I am always proud of my monkeys, but today, I’m extra proud of the big monkeys.
Back in the spring, Monkey Girl informed me that she wanted a Nintendo DS. I said, “I don’t think so. We have a Wii and a an xBox 360 and a Game Boy. I’m not spending $129.99 on a Nintendo DS.”
Still, she persisted. So, I told her that if this was something she really wanted, then she should save for it. I’m a big believer in kids working for things. My feeling is that parents who buy their kids everything aren’t helping them prepare for the real world. You want something as an adult? You need to work for it. Obviously we take care of the kids with food, clothing, a roof over their heads, and we are good Santas and birthday fairies. But, this didn’t fall into the “need” category and there were no holidays or birthdays in sight.
So, she started saving. She already had some money socked away. Monkey Girl has a chore chart. Each chore is worth $0.25. If she does all the chores in a week, she has the opportunity to earn $8.75 a week. There are some chores that she does regularly and gets those stickers, like emptying the dishwasher. If she doesn’t do that, I can’t refill it, so that’s a non-negotiable, but it’s on the chart. Making her bed? It’s on the chart, but it’s not a non-negotiable with me. It’s her bed, it’s upstairs and no one goes there except for us. On days she has a friend coming over, I expect it to be made. The good news? She likes to make her bed, so it gets made every day and she gets the sticker anyway. 🙂 However, you can see that even though the potential is there for $8.75 a week, she may not make that much in a week, depending on the chores she does or does not complete. Again, you only earn what you work for. What a novel idea.
When she does get her allowance, she divides it into three, unequal parts. $1 goes to church on Sunday. The rest is divided in half. One half of it goes to her bank account savings and the other goes to her spending box.
Anyway, she kicked it into high gear last spring. She started doing every chore on that chart and asking if there were any big projects she could do to earn some more money. So, I gave her a sock sorting project and a picking up all the sticks in the yard project. She also started making greeting cards and selling them. They are really nice and she charged $0.75 – $1.00 for them.
Mid-summer, Monkey in the Middle went to Barnes and Noble with his grandpa. While he was there, he saw this Thomas the Tank Engine add-on for his train set. It has lights and bells. It’s actually pretty cool. It was $30. He came home and asked for it and Monkey Girl immediately said “Why don’t you save for it, like I’m doing with my Nintendo?” Wanting to do anything that she does, he said “Yeah!!!” and started saving.
So, now he has a chore chart that he also can earn $8.75 with. He’s not really even getting close to that, but he’s working hard.
So, today, the big Monkeys pulled out their money containers and started counting. Monkey in the Middle had $32 and Monkey Girl had $65. (We told MonkeyGirl that if she saved half, we’d pitch in the other half…we aren’t complete monsters.) So, off we went.
First we hit Best Buy.
Monkey Girl chose a blue Nintendo DS Lite. Real Man and I decided to buy her a game to go with it, because really, how cruel would that have been to have said, “Okay, you’ve got your Nintendo! Now you can sit and look at it until you can save up for a game!” She chose a Wizards of Waverly Place game.
She brought it up to the counter and was bursting with pride as she paid.
Then, we hit Barnes and Noble.
Another very proud kid as he explained to the cashier that this was his money he was paying with.
Now we’re home and each is busy with their new purchase. I’ve overheard both explaining to Baby Monkey that they need to be careful with the new items because they were very expensive. I honestly believe that it gives them a better understanding of how hard you have to work in order to earn a certain amount of money. It has also helped them to realize that when you work hard for something, you need to take care of it. Many kids today live in a disposable society. They are given so much that they don’t care for any of it. I’m so glad that we are working toward not allowing our kids to have that mindset.
I’m just really proud of the big monkeys today. They worked hard and are enjoying the fruits of their labor.
