We’ve implemented a Quarter Jar to compliment our Marble Jar. The Marble Jar is for Random Acts of Kindness as well as a random boost for everyday obedience. When the jar is full, we make frosted sugar cookies. (I know, reward them with food and they’ll be on the Biggest Loser someday. Oh well.) The Quarter Jar is a reward system for their chores.
Not that their chores are suddenly optional. We have a Work Time every morning after breakfast and before school. They either do their chores or spend Work Time in their rooms with no toys and don’t get lunch until their work is done.
The Quarter Jar mainly exists because I needed a way to justify giving them more toys.
Not that they need them.
However, with a love language of gifts, it kills me to only be able to buy toys for each child two times per year. And buying a toy without a reason wasn’t working very well. They would ask (and by “ask” I mean “whine”) for a new toy whenever we passed a toy section in the grocery store. (And sadly, that includes the check-out lane which is completely unavoidable.)
They didn’t understand the pattern (because there wasn’t one) to when they could have a toy and when they couldn’t. So I wanted a system they could count on to tell them this. And, bonus, with this system, they can’t blame me when they don’t have the money to buy the toy. It’s not like I don’t have enough chores for them.
Plus they get to learn about the concept of money. About working hard to earn it, and planning wisely on how to spend it. And how, when it’s gone, it’s gone. Oh, and, of course, how to count it.
There are three jars in the Quarter Jar system. One pint mason jar for each child and a large one for the Bank Jar. The Bank Jar contains at least four quarters per child and a nice wad of one dollar bills. When a child accrues four quarters, they get to change them in for a dollar bill.
Each child has made a trip to the toy section and knows exactly what toy they are working toward and how much money they need to earn to buy it. When we go grocery shopping, we put their money in an envelope just for them and I hold it for them. If the toy they were saving for is the right price (and we’ve experienced price increases, sadly), then they get to give their money to the cashier themselves and take their new toy home!
Perhaps it’s not a perfect system and some flaw with the plan will develop later and I will learn from my mistakes. But it’s working right now.
Olivia (who is four) has the following chores:
- folding laundry (1 quarter per load)
- putting laundry away (1 quarter per load)
- fetching water in a pitcher from a bathroom (the kitchen water isn’t soft and is orange with rust) for the gallon brita system in the fridge (1 quarter)
- picking up an dirty room in the house (1 quarter per room, and it has to be “dirty enough” to warrant the quarter)
- unloading the dishwasher and stacking plates and bowls on the counter for me to put them away (1 quarter)
Benjamin (who is two) has the following chores:
- sorting socks (1 quarter per load)
- sorting cloth diaper paraphernalia (we have three different inserts to sort through based on size and use) (1 quarter)
- putting away clean silverware (1 quarter)
- picking up a dirty room in the house (1 quarter per room)
- putting away his own clothes after Olivia folds them (1 quarter)
Levi gets no quarters.
They do not, by any means, do all these chores every day. We’d go broke. They probably earn about $0.50 per day. Olivia, sometimes more. And I now fold approximately two loads of laundry every week instead of ten. I’m liking the Quarter Jar!
Do you have a similar system? Tell me about it!
This is pretty much the best idea ever.
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Do they share a quarter jar, or do they each earn and fill their own jar?
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Oh, they definitely each get their own. Should have said that. Kinda crucial. 🙂
Because the Marble Jar is shared, right?
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Yep! The Marble Jar is about working together to achieve a goal. The Quarter Jar is more… capitalist. I added clarification on the amount of Quarter Jars. Thanks for pointing that out!
We don’t do anything like this. My six year old does beg for toys, but when I ask him when he gets gifts, he promptly replies, “Christmas, Easter, birthday.” He gets it. I love giving my kids gifts too, but there is no way we could afford this system. As an aside, I don’t feel like working with me to maintain the house is really something that should have to be rewarded. Occasionally, I will ask him to do a hard job that has nothing to do with housework and if it gets completed I will pay him. (Like when he worked for three hours in my parent’s yard helping them clean up for spring.)
I gotta admit I’m totally with Rachel on this one :). I see something like dishes and laundry as part of being in a family, not as extra. I’m not against occasionally paying kids for extra chores, though.
But then I’m also very much of a minimalist when it comes to toys :), so that very much biases me. I like a limited number of quality toys that promote imagination, development, etc. (so lots of books, duplos, blocks, puzzles, crayons, play kitchen and food, etc.), but anything more just becomes cluttery :-P. Part of that is living in a small apartment, part of it is my educational philosophy on not over-stimulating kids. And then my frugal side factors in there too ;-).
Oh, and I forgot to add on the positive side, though, Beth, that I am rather impressed that you’re already having your 2 and 4 year old helping some around the house. I think that’s great! Definitely something I’m passionate about :-).
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Rachel and Susan, you guys do have a point, and that’s my only trepidation about the Quarter Jar. I do want them to see housework as a family duty. I knew before I started it that it may have negative side effects that way, but ended up going with it anyway. We’ll just watch and tweak it as we go.
And as for the toys, I was totally with you, Susan, but then my kids started watching movies. Olivia pretty much didn’t watch movies until she was three or so. But now Disney has a hold on them. Visions of Cars and Princesses fill their little hearts. 🙂
I thought this was interesting. I don’t know what we are going to do as far as allowance/chores, etc. When I was growing up, starting at age 6 I think, we got a weekly allowance. My mom wanted us to learn how to deal with money and we had to use it if we wanted anything extra. Chores were something very separate – our duties as part of the family.
I don’t know how I want to deal with chores/allowance/etc with my kids. I see the negatives of the system my parents implemented – we didn’t associate working with money. (But then, my parents don’t get paid for their jobs, so maybe that’s why it worked for us?) We were given money without doing anything to earn it. Does that teach a kid to expect handouts?
Then there’s a system like yours, that very much ties work with money. I see the benefits and negatives of that too. So I don’t know where I stand… Definitely things to think about over the next few years!
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So does this mean I should keep Savannah away from movies as long as I can? 🙂
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I’m not a huge fan of allowances, but I do see some benefit to kids working some “extra” jobs above and beyond regular daily chores, in exchange for some (some, not a ton of) spending money. I think it could be a good opportunity to learn about dealing with money. I only think it’s a good idea if spending/saving/giving principles are tied to it. Obviously earning toys for chores is a totally different situation (not saying it’s wrong, though I disagree with it, but it’s not in any way teaching budgeting, obviously ;-D, unlike money allowance could), but earning some actual money for purposes of learning money-sense is different.
I still am not a huge fan of allowances, though. It bugs me when financial books say that kids *have* to have allowances in order to learn money sense. Really? My siblings and I never got allowance (though my dad did pay us a small amount for extra yardwork, on occasion) and I would say we all 3 have very good money principles. I’m not joking when I say I’m the least frugal of the three of us, and you know how frugal I am! I’d say if you look at the frequency of allowances and debt/misspending over the past century, you’d see allowances going up as debt and erratic spending also go up. I’m totally not saying there is a correlation, but my point is that it bothers me when people say kids *have* to have allowance to learn how to handle money, because there is NO historical precedence for that.
So, all that to say, I think allowance can have some benefits in the way of learning to handle money, but you can certainly learn money sense without it :-).
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