Show me the Money!!

Nate has been very interested in money lately. Or rather, how much money it takes to buy all the new toys he wants/sees on TV :) So, I decided to make this (one of) my summer projects.....to help Nate understand the value of money (good luck, right!?) by starting to do some chores & earn a small allowance.

As the first step on this journey, we emptied out his piggy bank so he could start with a clean slate, and know how much money he's really "earned." And thanks to his grandparents and a few generous aunts & uncles, he had $79.50 in there! We used the old-school coin wrappers and rolled every bit of those coins, so I could teach him the difference between a quarter, dime, nickel, and penny. (Glad I spent 2 hours rolling those coins, just to hear him tell Greg at dinner that a nickel was worth 2 cents!) And when we took all the coins to the bank, the teller said "You know we have coin counting machines now, right??? Yes, smart a$$, just trying to teach my son about money, thank you. So we put that money in his savings account and then came home to an empty piggy bank.

So, if you follow me on Pinterest, you have seen that I've been "pinning" chore charts for a few weeks. There are not a lot of great ones out there for "non-readers" (aka: ones with pictures)....but I finally found one I liked. Click here to see it on Pinterest. I had Nate come up with 5 daily chores (since he's almost 5 years old) and we added one "bonus" chore up at the top. 

He chose:

-making his bed

-cleaning (one) window

-vacuuming (with the dustbuster)

-setting the table

-cleaning up toys before bed

BONUS:

-help Daddy with the trash (1x/wk)

I laminated his fancy shmancy chore chart and he chose a spot to hang it in the kitchen, that's easy for him to reach & mark off. If he does all of his chores every day for a week, he will get an allowance of $1.50 each Sunday. If you're wondering how we came up with this amount....I wanted to give him $5/mo since all the "research" I did said to give him a dollar for every year old he is. But I really wanted to give him 3 pieces of money - 2 quarters and 1 dollar bill - (even if it equaled $6), so we could hammer home the 3 places his money will go:

1. Donate (church)

2. Save (piggy bank)

3. Spend (wallet)

I assume most weeks he will put a dollar in his wallet and a quarter in each of the other 2 spots. But regardless, we told him it's his choice. I don't think it's too young to ask him to start being responsible with his money. (And just for the record, HE brought up giving some of his $$ to church even before I could. I love my sweet boy!)

Check out how well he made his bed the first day! He was SO excited to get started! :)

This is just the first step in helping N learn the value of money....I know it's a hard concept to fully process for a 4.5 yr old, but I hope making him "earn" money will help him to understand that money doesn't grow on trees!! (And I have a feeling I will have the shiniest windows in town this summer!!)