Get a Job!

As many of you know, my children have recently started earning money to help pay for a trip they planned for next summer.  They are selling baked goods and art and doing fairly well.

I'm using this as a lesson in money management and the value of time and the dollar.  Yes, as a homeschool teacher I like to get my value out of every activity.

The girls have recently gotten jobs.  Actually, each week they pick a different job.  They have been Chefs, Musicians, and Meteorologists so far.

I do not believe in paying a child for chores.  Chores are something you do because you are a member of the household and need to pull your own weight and help keep clean what you mess up.  So the job idea was a way to pay them an allowance for actually doing something above and beyond contributing to the family sanity.

As a chef, Sugar decorated her own apron.  Ginger decorated an apron and has started her own cook book.  She already helps cook a meal each week.

The week they were meteorologist they compared the weather for the same day but for 5 different years.

Being a musician for a week helped Ginger learning to listen and separate out specific sounds from her favorite songs.  Husband is thinking about buying her a guitar for her birthday, so expect more musician job skills to be learned.

The girls get paid the same day husband does.  They each get their age in dollars twice a month.  They get to put half of their earnings in their piggy banks and the other half they put in the bank.  Ginger fills out her own deposit slips.  We are keeping a bank book at home so they can balance it and see how much they are saving.

I have dreams that my children will never overdraft an account and that they will be pros at saving for that car they are likely to want in the future.

I wonder what career they will try on next week.  I wish it would be museum curators, they need to organize their rooms better.