January 17th--Day 17--Pay Day

Even as youngsters, we are instilling in them the sense of wonder in a Friday at the end of your work day pay day!  That's right we have a Saturday-Friday chore work week in our home in which (if all chores are done) our kids can earn a whopping $1.50 a week! That's never happened, because they never do all their chores, but hey, it could happen.  Still, allowances is almost as much of a hot button topic around here as breast-feeding and toilet training (but those days are behind me, so allowance is way more prevalent!)  Anyone I know can talk your ear off nine ways til Sunday (did I just make that up?) about why they handle chores and allowances they way they do from the "we don't give our kids allowances, chores are expected as functioning members of the family" to "$7 a week otherwise it would take too long for them to save up for things they want and then they'll stop doing chores." In our house we have an opinion somewhere in the gray there and it seems to be working for us. Of course, we complicate things because on top of the actual US currency our offspring can earn we have a special non-actual-monetary-value currency (called tokens) that our kids earn that they can trade in for all manner of rewards like a movie with popcorn, or dessert or if they save up that made up currency long enough, they can take the whole family out to a restaurant of their choice!  Oh yes, we like to be complicated...we are geeks after all.  But our kids can keep up with it and that's all that matters.  Anyway, that was long-winded, so here's the picture:

So today I am grateful to be in a position to be able to start teaching our kids the value of a dollar and a hard day's work.  I am grateful that my children are already understanding that sometimes that toy your friend got for her birthday that you REALLY want might take some time to save up for (especially at a $1.50 a week!) I am grateful that they are learning early and hopeful that they will retain some of these early lessons and apply them when there are a few more zeroes in their paychecks!