He Finally Saved Enough

A box full of dollar bills that has been collecting since Christmas with allowance money


















An empty box after all of his money was gone

















A happy boy (and his brother who also used allowance money for a game) with his his first self-purchased DS game.


There are so many reasons why I am glad we have started allowance with the boys. We don't give them a ton, but they each have a chart with all of their weekly chores. At the end of the day, they get a star for each of the things that are done. They get a quarter for each star on Saturday mornings. They usually end up with between three and four dollars. We are finding that the chores change once in awhile, depending on any specific challenges that the boys are fcaing. And their charts are very tailored to each boy individually.

But there are TWISTS:
They get "penalties" for each time they are mouthy. These also go on the chart and they get docked a quarter for each of these. Also, Noah gets an extra dollar if he has a tally free week at school.

For a while, I got lazy and stopped making the chart. It was quite obvious that without the chart visible, the kids started back sliding both with chores and mouthiness, so I started it back up again a few weeks ago. Like clockwork, the rooms are cleaner and the attitudes are better.

And the best part, there is no "Can I have that" at the store because they both know the answer will be "Do you have enough allowance?"

I never got an allowance growing up, but I am glad that we are doing it with the boys. And Noah was SOOOO happy with his new DS game since he bought it himself after saving for two months. He is now saving for an even more expensive one. I think the Easter Bunny may bring him a small gift card to help him during this next saving task:)