Our family economy

We had a family meeting last night and Derek and I explained our new responsibility, chore, and money system to the kids. I have everything up on the wall but it’s just temporary for now. I need to figure out a better way to hang everything because I don’t like them just being on the wall. I have 2 ideas but this works for now.

I guess I’ll just explain each page. The first 2 pages on top are a list of “responsibilities” that the kids have to complete each morning, during the day/after school, and night. Bryan has one and Jesse and Malaya have the same ones so they share. Underneath these lists are “job charts”. I got these printables from Money Saving mom. On each line I wrote each category, “good morning” for their morning responsibilities, “have a nice day” for the things they need to do during the day, “welcome home” for Bryan’s after school responsibilities, etc. So when they complete everything on their lists, they check it off on their charts. So for example, if Bryan forgets to brush his teeth in the morning, then he can’t check it off that day.

 

 

We decided to pay them (a small amount) for completing all of their responsibilities each week. Bryan will get paid $2.50 and Jesse and Malaya will get paid $1. If they miss one check mark, they only get paid half, and if they miss 2 or more, they don’t get paid anything. When they’re older (and we have more money), we’ll pay them more.

Now, we also have a new system for money. Have you ever heard of 10-20-70? At the end of every week, we’ll have “pay-day” and they have to put 10% in an envelope for tithing, they have to put 20% away into savings, and then they get to keep 70% for whatever they want. When Bryan’s a little bit older and he wants to go out with friends, he’ll use this money to pay for going out to the movies or whatever or if he wants an expensive name brand shirt, he’ll use this money to buy it or at least help contribute to it.

On Saturday, they will have a set of jobs that they have to do, but we won’t pay them for these. They have to complete these jobs before they can have any fun that day. No tv or video games until they finish their jobs.

When they're done, they'll check off the box next to the job.

 

 

Derek and I have always agreed that the kids shouldn’t get paid for chores because it’s just part of being a part of a family. But we also feel that kids should help contribute if they want to buy something extra and it’s never too early to learn money management. This is more for Bryan, the little kids are a little too young to understand all of this but they’ll still be doing it.

I didn’t come up with any of this myself. Has anyone heard of the book The Entitlement Trap? I haven’t actually read it but I really want to!! It’s written by Richard and Linda Eyre and I’ve read another one of their books but anyways, what we’re doing is what they did with their children. We’ve kind of changed it up to work for our family, but it’s the same concept.