Cleaning the House is Fun to Do! Part 3: Money Time

Have you read part 1 and part 2 of my Cleaning the House is Fun to Do series?

So far, I have shown you how we made our chore chart and what the kids are expected to do for their jobs.

Now how do they get rewarded for doing those jobs?

Money.

Although like I said before, money isn't the main motivating factor most days...unless they are saving up for a special toy or game. The biggest motivating factor is that we don't do anything extra until the jobs are done.

For example; If the kids want a treat in the middle of the day, I ask if their jobs are done-if the answer is yes, I am much more likely to say yes.

If the kids want to walk to the park, same thing...I am much more likely to say yes to them if they answer yes to that question, and they have learned that over and over.

So why even do the money part? My husband and I think it's important for them to learn about the value of money, the importance of saving for something they want rather than instant gratification and also about giving.

This is just what we do and it's worked for us really well.

Every night...and that is key...we get together and one of the kids brings us the envelope with their completed jobs in it.
We get out our "money bucket." The money bucket consists of a zippered pencil pouch for each child, an envelope for each child, and a decorated peanut butter jar for each child. I also have a Crystal light canister covered in paper that is about half way full of dimes. Every time my husband and I get change back and there is a dime, we stick it in that canister. We then pull out each child's jobs from the envelope one at a time and recognize that they did all of their jobs. At this age, this is still really important to them...they love the recognition each night, "You put your clothes away so nicely today" or "Thanks for taking the garbages out, that helped daddy out a lot!" Sometimes it's also a time for reprimands too, "You know what, we're not going to pay you for getting ready this morning, because of the tantrum you threw when I told you to put down the toys and get dressed."

We then give them a dime for each job that they did. If they get paid for all of their jobs, they get 50 cents a day. A total of $2.50 a week.

That is how most nights end. We give the kids back the envelope full of jobs and they put it back up on the white board and set their jobs back up on their way to bed.

We used to sort out the money once a week on Saturday, but we have started doing it just when we feel like it's time...or if our dime jar is getting low...or if a child wants to buy something and is a couple dollars short. It usually happens about every 2 1/2 weeks.

We take all the money out of their pouches and divide them into dollars.
If there are leftovers that don't make a dollar, we make it easy on ourselves and the kids and put them back in the pouches.
We do dimes for the simple reason that it is the easiest way to do percentages.

10% right off the top goes to charity...in our case it goes to tithing for our church. It's a great way to teach the kids about giving,,,and math! :)

So Christopher made $5 and 50 cents went to tithing, we put it in an envelope until it's ready to be paid.
Then they put 20% of the total into their savings jar. This is long term saving...we may let them save for a big ticket purchase or put it into their savings account at the bank.

So $1 of Christopher's $5 went into the savings jar last night.
Then he is left with $3.50
Rather than giving them a bunch of dimes, we always trade them for bigger change and bills and then put the dimes back in the jar. (Before our kids pay their tithing, we usually do the same thing, we trade the dimes in for bigger bills and change, and we do the same with the spending jars whenever we get the chance).

Then they put their spending money in their wallets and happily skip off to bed with thoughts of all the things they are going to spend all that lovely money on!

I know that dimes are only going to motivate them for so long as they get older, but for now they are all super excited to have this little bit of money to spend on whatever they want. I really try not to dissuade or persuade them on their purchases...although it's very hard at times to bite my tongue. ;)

What do you do for allowance at your house?

If you have older children, do you still do allowance, and how do you handle that?

I am going to be posting about what I do to contribute to the housework probably next week...would you be interested in a clean along? We can all clean our houses together and support one another in our efforts. Let me know if you think that is the worst idea ever! ;)

Let's be friends!