Family Economics

In our family, the beginning of the school year is marked by a continuous flow of money.  Unfortunately, the money is flowing out, not in, and I'm not sure I could tell you where it's all going.  My children, their school, and its PTA assure me that it's going to good causes.

In the interest of staunching the flow, I think it's time we start paying allowances.  Now, that might seem like more money going out, but I'm hoping it will help my kids decide what is truly important to spend their money on, now that it's going to be their money.  So I created a cute chore and allowance system, which, if nothing else, looks like I know what I'm doing when it comes to both decorating and parenting.  Hence this post...

Basically, each girl gets a jar with her name on it.  In that jar are sticks with all the normal weekly "jobs" they have, such as clearing their plates after dinner, keeping their rooms clean, etc.  I also stuck one in called "Help Mom and Dad."  If the jar were a job description, this would be the catch-all called "other duties as assigned."  Then we decided on a basic weekly allowance amount for each girl.

In the third jar are extra jobs that they can perform to earn extra money.  They pull a stick from this jar, do the job, and put the stick in their own jar, once I've approved their work.  Then at the end of the week, we add the amount of their basic allowance, plus any extra work they've done and pay them the total.  Plus, if we feel like they're not keeping up with their regular jobs, then I can pull the appropriate stick out and dock the allowance.

The girls are excited, motivated, and my trashcans throughout the house are magically getting emptied!  So far, so good, at least for day 2.  I'll let you know after a few weeks have gone by...