Charting Chores

I think my kid is spoiled. Not spoiled in the sense that she's ungrateful or rude, but spoiled because I haven't given her any real responsibilities on a regular basis.

I mean she's been getting $20 allowance every month just 'because.' She's supposed to sweep the stairs . . . You know- the stairs I so geniusly had Jason paint black a few years ago?  You can read about it here.

On a side note, do NOT paint your stairs black if
 A.) You like to hide dust

 B.) You have forced-air heat 

C.) You have children

 D.) You have pets

 E.) You want to stay sane.

If you ignore these rules and go ahead and paint your stairs black, do not think your 11-year old will sweep them.

Even if you're paying her $20 per month to do so.

So it was Imani's job to sweep the stairs every day and she'd get $20 in return every month. I will say that she is expected to give 10% to a charity of her choice every month and she has to deposit 10% in her bank account.

The problem was, even though Imani rarely did her expected task, she had her beautiful little brown hand stretched out to me each month for the cash.

Somewhere along the way . . . (probably when Imani was in diapers and I was a young, single mom reading every child-rearing book possible to assure myself that I wouldn't mess up my child) . . . I read some financial advisor's advice to NEVER link allowance to chores.

Clearly I didn't listen.  In fact, not only did I link sweeping the stairs with allowance, but I was paying even when the job wasn't done consistently.

So Jason and I decided something had to change.  As much as we love that sweet little Imani with those big brown peepers, every month we were teaching her that she didn't have to work for money.

So we're revamping allowance . . . I'll post more about that later. 

And we've decided that there are certain chores that are non-negotiable. They need to get done every day by all of us (without pay).

There are mainly three things that we decided to split up:  Combing Maggie (and brushing her teeth), Setting the table (with drinks), and cleaning up the table (which includes putting everything away and loading the dish washer).

As you know, I love Pinterest.  I found the cutest idea on there to rotate these chores so that no one gets stuck doing the same chore each night.

I bought printable magnetic sheets that look like this
 

 

 

 

I printed a picture of each of us on the magnetic sheets and cut them out so they looked like this.

 

 

 

 

 

Then, I made a chart listing each of the three chores.  I put our pictures under each of the three jobs and they just get moved over to the next column when you finish your chore.

 

 

We've been doing this for about two weeks and so far, it's working out great!

How is Ms. Imani making money, you wonder?  Stay tuned . . . I've got all the details for you (and she loves it, and so do we!)

Thanks for stopping by!