# Pocket money and points

> A running balance per person that nobody can quietly edit, allowances that credit themselves on payday, one pot shared between children, savings goals that hold real money back, a points game that is never money, and a rewards shelf to spend points on.

Every household already keeps a ledger. It lives in one parent's head, it gets
argued about on Saturdays, and the child always remembers a different number.

The family ledger writes it down. Each money event is one signed row, and a
person's balance is the sum of their rows.

**The pieces**

- **Allowance**: a regular amount added to a child's balance on payday.
- **Savings goal**: money a person sets aside from their own balance.
- **Rewards shelf**: things a grown-up prices in points, which a child can ask to spend points
  on.
- **Houses and the House Cup**: teams, and the season they compete in.

- **Ledger**: every money event for every person, never edited.

- **Points**: a score for chores and habits. Never money.

## The ledger

Each row records what happened, how much, in which currency, who entered it and
what caused it: an approved chore, an allowance that ran, money moved into a
savings goal, cash handed over.

Most rows start with a chore. When a grown-up presses **Approve**
on a chore's row in **Needs your yes** (on Home, the family page, and on the
[wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display)), or **Approve all** beside its count, a chore that pays money adds a row to the child's ledger, and one that
pays points adds to their score. A chore with **Needs a grown-up's OK** turned
off pays the same way the moment a child ticks it, and a grown-up's own Done
always pays at once. New chores start from the household's setting,
**Chores need a grown-up's OK** in Family settings, which is on until a
grown-up turns it off. The reward goes to the person the chore is assigned to,
whoever pressed Done: a parent ticking Leo's chore pays Leo. A shared chore pays
each person for their own part, and only an unassigned chore pays whoever ticked
it. See [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family) for chores and approvals.

Rows cannot be edited. A correction is a new row going the other way, with a
reason on it. That is what makes the ledger worth keeping, because a record
anyone can quietly rewrite settles no arguments.

Balances are never added up across currencies. A household that holds money in
two shows two balances, instead of a conversion nobody agreed to.

## Reading a statement

Open **Pocket money** from the family hub (the page itself is headed
**Allowances**). Under **Balances & savings**, pick a person from the row of
faces. Their savings goals come first, then their statement, which splits their
money four ways, and Earned minus Paid out minus In goals always equals Still owed:

- **Earned**: everything credited to them, from chores, allowances and bonuses.

- **Paid out**: cash or transfers you have recorded handing over.
- **In goals**: money set aside in their savings goals.
- **Still owed**: what they are owed and have not been given yet.

Margin holds no money and moves none. There are no payment rails and no card.
An allowance records what a child is owed. Handing it over is still you, in a
kitchen, with a note or a bank transfer.

When you do hand money over, press **Record cash handed over** on the child's
statement and it comes off Still owed. It cannot record more than is owed,
because that would turn into the child owing you.

When the number is plain wrong (you counted the jar, a grandparent handed
over birthday money, a chore got paid twice), press **Correct the balance**. Pick add or take off, type the amount
and say why. It lands as a new line with your reason on it, and nothing earlier
is edited. Only a grown-up sees either button.

## Allowances

Each child has one allowance per workspace. It is paid **Weekly**, **Every 2
weeks** or **Monthly**, on a payday you pick. Not sure what to pay? The
[allowance by age calculator](https://themarginapp.com/tools/allowance-by-age) works out an amount for
each child and splits it into spend, save and give.

Ask Margin Intelligence to change an amount and it checks with you first,
saying what the allowance is now and what it would become. Nothing changes
until you say yes.

Allowances are unconditional. Nothing ties one to whether the chores got done.
Linking the two turns every Saturday into a negotiation, and a household that
wants to pay for work already has chore rewards.

### On payday

With **Add to balance on payday** switched on, a daily job adds the amount on
payday without anyone opening the app, and the statement notes it as added
automatically. With it off, nothing happens until someone taps **\[Add to
balance]**. Each allowance says which way it pays. One paid by hand shows how
many paydays are waiting to be added, never a red overdue count, and offers
**Switch to automatic**. Switching starts from the next payday, so nothing you
already paid by hand is added again. The wall shows the same line.

### Spend, Save and Give

Each child's allowance can split every payday three ways. Set what share goes
to **Save** and to **Give**; **Spend** gets the rest. Every payday from then on
splits that way, and the child's balance shows all three jars. Money put
toward a savings goal comes out of Save first. Changing the split changes the
paydays after it, never the ones already added.

> **Note: Missed paydays still count** Come back after three weeks away and three allowances land, each dated to the
> payday it belonged to. Payday stays on the schedule too: adding Saturday's
> allowance on a Monday does not move payday to Mondays.

> **Known limit: Eight at a time** The job catches up at most eight paydays in one go. An allowance further
> behind than that gets the first eight, and its schedule moves on to the
> present. Anything older has to be added by hand.

Pausing an allowance stops it adding anything and keeps the schedule. Deleting
one leaves everything it already added on the statement.

### One pot, shared

Plenty of households say "the children get 30 a week between them", and that
can be set up as it is said.

1. Press **Add allowance** and choose **One pot, shared**.
2. Check the children it covers.
3. Choose how it divides: **Equal**, **By percent** (shares that add to 100) or
   **Exact** (amounts that add up to the pot).
4. Check what each child will get, shown before you save, and save.

The form refuses a split that does not add up, so the pot lands to the cent
instead of being rounded somewhere quietly. Each child still gets their own
line with their own amount, and that line is what pays on payday. The pot is
the rule behind them. A child who already had their own allowance moves into
the pot when you check them.

### A child with two homes

When a child lives in two households, each home keeps its own allowance,
ledger and points. If you share the child with the other home (on
**Home → People**, see [Family](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family)), the **Pocket money** switch on
that share lets the other home see this home's allowance setup for the child:
the amount, the currency, how often it is paid, when it is next paid and
whether it is paused. It is read-only, and it shares nothing else: no balance,
no statement, no savings goals and no points. Switch it off and the other home sees none of it.

## Savings goals

A goal has a name, an emoji and a target. Anyone in the household can make one
for themselves, children included, and a child stays in charge of their own.
Other people's goals are read-only.

- Putting money in moves money that already sits in that person's balance. It
  cannot create any, and a contribution bigger than the balance is refused.
- Saved money leaves the spendable balance and sits against the goal until it
  is used.
- When the total reaches the target, the goal is marked achieved and the family
  feed says so. Nothing pays out on its own: what happens next is a
  conversation.
- Deleting a goal with money in it gives the money back as a new entry. The
  contributions that built it stay on the record.

> **On the phone:** The phone app does the money side too. **Family money** shows the overview,
> and each row opens the screen that changes it. **Allowances** sets one up,
> shares a pot (split equally; percent and exact splits are set up on the web),
> pays a payday early, undoes the last payout, pauses, changes or stops one, and
> shows each allowance's payouts. A child sees their own allowance at the top
> and nothing that changes anyone's. Tap a person to open their statement, where
> a grown-up records cash handed over or corrects the balance, and where goals
> are added, filled and removed under the same rules as the web. A shared bill
> between two people is settled from **Shared bills** on the same screen.

## Points

Points are a score. They are never money and do not convert. A chore pays
either money or points, never both. Points can be spent on the
[rewards shelf](#the-rewards-shelf), and spending never lowers the score. For
which chores to give each age, see the
[chore chart by age](https://themarginapp.com/printables/chore-chart-by-age).

| Level       | From  |
| ----------- | ----- |
| Apprentice  | 0     |
| Helper      | 50    |
| Star        | 150   |
| Champion    | 350   |
| Legend      | 700   |
| Wizard      | 1,200 |
| Grandmaster | 2,000 |

Points can be taken away as well as given. A deduction stops at zero, so no
child ends up in debt for a score.

## Houses and the House Cup

Houses are teams. Four come ready (Phoenix, Dragon, Griffin and Serpent), each
with its own drawn crest, and you can rename them, change their emoji or make
your own. People join a house
one at a time, by hand, and someone can be in no house at all. Every award and
deduction moves the person's total and their house's total together.

Each house carries one of the House Cup's 41 drawn crests. Most are house
characters with a joke in the picture, like Pancake Penguins (a penguin with a
stack of pancakes), Nap Ninjas, Sock Goblins, Snack Raccoons and Couch
Potatoes. The rest are animals, pets and legends: an otter, a fox, a cat, a
dog, a goldfish, a phoenix, a dragon, a kraken and more. The picker sorts them
into groups with a search box on top. Point at a crest, or hold it on a phone,
to see its name.

The crest you pick is the one the house wears everywhere, even when its name
says something else: Foxes that picked the otter wear the otter. Without a
pick, a house named after a crest ("The Otters", "Nap Ninjas") takes that crest
by itself, and a house whose name matches none of them wears a plain shield.
Margin Intelligence and other assistants can give a new house a crest by name
too. When
you make a new house, the form suggests the house characters as starter ideas.
Pick one and it fills in the name, the crest and a one-line description, and
you can change any of them.

The cup has drawings for its moments too: a fresh tally board when a season
starts, the leading house's crest, two shields level on a ladder when the race
is close, a calendar and hourglass on the closing day, and a laurel wreath with
the winning house's crest inside it in the list of past seasons. Points rows
wear a small stamp for a chore, a habit or a bonus.

A grown-up who joins a house earns points for it and is ranked like anyone
else. Someone who has not joined a house is listed under the rankings, without
a place. A household with no houses ranks everyone with points, as before.

A season is the House Cup. It has a start, an end, and a finish line that is
either a date or a points total.

1. The cup closes by itself. The night after its last day, or the night a house
   passes the points goal, The Margin closes it, stores the final standings and
   names the winning house.
2. The family's activity says who won ("Fall Cup closed. Otters won, 204 to
   183."), Home says it for a week, and Points says "Last time" under the next
   season.
3. Every surface writes the closing day the same way: "closes Mon, Nov 2",
   "closes tonight" on the last day, and "closed Nov 2, the winner is named
   overnight" between the last day and the close.

If the leading house has no points, no winner is recorded, since "nobody won"
is an honest result. A grown-up can still close a season early and name the
winner, or call it off with no standings and no winner, from the **...** menu
beside **Edit season**.

> **On the phone:** The phone app does all of this too. Open **Points** from the family hub. A
> grown-up taps a person to give or take points or move them to another house,
> taps a house to rename it, change its crest or color, or remove it, adds a
> new house, and starts,
> changes, ends or calls off a season from the buttons under the cup, and picks
> a drawn crest for a house. A child
> sees the same page with the scores, the houses and the latest points, and none
> of the buttons. Hold a crest to see its name, and the picked crest's name shows
> under the grid.

## The rewards shelf

The shelf turns points into things a child actually wants: a movie night, a
later bedtime, a trip for ice cream. A grown-up puts each one on the shelf with
a price in points, and a child asks for it.

Each person has two numbers, shown side by side:

- **Score**: every point they have earned, less any taken away. Levels, houses and the
  House Cup read this, and spending never lowers it.
- **To spend**: the score, less the price of every reward a grown-up has said yes to.

So a child who trades sixty points for a movie night keeps their level and
their house keeps its standing. Only what is left to spend goes down.

1. A grown-up opens **Rewards** (from the **Points** page) and presses
   **Add a reward**: a name, a price and a mark.
2. A child presses **Ask for it** on anything they have enough
   points for. The price is held while they wait, so the same points cannot be
   asked for twice, and every grown-up in the household gets a notification.
3. A grown-up says yes or no. A yes checks the balance again and records the
   spend. Either way, the child is told.

A child can withdraw a request while it waits. Nobody can approve their own
request, and a child cannot approve anyone's or change the shelf. A request
keeps the price it was asked at, even if a grown-up reprices the reward later.
Taking a reward off the shelf keeps its history, and it can be put back.

The shelf is on in every household to start with. A grown-up can switch
**Let points be spent** off on the Rewards page, which hides the shelf from
the children and stops new requests. Scores are not affected either way.

> **On the phone:** The phone app has the same shelf. Open **Rewards** from **Points**. A child
> sees their score and what they have to spend, asks for a reward and withdraws
> a request. A grown-up answers the queue, adds, edits and takes rewards off the
> shelf, and turns the shelf on or off.

> **Known limit: Bonuses** A statement has **Record cash handed over** and **Correct the balance** on the web and the phone. A one-off
> bonus has no button yet; ask the assistant, and the statement shows it properly
> once it is recorded.

> **For agents:** `record_ledger_entry` and `record_ledger_adjustment` write ledger rows, and
> `list_ledger_entries` and `get_ledger_balance` read them.
> `create_allowance` and `create_allowance_pool` set up pocket money,
> `list_allowances` reads it and `update_allowance` changes or pauses one.
> `create_savings_goal`, `list_savings_goals`, `contribute_to_savings_goal` and
> `delete_savings_goal` handle goals, and `award_points` and `deduct_points` do
> what their names say. Houses use `initialize_houses`, `create_house` and
> `assign_to_house`; scores use `get_points_leaderboard` and
> `get_point_history`; seasons use `start_house_cup_season`,
> `get_active_season`, `get_season_leaderboard`, `end_house_cup_season` and
> `list_seasons`. The shelf has `list_rewards`, `create_reward`, `update_reward` and
> `archive_reward`; requests have `request_reward`, `list_reward_requests`,
> `decide_reward_request`, which refuses a child, and `withdraw_reward_request`,
> which takes back a request still waiting. The person who asked can withdraw
> their own; withdrawing anyone else's takes a grown-up.

## Starting fresh

New school year, a summer off, a sibling who joined late: sometimes the
household wants everyone back at zero. **Family settings > Reset points and
money** does it for the whole household or the people you pick, and a
person's page has the same button for just them. In the phone app, the same
button and **Undo last reset** are on **Who's who** (Roles on the family hub),
and a person's screen has the button for just them.

Tick what to reset:

- **Points.** The score goes to 0 and their house total comes down with it.
- **Money owed.** What they earned and haven't been paid goes to 0.
- **Allowance owed.** The part of their balance that allowance put there goes
  to 0. On its own it never adds money and never takes a balance below zero.
- **Waiting reward requests.** Requests nobody answered are declined, which
  frees the points they held.
- **Streaks.** Chore streaks start again from 0. The best streak stays on
  record.
- **House Cup season.** The running season ends now, with its standings kept,
  just as ending it by hand does.

Before anything changes, a confirm card lists each person and exactly what
goes to zero for them, with the amounts.

Nothing is deleted. Points and money are zeroed by new entries in the history,
each marked "Reset by" with your name and the date, so the ledger and the
points history still add up. For 30 seconds after a reset there's an Undo on
screen, and **Undo last reset** in Family settings stays there until the next
one. An undo writes the opposite entries and puts streaks, requests and the
season back. Only the newest reset can be undone, and a season stays ended if a
new one has started since.

Resetting is for a parent or partner in the household, or the workspace owner
or an admin. Anyone else, children included, is refused by the server whatever
the screen shows.

> **For agents:** `reset_family_balances` takes `parts` (any of `points`, `money`, `allowance`,
> `requests`, `streaks`, `season`) and optional `user_ids`; with
> `preview_only: true` it returns what would change without writing. Margin
> Intelligence always asks before running it. `undo_family_reset` undoes the
> newest reset.

## Availability

All of this is the family suite, so it needs a [Family plan](https://themarginapp.com/pricing) and a family
workspace. If the plan ends, every balance and statement stays readable, and
the buttons that would change them are switched off. Money owed between adults
lives in [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money) and is on every plan.

**Where to next**

- [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): chores, roles and approvals, where most money rewards start
- [The wall display](https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-wall-display): points and standings on a screen in the hall
- [Wall widgets](https://themarginapp.com/docs/wall-widgets): points, rewards, allowances and savings goals on the wall
- [Expenses and money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money): household spending, budgets and money owed


---

Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 26, 2026.
Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/pocket-money-and-points. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt