By Guest Blogger, Amy I
Interested in ways to teach responsibility and money management skills to your kids?
A simple chore chart, designated allowance and piggy bank are the tools needed to get your kids involved in helping out around the home, while at the same time, teaching them basic skills of money management.
Chore Chart and Responsibilities:
Simple job and reward charts are an excellent way to jump start kids pitching in around the house. Of course, it is easy to make your own chart with a dry erase board or your computer, but you can also purchase one like the one I used this fall (see photo). I have found, the more your children are involved, the more success you will have. It is best to begin with one or two chores or responsibilities, depending on the age of your child. You could start with making the bed or putting dishes in the sink or dishwasher after meals. Eventually, you can add other chores (feeding the dog, putting clean clothes away, etc.). Praise will ensure that your child will continue to help out and hopefully do so without being asked. Then, you won’t need the charts anymore. That is what happened for us after a few weeks… although the kids still need lots of reminders!
Allowance:
With your children, devise a plan and decide how it is going to work. If using a chore chart, they must complete a certain amount or the entire chart in order to receive their allowance. Your child might be young enough that a gold star or sticker is enough to motivate them. Lucky you!
* Amount of allowance – This depends on your child’s age and your income. You need to come up with a realistic amount that will inspire your child.
* Payday – This will ensure you stay on schedule and you don’t get behind in payments. We have used Sunday as payday and that seems to work. The older your kids are, the more reminders you will get!
No matter what the amount, I am sure your child will be proud of their accomplishments!
Piggy Bank:
Once you have established chores and rewards, what happens to their allowance? I have just discovered this awesome bank and my kids got one for Christmas. (see photo). It is called “Learning Cents Trio Bank.” Renny got a pink one and Patrick a blue one. As you can see, it has 3 separate banks: one for spending, one for saving and one for giving. The brochure lists ideas and tips for teaching kids the skills of financial responsibility.
1) Set up a weekly allowance giving the kids an opportunity to manage their money.
2) Divide allowance into 3 categories: spend, save and give. This is teaching the essential skill that you do not spend it all.
3) Practice making smart money choices by making it a habit to spend wisely, saving for the future and giving to others.
So far, the bank is a hit, especially with my 7 year old daughter.
One more idea…In our house, we have a “Disney Fund” located in a large jar in the laundry room. I have found this is a very handy place for collecting change and an occasional $10 bill. Over a year ago on a rainy Saturday, I suggested to my daughter that we collect all of the change in the house and pool it together for our trip to Disney (which is semi-planned for this spring). The jar is overflowing and I am sure that we have over $200 in there. The kids love to put change floating around the house or car in the “Disney Fund.”
I purchased both the chore chart and banks at Learning Express at Stonecrest Shopping Center. We would love to hear your ideas and tips for chores and allowances.
7 comments
I read an article just recently about how to teach your children to save. The parents give a weekly allowance. They would then match whatever the child actually saved and didn’t spend. By the time this girl was 12, she had saved 5,000. I thought this was absolutely amazing and what a great learning experience.
What wonderful ideas! I will be purchasing the “save, spend, and give” bank as soon as my children are old enough!
I have read that kids should do chores just because they are part of the family and that’s what it means to be a part of the family. An allowance is not tied to chores. I’m trying to be consistent with my 4 year old but it is so much easier to just do things myself (and quicker!). We have not given her an allowance yet but am thinking about it. I love the 3 bank idea!
We have started a chore chart, there are about 10 things on there for the 6 year old, some are easy like brush teeth twice a day, others are make your bed, clear the table, wipe the table and sweep after dinner. There are a few others too. There are certain ones marked that he has to do to be able to wathch TV, play video games the next day, if they are not done then no tv the next day, these are the ones that are “must do as being part of the family”, the rest he must do to be able to get his allowance each week, and then we have a list of other things that he can choose to do if he wants to earn extra money to buy something. He is also responsible for remembering to do them (I will give a gentle reminder but dont force the issue) and he must check them off as I have too many other things to worry about and want him to take responsibility for it. Working so far, will see how it goes!
We use the save/spend/give method with our daughter and just use simple envelopes with totals written on the outside as a “log”. That way we know if any save or give $ ends up in the spend envelope. So far so good and she loves it!!
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