Parenthood is filled with so many unknowns. As our girls get older one thing that we struggle with is defining responsibilities and creating a chore chart for kids. Everyone grew up differently. Some houses paid for grades while others gave an allowance at the beginning of the month. What works for one family may not be the solution for another family. Where do we even start?
My husband and I believe that there are some things in the house that need to be done just because they are part of a daily routine (dare I say it – just because we say so). These are things we are not going to pay the girls to do…things like putting their shoes away, putting their dishes in the sink, and bringing their stuff in from the van.
We also believe in teaching our children about money. Teaching children about money needs to start at home and it needs to happen at a young age so there is ample time to practice…and make mistakes….and learn from mistakes….and practice some more……all under parental supervision. What we teach our children today will impact their lives tomorrow. Adversely, what we do NOT teach our children will impact them as well. We are our children’s real life teachers. Allowance is a way to teach our children how to manage money.
Creating a Chore Chart for Kids
When making a chore chart for kids I incorporated 4 areas into our week.
Daily Duties: Daily duties are simply things that need to be done. They get a smiley face or a star. We are including these duties onto our Responsibility Chart because they are things that we need to solidify into our daily routine. It is also a great way to add reinforcement into your child’s day by praising them for easy tasks.
Commission Activities: Some chores are paid chores that are to be done every day. We believe in paying our kids for work well done. Daddy goes to work and earns a paycheck that we then budget into categories. By teaching our children that they do work to earn money at an early age they will not be shocked later when they learn this cause and effect relationship.
Bonus Activities: We all want to find ways to earn extra money. With Bonus Activities the girls are able to earn a little bit extra each week. They may choose to do these activities or not. It is up to them.
Fines: In real life if we speed we get a ticket (if we are caught). In our house we have small behavioral challenges that bug us as parents. Instead of repeating the same thing over and over and over and …oh wait…. over again we set up a fine system where the girls are deducted money each week when the commit a Fine. It is important to know that this a fine occurs once a day. They don’t get deducted a quarter each time they eat with their hands….although it is mighty tempting!
Pay Day
On Sunday we have Pay Day at our house. We add up the money owed from the last week. This is an excellent time to practice coin identification, coin value, counting by 1/5/10/25’s, addition, and subtraction.
On Pay Day we encourage the girls to put money into three categories: Spend, Save, and Give. Yes, this is a little Dave Ramsey’ish. We read The Total Money Makeover several years ago and what he says resonated with us. It was hard to wrap our minds around the “Give” category as adults and it is even harder for the girls to fathom this concept. Ultimately I hope that we will get to a point where the girls allocate their money into the following categories: 20% Give, 40% Save, 40% Spend.
If you are looking for more reading I highly suggest Little Kids Big Money: Tools for Teaching Kid Friendly Finance. This is a short, easy to read book that made me rethink how we are teaching our kids about money….and thus my Chore Chart was born.
{CLICK HERE} to download a copy of the muted color scheme chore chart for your own family. There are 4 different colored titles available for you to customize to your children.
If you want the brightly colored chore chart you can CLICK HERE for that download.
See Also:
Printable Savings Chart for Kids: Help Kids Set and Reach Financial Goals
Teaching Kids About Money with Two Piggy Banks
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Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 13 and 12, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more
thank you for the wonderful template
Thank you for the free template!!
Thanks for putting all this together! We are going to Dave Ramsey’s class and trying to learn and apply. Great article!
Great article.
Hi there, You’ve done a great job. I will certainly digg it
and personally suggest to my friends. I am sure they’ll be benefited from this site.
Currently it sounds like Expression Engine is the preferred blogging platform available right
now. (from what I’ve read) Is that what you are using on your blog?
This is precisely the reason why we created MyCheQueMate.com a free website designed to help parents teach their kids about the concept of money. MyCheQueMate.com is a cyber bank account where parents are the bank owners and their kids are the bank’s customers. We’ve also included an interactive Chores Chart which automatically notifies both parents and kids. You’ve used the word ‘Give’ where as we’ve used the word ‘Share’ instead because we think kids might understand that better. Thanks for sharing your ideas with us.
Wow, u r awesome… THANKS FOR THIS. GENIUS!
Hello! I want to use your responsibility chart with my girls but a little confused (on my behalf). I add the duties that needs to to be done and added the money in the “value” column. My husband and I agreed that $3.00 a week is reasonable for our daughters (ages 5-9). Now here is my question, the amount I put in “value” is that what they will get for the week? Or is that what they will get per day in task is completed? Also, the fines, is it weekly as well? For example, if they complete all their task (including bonus) but got fined which is -.25cents so do I pay them $2.75? Please email me and let me know? Thank you!
We use the “value” column as a per day column. My girls can make a lot per day….but they never do! When they are at the end of earning enough money for something that they really want they do a bunch of extra bonus chores. But normally they make under the $5 we have budgeted. We subtract the fines from the end.