Austin and Brodie bring up the idea of allowance A LOT lately. I am not opposed to the idea. In fact I can think of no better way to teach them about the value of money and not to mention saving. My problem lies in how to do it in a fair way that doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out. We did the chore chart thing in Plano and while it worked it was far more work for ME than I think is necessary. I mean, life is about making Mom’s job easier isn’t it?
I also don’t want all of their chores to be tied into allowance. I think kids need to know that part of their responsibility as a member of this house is to help with its maintenance. This is especially important to me since I have all boys and I DO NOT want them thinking that their future wives are their maids. Nothing would make me wring their necks faster. My future daughter in laws can thank me with lavish gifts and adoration. But, I digress….
Money….
I am careful of how we speak about money around the kids. Austin and Brodie know that there is a family budget. They know that their are certain things that must get paid before we spend on anything else. Austin will often ask, “Is this in the budget?” That makes me smile. I am also careful to not scare them about money. I think telling a kid, especially a younger kid that “We don’t have enough money for that” might lead them to think about what else we might not have money for. Do we have money for our house? For food? Whenever the boys ask for something, whether we can afford it or not, and I feel it is not in our best interest to make said purchase I try to phrase it as, “We are going to choose to not spend our money on that. We do not need it and we are going to choose to spend our money on other things that make more sense for us.” Though sometimes it comes out more as, “NOOOOOOOOO, for the billionth time NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” You get the idea.
So, how to tie in allowance. I think we might make certain chores non-paying and make the bigger, extra jobs paying. Toilet cleaning…PAYING! Picking up your clothes off the bathroom floor and putting them in the dirty clothes…non-paying. Picking up the toys scattered throughout the house…non-paying. Changing your brother’s poopy diaper…a million gillion dollars. You get the idea.
Now if someone would just start paying me for changing dirty diapers and cleaning toilets…I would be RICH!
*this post brought to you by the fact that I really like free stuff and I want to win a free iPhone. Capital One is launching a site to help families learn how to manage their money. IT has some good information…as seen here. And here is where I learned about the contest. But really you shouldn’t enter…I mean if you enter that decreases my chances. Oh OK FINE….go enter*
