Of Goals and Savings

Yesterday was a momentous occasion for my oldest daughter. You see we've been paying our kids for the work they do around the house. Each child has the following responsibilities (note this is a partial list):

1. Clean Room
2. Morning Chore
3. Clean Zone (typically a room or area)
4. Homework
5. Saturday Only - Deep Clean Zone (vacuum, dust, etc)

For every thing they do points are awarded. At the end of the week we tally up the points and divide by 100 to determine how much money they've earned. We encourage saving but also allow our children to spend their money on things they want/need (within reason of course). The boys tend to spend their money quickly while Ellie has been saving for something special. Yesterday she was able to get what she wanted and achieved her goal.

What did she want? An iPod Touch. She earned the money to get an 8GB iPod Touch. I can't tell you how excited she was to get this. You could tell that she was so excited to see her savings plan pay off. Of course there was the setup time once the iPod Touch got home, but she was very happy to be able to use it.

We have put her music on it as well as some games and the scriptures. I'm sure there will be tons more we put on the iPod for her as well as teach her to use some of the built in tools that are available. Of course we have also put in some restrictions. For instance I have not set up the WiFi on her iPod so she doesn't have access to the internet.

I should also mention that Sam didn't spend his money right away (just thought about this so I'm amending the entry). Sam did save enough money to buy a Nintendo DS. His brother and sister got one for Christmas and Sam at that time didn't want one. However he decided a couple of weeks after Christmas that he wanted one and so he started saving too.

Hopefully this can be a trend for my children. The ability to set goals and achieve them. Also the ability to save money and not spend it as soon as they earn it. Valuable lessons that will serve them well as they get older.