In my last post, I shared my daughter’s new chore chart that we started using to introduce tasks that she needs to help with on a daily basis. Today, I am going to share the fun way my husband and I decided to reward her and teach her a little bit about money management.

A long time ago I saw a post on Pinterest about a basket that a parent had put together in which their children could “shop” from, and my husband and I fell in love with the idea and stored it in the back of our brains till the time came that our daughter would start earning some money. When I told him I was going to start making the chore chart, we started discussing items that would go into our chore store and how we would reward her for the chores that she completed.

The terms of her monetary reward are pretty simple. For every task she completes, she earns ten cents. She has nine tasks each day and if she has a dot on each item at the end of the day she gets a ten cent “bonus”. Therefore, she has the potential for $1 a day. At the end of the week we are going to take out her “store” and let her spend whatever money she has whichever way she wants.

The basket of items are pretty much all things that we have found at the dollar store, dollar section of target, “gift certificates” I have made for her for things that she loves, and some treats that she really enjoys. All the items are priced from $.50 to $15 with the higher items being things that we know she will REALLY want, such as a Starbucks “coffee”. The purpose here is to show her that sometimes you need to save for items that you really want and work hard for it.

On top of this we want her to really earn money to put in her savings account. Therefore, I thought that since all of the items in the basket are priced above what they actually cost, I would use the extra money that she gives us for “buying” her items and put that in a special piggy bank that will eventually go into her account.

Hope you enjoy this idea and have a happy day!