Saving away

The beginning of March we started a chore chart for Brody - thanks to Dr. Dobson's How to Discipline Your Child.  I was beginning to pull my hair out with the whine and was looking for a neat way for Brody to get excited about being good.

There are 17 chores ranging from brushing your teeth, picking up toys before bedtime, mind mama and daddy, nice to Trevor, set the table, whine???, you get the idea.  Every night before bed we sit down and go through each item and he gets a sticker for each item he did for the day.  He then counts all of the stickers and he gets 2 cents for each sticker.  Yes, I know you are thinking wow what a big spender 2 cents.. couldn't you do a little more?  Well, with 2 cents he could get 34 cents for the day and $2.38 for the week, so it adds up and he loves counting out the pennies.

Adding stickers to his chart

Brody counting how many stickers he got for the day.

Receiving his money for the day

We then have 3 cups labeled "Jesus Money", "Save", and "Spend".  He puts at least 10% in the Jesus Money cup and then he divides the rest between Save and Spend.  When we first started this he wanted to put pretty much all of the remaining money into the Save cup, but my goal is for him to have at least $1 in the Spend cup each week so he can go to the Dollar Store and reward himself for his good behavior.

So many choices but only 1

Here's what Trevor was doing while Brody was picking out his toy.  Check out the plates on the floor as well - we destroyed that aisle - but we put it up.

I asked him in the beginning what he was saving his money for and what does he say "Disney Cruise".  He has seen too many commercials because we haven't said we were going on one, but I guess the media gets a gold star for advertising because it has worked with my child.  We try to explain to him that the cruise will be a little while off because we have to wait until Trevor gets a little older so he can remember it.  But if this gets him to save, save, save then more power to him.

The sweetest thing about this whole thing is on Saturday nights after we finish the chart we prepare our Jesus Money envelope.  Brody writes his own name on the envelope and he is so excited to put the money in it.  I pray he is always so excited to do this.  I remember at a young age my parents teaching me about tithing and that has made it so much easier to tithe later in life.

He loves to write his own name on the envelope.

 The finished product.