We’re trying something new with our 6-year-old son: pay-as-you-go allowance. I no longer peel off a $5 bill every Saturday morning to reward mere solid citizenship.

Instead, allowances now come in 25-cent installments. Retrieve daddy’s morning Times Free Press, get a quarter. Remember to brush your teeth, drop two bits in the piggy bank.

It seems to be working. My son has lost his sense of entitlement. We have unleashed the heart of an entrepreneur. Sometimes he pushes it. One day this week he appeared in front of me with his hand out.

“Quarter, please,” he said sweetly.

“For what?” I asked.

“Flushing,” he answered.

“Good try,” I said, mussing his hair.

“What?” he said.

“No quarter for flushing, kid,” I said.

“Oh, man,” he moaned.

If it all sounds a little Pavlovian, that’s OK. I think it’s good that my son has begun to associate work with instant rewards. I also enjoy seeing him smile when he makes another deposit to his bank.

His financial education continues at night when we turn on the television to watch “Deal or No Deal.” I want him to witness the people — inevitably with a Southern accent and a few missing molars — who turn down $625,000 cash-in-the-hand offers for an outside chance at winning $1 million.

“Howie,” they’ll say. “I come here with nuthin’ and, if I have to, I’ll leave here with nuthin’. You tell that banker he ain’t stealing my million dollars. No DEAL!”

These contestants invariably survive with their pride intact but no gas money to get back to Podunk.

I saw a woman the other night on “Deal or No Deal” turn down 48 times her yearly household income to continue playing. Note to son: If you ever turn down 48 times your yearly salary on a game show, don’t come home for Christmas.

You just can’t take for granted that a child will learn value of a dollar in today’s world.

Case in point: State officials notified my family this week that Tennessee is dissolving its college savings plan.

Furthermore, a letter encouraged me to reinvest my sons’ college money in Georgia’s savings plan, where fees were lower and earnings were higher, implying that I was stupid to have trusted Tennessee in the first place. (And we wonder why Georgia lawmakers think they can just annex East Ridge and St. Elmo.)

I also learned last week that my family will qualify for an $1,800 tax rebate as part of the economic stimulus package just passed by Congress.

We’ll take it, but there’s a dark side to the money.

I’m not an economist, but it seems this package is simply adding to the federal deficit. That means it’s a loan collateralized by the future earnings of my two little boys and every other child (and grandchild) in America.

The way I see it, this “free” money will allow lots of people living in houses they cannot afford to rush out and buy 42-inch flat-panel televisions they do not need.

And nobody asked the children: “Deal? Or no deal?”