Seems like job charts get a semi-annual or annual update/redo, and are ever-evolving over here. As the kids get older, we have more jobs to do around the house! I look forward to when they are old enough (in our opinion) to do their own laundry, take their turn cooking (Allie is practicing!), and do the yard work, wash my car, etc.
After a long hot summer, these guys were ready to go back to the routine, and excited to earn a little bit of money around the house. They were begging for a real wooden peg board with their names in vinyl (Allie thinks over the top! --see what I am talking about here) to keep track of their jobs but the possibilities of me actually finding or making one were pretty slim so hence, a revamped, more effective job chart. There are of course things not on here that they do anyway because I need help (baby & Maddie, dishes, dusting, or other extra Saturday jobs) -- we just do not count them to pass off the "stars". Maddie has a job chart too, but she is too young to participate in this system.
Once they have completed each column of work (corresponds to time of the day), they earn their "star". They rotate "common areas" every day but do not rotate between countertop and wood floor duty. Collin likes vacuuming the wood floors (which Allie doesn't care for :)), and Allie likes to wipe the countertops/table (and Collin doesn't). So that worked out pretty well.
At the end of the night, they count up their stars (easy to do when you have a max of 4 for the day!). They write it on a piece of paper, I or Kevin initials it, then it gets deposited in our "family bank" which for ease of use is just a jar in our kitchen. Collin made a cute sign for it.
On Saturday, we count up all the stars and then pay them their keep - not in cash, but as a credit in their checkbook registers. For our family we decided $1 for every star earned (Saturdays earn 2 plus 1 star for every 2 extra jobs they do). Because they do have the capability of earning quite a bit of money in a month, there are some things we don't buy for them anymore - which includes, for example, extra clothes and shoes, toys, friend presents, and extra yummies). They pay tithing (10 percent), we encourage them to save at least 20% which we match dollar for dollar, and then the rest is spending money.
A year and a half ago (I cannot believe it has been that long!), I wrote a blog post on our family economy (remember it here). We've obviously made some changes so that it fits our lives better. Some points I wanted to make about what worked and what didn't:
1. I mentioned I didn't like paper job charts -- and I laugh about that now. I LOVE non-digital job charts -- looking back now, I just didn't have the jobs organized enough and I didn't have an accessible board to hang them on. Now I do. I have an "organization wall" in my kitchen (calendar, reminders board and a magnetic board -- so worth ever penny). The key to using non-digital, solid job charts is: accessibility!
2. I LOVE the checkbook registers! I don't usually carry cash around, so payday is a cinch with the checkbook register. They just have to remember to take it with them when shopping. I also like that it teaches them checkbook entry skills. And...thinking ahead - there is an iPhone/iPad app called the "Bank of Mom" which makes it easier for the moms to keep track.
3. I LOVE the idea of matching savings! For example, Allie saved all but $20 of her birthday money to take advantage of the dollar match. For a kid who likes to spend $ on cutesy stuff ($$ burns a hole in her pocket), it's great!
Now for the things I abandoned:
3. Myjobchart.com is great -- I love a lot of things about it. Even though we used that quite a bit, it just got too cumbersome to always assign points to every job - which then caused a lot of mathematical thinking on my part to even out the points between the kids so it would be "fair". Ha.
4. I had to set a time for them to "check off" their jobs on the computer. Easy to do but it was one other thing to do. Our computer is only available for our kids to use at certain hours of the day - it logs them off when time is up!), and it usually isn't just before bedtime, so that posed a little problem when chores didn't get done early. I suppose if you had an iPad, this wouldn't be a problem because you don't have to sit at the computer with the kids to check off their stuff. They can do it right with you while you are trying to get dinner cleaned up or something. :)
In another year or two our job charts will change I am sure, and I will have learned a thing or two about teaching our kids financial lessons!
Resources: valuesparenting.com; entitlementtrap.com (see the wooden pegs which we really wanted to copy there).
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