Allowance -- oh, what to do, what to do...

I've wondered about allowance for awhile.  Brewer is 6-years-old.  (Well, he'd correct you to say his is 6-1/2!!)  He wants everything he sees.  I want to instill the value of saving to him.   I believe saving for kids has two meanings:

1. Saving where you SAVE UP for something.  For example, you want a $50 Imaginext toy.  You have $20 from your grandma.  This means you need 30 MORE dollars before you can buy it.  So you'll need to save your $20 plus start to save other money you receive until you reach the $50.

2. Saving where you are actually putting money into a bank account, and saving it there.  This is not the type of situation where the boys would be allowed to go to the bank to withdrawal money.  This would be a true savings.  (No withdrawal system.)

So I started to research allowances about a year ago.  I still haven't found the "perfect" system.  Growing up, I didn't have an allowance.  The jobs we did around the house were expected, because we were a member of the family.  We were not compensated for these jobs.  I understand this school of thought.  And I've read plenty in my research of situations where others believe this as well.  However, where does the money come from when teaching a child to save?  In my research, I've seen all kinds of systems for allowance, dollar amounts, etc.  While searching and searching, nothing was perfect to me.  In the meantime, Brewer started asking for an allowance.  The timing of allowance was beginning to align.  I was researching; he was asking.

As we close this year and start 2012, it seems like a good time to start a new system in the house.  I modified a couple of different allowance systems I liked and came up with our own.  The majority of what we are doing is based on Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Junior.  You can find out more about it by clicking {here}.  We have the full set from Dave Ramsey include the chore chart, the children's books, the three banks (giving, saving, spending), etc.  We aren't using all the pieces, as we are using what works for us.

I ordered chore cards from an etsy seller.  You can click {here} to see her listings.  Of course, I had to make changes to this as well so that I could really make it work for our family.  I requested she put magnets on both sides of the cards.  I hung the chore cards on a magnetic board in our kitchen.  When the chore is showing, this means the chore is available for Brewer to do.  When he finishes the chore, he can ask me for "approval".  Once I approve his work, he can flip the card to the star side to show he has earned the money.  Each chore card has a money amount on it.  He can decide how much money he wants to make in a day.  

There are three cards at the top of the magnetic board that do not have a money value associated with them.  These are jobs that Brewer is asked to do, because he is a part of our family.  We all have to do our part to help our family.  If he does not do these three each day, then at the end of the day he cannot get paid for the other jobs completed.

With the system set up right now, we'll have to pay Brewer at the end of every day.  I don't think I want to do this.  So I'm going to have to come up with some type of tally chart for us to tally his daily earnings; we can pay him on PAYDAY.

When Brewer does get paid, he'll have to take 10% of his total and put into the GIVE bank.  Then he'll take the remaining money and divide it in half.  Half will go into the SAVE bank and the other half will go into the SPEND bank.  I don't like that it is called a SPEND bank...as I want Brewer to realize he is saving this money too but that he can eventually spend this money.  Another part I still need to tweak to make work for us.  There is a workbook that comes with Financial Peace Junior.  So we worked on numbers today with it.  (Brewer loves math so this helped make it fun.)  In the workbook example, Dollar Bill (one of the characters in the book) earned $8.  We figured out that 10% of $8 is $0.80 and that money went to the GIVE bank.  This left Dollar Bill with $7.20.  We figured out that half of $7.20 is $3.60.  Therefore, $3.60 will go into the SAVE bank and the other $3.60 will go into the SPEND bank.  When the GIVE bank is full, we'll let Brewer choose a charity or our church to give the money.  When the SAVE bank is full, we'll take it to his savings account at Wells Fargo.  He will be allowed to use the money in the SPEND bank, when Lou, Brewer, and I agree on something that he wants to buy.

This is newly implemented in our home.  We'll see how it goes and make tweaks to it along the way.  I'm also willing to match Brewer dollar for dollar in his SPEND bank if he is working hard for a big dollar item.

What do you do for an allowance?  Any ideas to can pass along to help us in the process??

Summer Bingo

I found an idea that I consider brilliant and was happy to borrow the idea --> SUMMER BINGO!  Maddox isn't quite old enough for this (without me supervising...and I need nothing else to supervise), so only Brewer is doing summer bingo.

The sounds of "I'm bored" have started in our home now that school has been out for 3+ weeks.  My kids are not used to having large blocks of time without something planned to do...probably a fault of mine.  So when I heard of summer bingo, I thought it would be a great thing to implement in our home.  I created Brewer's bingo cards as I wanted to incorporate friendship between he and Maddox, physical activity, household responsibility, educational activities, and fun things.

Each Sunday Brewer is given a new bingo card.  Throughout the week, a sticker is placed on each square that has been completed.  He has to let us know PRIOR to doing the activity.  When he is finished, he places the sticker on the square.  Once five stickers have made a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, Brewer receives a ticket.  Tickets can be redeemed for "prizes".  We have a few rules in place with the bingo game as well.

Our rules look something like this:
1. You must brush your teeth and eat breakfast before playing Bingo.  (Note: Brewer is our child who won't eat breakfast.  This has helped with the breakfast eating as well.)
2. You must tell Mom or Dad what Bingo square you are doing.
3. etc, etc, etc,

Rewards look something like this:
2 tickets = an extra book at bedtime
3 tickets = stay up late to watch an extra TV show
5 tickets = $5.00
etc, etc, etc

Here are two examples of Bingo cards:

Brewer has some direction on the days (or hours) when we are not attending a play date, summer camp, at the movies, at the pool, etc. -- I remind him of his Bingo game.  Here's Brewer reading with his TAG books.

What do you do to keep your kids entertained at home in the summer???  I'd love to hear! 

Piranha Plants

Brewer's birthday party was today.  He had a game truck come and a Mario theme.  I saw these Piranha Plants from the classic Mario game on Cute As A Fox creations blog.  I just had to borrow the idea.  Red balls were very difficult to find (when I was looking...LOL!).  Right now, red bouncy balls are everywhere in stores.  But back when I was looking for them, so many of you were looking for me as well.  Thank you for that!  Here is what came out of that red ball search.

These plants were candy bowls at the party.  Smarties and Double Bubble are two of Brewer's favorites, so they were perfect choices for the party.

This project took a lot of helping hands -- Ashley from Cute As A Fox sent me full directions, Allison and Heather ended up finding me the red balls, my dad helped me figure out the plastic bowl support as well as consulting me in the shopping of supplies and attaching the bowl to the stem, Kelly helped with the leaves -- such a group effort and they turned out so cute!  Thanks to all those who helped get them together!

SURPRISE to Disney

A few hours have past since my last post.  I hope no one thinks I was too miserable.  I wasn't...but I needed to have my little party for myself.

This post should be a lot more cheerful.

Last week I called my mom and told her I wanted to surprise the boys with a trip to Disney -- just a day away.  We could go and have a fun day.  The Magic Kingdom is always magical.  Yet, in the middle of the week in February, it's even better.

So on Tuesday we whisked the boys off to the Magic Kingdom for the day.  We had a great time.  Maddox was big enough (finally) to ride the race cars.  He thought this was awesome!

This 2-year-old thought he was "big stuff" driving his race car. :)

Brewer tried out Thunder Mountain for the first time.  He can be timid about new things; yet, he was a trooper about this!

Waiting in line to ride Thunder Mountain -- less than a 10 minute wait.  Gotta love Disney in February!

I believe he liked the ride but didn't "love" it as he didn't ask to go a second time.  He was brave and tried this new ride with no complaining!

Both of our kids enjoy the parade that comes up and down Main Street.  

Having MeMaw with us was a great addition. There is no way I could do the Magic Kingdom by myself with two children.  I was very thankful she came with us. 

I love this photo of my mom with the kids.  But why does Brewer look so upset, and Maddox is looking like he is trying to escape? LOL!

Why do adults feel the need to "squat" when taking a photo with a character that is short?  Mom and I need to learn to not do this.  We look a little 'hunched over' with Donald.

 It was a perfect day!  And a very special surprise for the boys.

Brewer's Valentine's - I'm STUCK on you

The label is covered by the ribbon but reads.."I'm STUCK on you!"

After my post about Maddox's Valentine's, some of you said to me that you wanted to see Brewer's -- well, here they are!  GUMBALL machines!!!  Both of my children are crazy over gumball machines.

Here is what I did -- I bought these gumball machines in the V'Day section at CVS.  They are $0.99/each.  Last week, CVS had a special where if you bought $25 in product, you got $10 in CVS bucks.  I needed the paper towels and toilet paper that you had to buy (the $25 amount); I got $10 in CVS bucks.  Brewer has 12 kids in his kindergarten class.  So these only cost me $2.  CVS does specials like this often -- keep your eye out!  The machines already came with the red ribbon (as shown) along with a heart shaped tag.  HOWEVER, I didn't want to use it like that...ha, ha!  I always have to do something different.  So I cut off the ribbon and tag.

I used my Cricut and cut out each child's first name initial on white vinyl using the 1-1/2" setting.  I was planning on doing capital letters.

However, once I cut it, the capital letter was really too chunky for the curve on the face of the machine.  So I decided to use lower case letters.

I placed the vinyl on the face of the gumball machine.  In this photo, you can see that I centered the letter over the middle of the machine.  You can also see where I've cut the ribbon that was pre-tied onto the machine.

I used a 2" circle punch to punch out these tags that came from Pink Elephants and Blue Rhinos.  Heather is so talented and can design you just about anything!

Using my Cricut, I cut out 12 red scalloped circles (at 2-1/4") using the Lacy Labels cartridge.  Then I used a glue pen (as shown) to attach the tags to the scalloped circle.

 Here is what the final tag looks like.  I added a hole punch to the tag for the ribbon to feed through.

Brewer's teacher sent a note home saying the kids were to address their own Valentine's.  This was to work on name recognition and fine motor skills.  So I had Brewer "address"  the Valentine by writing each child's name on the back of a tag.

 Next, I added a sheer polka ribbon and the tag to each of the machines.

And VIOLA -- Brewer's Valentine "cards" are ready (sorry for this blurry photo). All 12 complete and ready for Brewer to hand out on February 14th.  Feel free to borrow the idea...as long as you don't have a child in Brewer's class... (wink!)