.

The practical test is whether the task is a single, finishable step the child can do without supervision, and whether you can tell at a glance that it was done. Making a bed, feeding a pet, brushing teeth, clearing a plate, and taking the recycling out all pass that test at different ages. Vague standing duties like being tidy do not, because nobody can agree when they are finished. Chores that are specific and checkable are also the ones a tracker handles well.

Yes, it is free to download. It runs on iPhone and on Android phones, and it is rated 4+ in the App Store, the rating used for content suitable for all ages. You set it up on your own phone: add each kid, their chores, their payout rule, and their weekly allowance amount. The kid-friendly chore list means a child can check off what they have done, but nothing is paid until a parent approves it.

No. Allowance Tracker - Chores is a record, not a bank. It does not hold funds, transfer money, issue a card, or connect to a bank account. The balances you see are a shared record of what has been earned, paid, deducted, and moved into savings — the actual cash, or the transfer you make yourself, still happens outside the app. That is also why it works for households that pay in cash, and why nothing in it can be spent by mistake.

Yes, and that is the main reason to use it rather than a shared note. Each kid is added once with their own chore list, balance, and dated history, plus an avatar emoji and a colour tag so you can tell them apart at a glance. Ledgers stay separate, so a bonus for one child never muddles another's balance. The Kids screen shows every child with their current balance and weekly allowance, and the report breaks completion and earnings down per kid.

Each kid's balance is split in two: Spend, which is money available now, and Save, which is set aside. You can add or deduct an amount directly, or move money from Spend across to Save, and both totals update together with the transfer logged in the ledger. A savings goal gets a name — a bike, a particular game — and a target amount, and the Save bucket shows a progress bar against it. Nothing here moves real money; it is a record of what has been set aside.