Shelby, six, just came in from playing outside with a friend and this was the conversation:
Shel: Mommy, if I clean my room can you give me a crisp $10 bill?
Me: What?
Shel: Well, my friend said if she helps clean her house she gets $5.
Ok, not only is she just going to clean her room but she wants $5 more than what her friend gets for helping clean the whole house!
The answer to her question was no. Reason being, when she gets older she's going to have to do it without pay anyway so she better just get used to it. I could see right through her. If I had paid her this time she might keep a clean room for a while but she would probably be asking me to pay her on a daily basis. I don't think I could afford it! I'm sure she's going to start asking for a weekly or monthly allowance some day soon but I need to figure out what she can do and how much money to give her. I think when I was a kid I got .25 for taking out the trash. What do you do with your kids?
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3 comments:
LOL!!! Oh boy! I haven't really thought about that yet! I forgot about allowance. Man, I think I was like you as a kid....I just got coins for doing chores....never the big bills. I do remember one time when I was younger, my Dad was always getting onto us about not turning lights off in rooms that we left out of. So, he would take a certain amount of money in nickels, and put it in a container. Then every time we would forget to turn off a light, he would take a nickel away. Then after a certain amount of time, we would get the money that was left. I don't remember what we would end up with....memory has gone bad since then.LOL
Oh girl. The dreaded "Pay Me" ordeal.
Here's what we do, and it works pretty well with the boys. It, for sure, is not a perfect system.
The boys have chores that they HAVE to do around the house. Just because they live here and because they are part of the family. They have to do stuff like clean their rooms, pick up their toys in the rest of the house, etc. THEN...they are on a two week allowance schedule in which they earn their allowance IF and ONLY IF they have proven themselves to have gone above and beyond in the two weeks. Like doing other chores around the house without being asked, or helping me with dinner, or getting out the vaccuum and cleaning up the crumbs from the cookies that they just spilled without being asked. You get the idea. IF they have done extra throughout the two weeks and kept a good positive attitude for the most part, then they have payday. And we pay them according to their age. Keaton gets $8 every 2 weeks. Sawyer $7. And Tate $5. When they have their birthdays, they get a "raise." There are some paydays that one of them might not get paid, but it has been a good lesson in doing your part and having a good servant's attitude, too. But, again...they have chores that they HAVE to do that earn ZERO cash...because they live here. And noone pays me to do the dishes or wash their clothes.
Anyway...just what works for us. Let me know what you come up with....I'm always interested in what works for other families.
And GOOD LUCK!
I just read Adam's blog - he is so FUNNY!!! Your girls are adorable - it makes me miss yall!!!
That is so funny that Shelby asked for money to clean her room - You'll be so glad one day that you blogged the funny things she says!
We started giving Cambry and allowance of $2 a week when she was 5. She got a $1 raise last year and when she turns 10 will probably give her another $1 - so she tithes $0.30 she gives some more to missionaries (we let her pray about the more she wants to give and she gives what she feels she is lead to), then she has to SAVE $1 by putting it in a piggy bank that we take to the bank when it gets full, and then she gets to spend what's left - the following idea came out of a book I read by Dr. James Dobson and was also in another book I read by Dr. Kevin Leman called Making Your Kids Mind without losing Yours. Here's the idea - give them a small allowance to teach them to manage money. Dr. Dobson says you should let them know it is not for doing things. Let them know though what their chores and responsibilities are around the home (I have made a chart of chores for my kids) and explain that as a family we all have to work together to get things done and make our home work (and sometimes you may ask them to do things that are not part of their regular responsibilites). You don't get paid for what you do but you do it anyway because you have to and if you didn't do it - you would have to pay someone else to do it for you. So then you explain to them that these are your responsibilities and if they don't get done and I see that they are not done when they should be done and then I have to do it for you then you have to pay me out of your spending money because I had to do it for you. And you get to set the price. For example when Cambry doesn't pick up her dirty clothes and take them to the laundry room and I have to do it for her ( I usually let them set there for two to three days and not remind her) then I nicely let her know "Cambry I went ahead and picked up your dirty clothes for you because they were laying all over the floor of your room so your going to need to pay me $0.25 for that" Cambry's really good at doing what she's supposed to - I try to remind her so I don't have to always be taking money from her - ecspecially when we first started -and when she's been really busy or she's been really helpful I just do it for her because I'm her mommy.
It really just took a few months of that and now that Cambry is older she is so helpful and always willing to help - I rarely have to remind her of her chores.
So good luck with whatever yall decide to do!
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