My new Chores and Allowance System (Long)
I recently started a new chores and allowance system for my children. It has been about a month and I *think* I might have found a system that works. I wanted to give it a running start to see if it worked before I posted it, and since a comment was made about what chores my kids do, I decided to go ahead and post it. It's long so only read if you are interested to:
We have the following posted in the playroom in a picture frame down low for all of them to see. Here are their daily chores:
9 year old
Daily Chores
· Unload dishwasher in morning
· Take out trash on Tues, Thur, Sat
· Clear Dinner table Mon, Fri, Sun
· Set Dinner table Tue, Thur, Sat
· Empty house trash with sister every Tuesday
Allowance
$4.00 per week
-0.40 tithing
-1.60 savings = $2.00 spending
TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR = $83.20
6 year old
Daily Chores
· Sort dirty clothes
· Take out trash on Mon, Wed, Fri
· Set Dinner table Mon, Fri, Sun
· Clear Dinner table Tue, Thur, Sat
· Empty house trash with sister every Tuesday
Allowance
$2.00 per week
-0.20 tithing
-0.80 savings = $1.00 spending
TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR = $41.60
4 year old
Daily Chores
· Pick-up dirty clothes around house
· Pick-up trash around house
· Pick-up toys outside of playroom
Allowance
$1.00 per week
-0.10 tithing
-0.40 savings = $0.50 spending
TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR = $20.80
In addition to their daily chores, they have set jobs to do when I ask them to clean up the playroom. This way, everyone has a job and it has diffused the complaint that no one is helping enough. Once your job is done, your part of cleaning the room is done. It also makes it nice for me since all I have to say is clean the playroom and they each know what to do.
Playroom
· 9 year old – pick-up and put away brown baskets and any items that go inside them
· 6 year old – pick-up and put away colored bins and any items that go inside them
· 4 year old – pick-up clothes, trash and furniture (including pillows)
I researched about allowance and chores and decided that it would be best if the allowance wasn't connected to the chores. So, with my system, each child received their allowance just for being a member of the family. I have envelopes and I put the money in each envelope for each week. The catch is that if they want the money on pay day, certain conditions need to be met. These conditions are as follows:
bedroom picked up
bed made
playroom clean
I felt it was very fair to only require them to clean their rooms once a week. This stemmed from someone with teenagers recently telling me how they get them to clean up their rooms. They told them that how they kept thier rooms during the week was their business, but if they wanted to go out on Friday or Saturday night, their rooms had to be clean first. I loved it! So, I'm starting it now. With my system, they would still get their money, just they would have to wait until the next payday to recieve it. So far instance, if the next pay day they did the 3 items above they would get paid for two weeks.
Even though I didn't want to connect the allowance with the chores, I did want to give my children the opportunity to earn extra money if they worked for it. I think it is a very valuable thing to learn. So, I created extra chores and gave them each a monetary value. The rule is that they have to ask before they do an extra chore and their daily chores have to be done first. Recently I doubled the values on the extra chores since we were going on vacation. This gave them the opporutnity to quickly earn spending money rather than me doling out money for no reason to them.
Extra Chores
· Sweep floors - $0.50
· Wash all windows - $1.00
· Dust living room - $1.00
· Clear and wipe both bathroom counters - $1.00
· Wash mirrors - $.0.50
· Vacuum - $0.25 per room
As far as the amounts I came up with for the allowance, I researched that as well. Partly it was how much I was able to afford. The other part was based on another item I read. I read that when you give a child an allowance there should be an expectation that they would then pay for something with their money that was normally paid for by the parent. I decided that I am not going to buy school lunch this year. I use to let them buy school lunch about once a week just for fun and variety. This year, if they want school lunch, they will need to use their money for it. I think they are getting enough money to buy lunch once a week (or more if they want) and still have money left over for other things. We pay 10% tithing to our church and so each first Sunday the children will pay their tithing for the month. Each second Saturday of the month we will take the kids to the bank and they can deposit their savings into their bank accounts. It's a great learning tool!
If they don't do their daily chores, they get in trouble. There are consquences that are the same as if they hadn't listened to me about something else. Time outs, extra chores, etc. So far, I haven't had any trouble.
There you have it. It might sounds complicated (it does when I'm typing it out) but it has worked very smoothly and has helped me tremedously! When it's dinner time I can call out "Whose turn to set the table" and they can check and that person comes to do it. It's a great blessing and it brings peace to my home which is invaluable!
We have the following posted in the playroom in a picture frame down low for all of them to see. Here are their daily chores:
9 year old
Daily Chores
· Unload dishwasher in morning
· Take out trash on Tues, Thur, Sat
· Clear Dinner table Mon, Fri, Sun
· Set Dinner table Tue, Thur, Sat
· Empty house trash with sister every Tuesday
Allowance
$4.00 per week
-0.40 tithing
-1.60 savings = $2.00 spending
TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR = $83.20
6 year old
Daily Chores
· Sort dirty clothes
· Take out trash on Mon, Wed, Fri
· Set Dinner table Mon, Fri, Sun
· Clear Dinner table Tue, Thur, Sat
· Empty house trash with sister every Tuesday
Allowance
$2.00 per week
-0.20 tithing
-0.80 savings = $1.00 spending
TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR = $41.60
4 year old
Daily Chores
· Pick-up dirty clothes around house
· Pick-up trash around house
· Pick-up toys outside of playroom
Allowance
$1.00 per week
-0.10 tithing
-0.40 savings = $0.50 spending
TOTAL SAVINGS PER YEAR = $20.80
In addition to their daily chores, they have set jobs to do when I ask them to clean up the playroom. This way, everyone has a job and it has diffused the complaint that no one is helping enough. Once your job is done, your part of cleaning the room is done. It also makes it nice for me since all I have to say is clean the playroom and they each know what to do.
Playroom
· 9 year old – pick-up and put away brown baskets and any items that go inside them
· 6 year old – pick-up and put away colored bins and any items that go inside them
· 4 year old – pick-up clothes, trash and furniture (including pillows)
I researched about allowance and chores and decided that it would be best if the allowance wasn't connected to the chores. So, with my system, each child received their allowance just for being a member of the family. I have envelopes and I put the money in each envelope for each week. The catch is that if they want the money on pay day, certain conditions need to be met. These conditions are as follows:
bedroom picked up
bed made
playroom clean
I felt it was very fair to only require them to clean their rooms once a week. This stemmed from someone with teenagers recently telling me how they get them to clean up their rooms. They told them that how they kept thier rooms during the week was their business, but if they wanted to go out on Friday or Saturday night, their rooms had to be clean first. I loved it! So, I'm starting it now. With my system, they would still get their money, just they would have to wait until the next payday to recieve it. So far instance, if the next pay day they did the 3 items above they would get paid for two weeks.
Even though I didn't want to connect the allowance with the chores, I did want to give my children the opportunity to earn extra money if they worked for it. I think it is a very valuable thing to learn. So, I created extra chores and gave them each a monetary value. The rule is that they have to ask before they do an extra chore and their daily chores have to be done first. Recently I doubled the values on the extra chores since we were going on vacation. This gave them the opporutnity to quickly earn spending money rather than me doling out money for no reason to them.
Extra Chores
· Sweep floors - $0.50
· Wash all windows - $1.00
· Dust living room - $1.00
· Clear and wipe both bathroom counters - $1.00
· Wash mirrors - $.0.50
· Vacuum - $0.25 per room
As far as the amounts I came up with for the allowance, I researched that as well. Partly it was how much I was able to afford. The other part was based on another item I read. I read that when you give a child an allowance there should be an expectation that they would then pay for something with their money that was normally paid for by the parent. I decided that I am not going to buy school lunch this year. I use to let them buy school lunch about once a week just for fun and variety. This year, if they want school lunch, they will need to use their money for it. I think they are getting enough money to buy lunch once a week (or more if they want) and still have money left over for other things. We pay 10% tithing to our church and so each first Sunday the children will pay their tithing for the month. Each second Saturday of the month we will take the kids to the bank and they can deposit their savings into their bank accounts. It's a great learning tool!
If they don't do their daily chores, they get in trouble. There are consquences that are the same as if they hadn't listened to me about something else. Time outs, extra chores, etc. So far, I haven't had any trouble.
There you have it. It might sounds complicated (it does when I'm typing it out) but it has worked very smoothly and has helped me tremedously! When it's dinner time I can call out "Whose turn to set the table" and they can check and that person comes to do it. It's a great blessing and it brings peace to my home which is invaluable!
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