I don't know about you, but my kids are always wanting money for one thing or another and I don't want to just dish it out. I didn't have the option of chores or get an allowance as a child and I wanted my kids to have that. I didn't want to just hand them money, I want it to be earned, but I also didn't want to assign chores or make them mandatory. I wanted them to have the OPTION to do the work to earn the money. This way they learn that if they want to buy something, they have to work for it. They always have the option to do chores whenever they choose so they can have money for things they want.

These are the chore charts I made to do this. Of course they couldn't agree on a single theme so we have a chart for each of them. Zander chose Poke'mon and Kaiden chose Lego Ninjago. All the chores are on a round board for them to choose from. There is no limit as to how many chores they do a day. When they choose a chore to perform, they pull the marker down from the selection board and place it on their chore board under the first section. This shows that the chore is on the to do list. Once completed, they move the marker down to the bottom section to show that it is finished.

Between the 2 chore charts are pouches that hold punch cards for each child. Each punch is worth 10 cents. Each card has a value of $2.20 because I made too many punch areas. So when a child starts on a new card, I will punch it twice to put it in use. This way, they earn $2.00 a card.

The value of the chores are not set. They get an amount that I decide is fair for the work. If they have to be told or asked to do a chore, they earn less. If they do it on their own with no prompting, they earn more. If they do a great job, more, a bad job, less, and so on. At the end of the day I will punch their cards to give them fair earnings and return the finished chores to the selection board. On Fridays, they can turn in their cards for the cash.

We have been using these for about 4 months now and they have been great in that when they ask for something at the store or the book fair I ask them if they have money. They say no, and I get to say, why not? You have chores you can do anytime and you would have money to buy that. The down side is that they rarely choose to do chores on their own. If they really really want something, they will do a few, but never the harder, higher paying chores. But, that just means it takes more chores to earn enough money. The absolute best part is they now do their own laundry at ages 7 and 10. All of it! They wash, dry, fold, and put away their clothes. I LOVE not having to do laundry for 3! Laundry is the only chore they consistently do since they don't want to be naked at school.

Step 1: Paint

I apologize for the lack of pictures, but its pretty simple.

materials:

-cookie sheets: I used 2 round cookie sheets and 2 rectangle ones from the dollar tree. Just make sure they are magnetic.

-screws to put them on the wall

-spray paint in your choice of color

Simply paint the cookie sheets and screws and let dry. You can add a layer of clear coat over it if you like.

Step 2: Print

Print the labels, punch cards and chores. I printed on card stock since its sturdier than paper.

Here I have included:

the images of the labels for the chore chart for both themes as well as the photoshop file so you can edit the name. You will need to have the fonts I used. You can download them at dafont.com. Pokemon font is called Pokemon solid and ninjago font is called aldo the apache.

the images of the punch cards and the photoshop files as well

the images of the chores that I used, an image of blank chore circles, and the photoshop files.

Cut out the cards, chores, and labels.

I laminated the labels and the chores so they would last longer and then cut them out again.