Kids and helping jobs & paycheck, save/give/spend categories and debt...

A few friends have asked me what we do with our kids as far as household jobs (chores) and paycheck (allowance).

First things first...vocabulary is very important! (at least it is to me)
The word CHORE just leaves a bad taste in my mouth! Yuck! Why would I want to start off our "working at home and taking care of our home" with a bad taste in my mouth. One definition is this:

CHORE -noun
3. a hard or unpleasant task

With that in mind, the first thing I did was take that word right out of our vocab!

Instead we use HELPING JOBS as a way to describe our family taking care of our home.

We are a family, we live together and

WE ALL HELP!

We also do not use the word or idea of ALLOWANCE. "Dad goes to work to get paid and so should you...kids." We got the idea of a PAYCHECK from Dave Ramsey's kid program of save/give/spend. There are also stories and CDs geared towards kids learning about money in a healthy way. Find those here. We use a chart from his program (a small white board on the fridge) to keep track of FINES and BONUSES during the week. We do PAYCHECK on the weekend.

Here are just a few of the things that we give fines and bonuses for:
**they change with what we are working on with our kids**
BONUSES:
helping without asking
holding the doors for others (when we're out)
happy grocery helpers
good manners
kindness
encouraging words

FINES:
lying
hurting with your hands or words
complaining
leaving a mess
taking too long of a shower
wasting food

{Fines and bonuses range from $.10 to $1.00}

Here (above) is an example of almost a week's FINES and BONUSES. I write the kid's letter next to the listed item as many times that that thing occurs within that week. I erased my kid's letters as to not run them under the bus. :) I started out putting the FINES at the bottom but now it's just where there is space.

**It's kind of hard to read in the picture so here are the FINES and BONUSES listed:
Baby's laundry +$.30
Fingers in mouth (to be clear that it putting your fingers inside someone else's mouth) -$.25
Shower (too long of a shower) -$1.00
Using your body to hurt another sibling -$.50
Helpful +$.25
Encouraging words +$.25
Leaving stuff out (at home in areas that I have repeatedly asked them to be cleared from) -$.20

**I really make the above up as I go. If I have asked a particular child to do something over and over and over again and there is not a change it goes on the chart as a FINE and if they continue to have a hard time with it, depending on what it is the FINE goes up as the weeks roll on. If I have been working on something over and over and over again with a child and I can see that they are working hard to improve at it then I put it on there as a BONUS. Whatever makes sense to us at the time.


Each child starts out with a set amount for the jobs they are assigned, then bonuses and fines are tallied, and paycheck is given. With this money the kids buy any extra thing they would like, after taking out their SAVE and GIVE money, like toys, games or extra clothes. They have opportunities during the week to earn extra money as well.

Our big kids are pretty close in age and ability so they had gotten the same amount of money until our oldest turned 10. At that point we added 10 YEAR OLD JOBS (a few extra jobs) and he gets paid a bit more for doing more work.

Our kids are currently 11, 9, 7 and 1. Our 1 year old (recently joining our family through adoption) does not yet do HELPING JOBS or get a PAYCHECK. I will probably start that at about 3 years old. There are so many ways that toddlers and preschoolers can help. That might be another post :)

Here are jobs that our big kids currently do...

HELPER A:
1. animals
2. new trash bags
3. wipe sliding doors
4. clear table
5. bathroom #1

HELPER B:
1. start and empty dishwasher
2. sweep dining room
3. water plants
4. dishes helper
5. bathroom #2

HELPER C:
1. laundry helper
2. set table
3. wipe table after meals
4. wipe out microwave
5. bathroom #3

10 YEAR OLD JOBS (Friday and Saturday):
1. take out recycle
2. sweep front and back porch

EACH MORNING:
1. brush teeth
2. eat breakfast
2. fold and put away laundry (if there is any)
3. make bed
4. get dressed

Those are the jobs that we have a need for and that I either don't want to do or would take my time away from other things. There is only so much time to go around. You might come up with different jobs that suit your family. The point is that they are HELPING JOBS because they help our family to be more successful in helping others while learning and growing together.

A big reason that we have our kids do so many HELPING JOBS is that I am not going to be a person that marrys off kids who don't know how to take care of their house and their things!

We switch the job lists each month. I want each child to gets used to doing a job for enough time to get good at it but not too long that they get bored with it. As if someone can get bored with helping around the house. HAHA! Switching jobs every week isn't enough time for the kids to practice getting good at a task.

Our big kids also each have a LAUNDRY DAY. On that day they are tasked with doing their laundry start to finish. They load it into the washer, add the soap, choose the appropriate water temp and load size, switch it to the dryer, fold it and put it away. Not all of our kids can reach into the washer to transfer their clothes to the dryer so someone assists them with that. It works really well! I don't mind doing laundry but this is a great help to keeping things moving during the week and not having it take over our weekend. Oldest (boy) goes on Wednesday, one big girl on Monday and one big girl on Thursday. The girls all share a room so they just put their dirty laundry into one hamper and by splitting up the week they end up doing about the same amount.

We started LAUNDRY DAY with the kids when they were 9,7,5...

And finally, finally last week I heard this come from one of the girl's mouths to the other's ears,"Are you putting clean laundry into the hamper? I don't want to do more laundry that is already clean!"

{Finally!!! I have been saying that for years}

**I am not going to wash clean laundry. It wastes soap, water and time! Only put dirty laundry into the hamper. If you just tried it on and decided not to wear it PUT IT AWAY!

I do the laundry for the hubs and me. The baby's laundry gets tossed into everyones and if they fold and put away her laundry without complaining they get an extra $.03 per piece.

LAUNDRY DAY for the kids is different than the LAUNDRY HELPER job listed in HELPER C list. The LAUNDRY HELPER washes and puts away all towels from the week.

DEBT doesn't happen very often around here because we usually don't let the kiddos buy anything unless they have their money with them. And if they don't have enough they have to wait.

If DEBT does occur and they borrow from us it is a small amount. In the case of my recent IG post one of our darlings is in debt to us. That child has to do one extra job each day (or almost everyday) until it is paid off. Instead of charging interest we just try to make it unpleasant in a mild way by adding jobs ;)

That's all I can think of right now...let me know if you have other specific questions :)

Happy Helping! Love the obwald6