Chores and Money

I have been thinking about how to teach Morgan about different aspects of money for weeks.  Things came to me little by little but I think I finally figured out something that will work for us.

I want her to learn how to work so I picked chores that a 3-4 year old can do.  I also want her to make money by commission and not by allowance (entitlement).  And we are teaching her about quarters, dimes and nickels.

Since it is so cold and we can't go outside I took her to IKEA to get some exercise in the play place while I sat on a couch and looked at Facebook on my phone fed the baby.  I had a few minutes to kill so I perused the downstairs stuff where there is always something I want.  This time I found some pink magnets -- perfect for my pink-loving girl.

When I got home I found pictures of each of the chores that she will be in charge of and printed them out.  I decoupaged them to the magnets but the magnets are so shiny smooth that they didn't stay so I fixed it with some double stick tape.

Some of the chores are bigger to do once a week and others are daily.  Tom helped me put a value to each chore.  For her to be able to know, I taped pictures of the money amount (ie 2 quarters and 2 dimes) next to the picture of the chore.  I also taped the days, mostly for my sake.  Here is her list:

• pick up toys - Daily (but I accidently only put M-F) 10 cents
• sort laundry - M. 70 cents.
• dust - T. 50 cents.
• clean sink - Daily. 5 cents.
• clean mirrors - T. 50 cents.
• make bed - Daily. 5 cents.
• load/unload dishwasher - M Th S. 30 cents.
• clean toilet (this is Morgan's favorite thing to do) - T. $1

When she is done with the chore she gets to move the magnet to the smiley face side.  I picked up a cookie sheet at the dollar store to use as the metal part.

She gets paid after each chore and she puts the money in a "commission" jar (label to be made).  At the end of the week (or when she is ready to spend some) she puts 10% in the tithing jar, 40% in the saving jar, and 50% in the spending jar.  She sometimes asks if she can go to McDonald's or Five Guys and I'm not big on taking her there more than once a week so now instead of plain old "no" I can say that if she doesn't have enough money, we can't go.  Plus she gets to learn the value of money.  It's pretty brilliant if you ask me! :)

Here she is hard at work cleaning the mirror.  Oh, and FYI, I don't let her do anything dangerous and I supervise all chores.