Chores for $ vs Chores for *

Interested in opinions on what chores/task you do for money and what you do for stars , what are supercharged items and reductions. here is what I have to start

Base allowance of 1/2 of their age/week plus the ability to earn more

$
cleaning litter box
Feeding dogs
Giving dogs water
Picking up poop
Laundry
Dishes
vacuum
swiffering
cleaning their bathroom
changing sheets

*
Reading/Homework
Cleaning playroom
Making a donation of clothes/toys

Supercharged???
Charity work
Helping a friend/neighbors
Good deed


Reductions
Whining/fighting
talking back/not listening
Leaving shoes all over
not hanging up towel after shower


thoughts

So ALL of our chores are stars only, and then I convert stars to money. But when we all feel comfortable with our chores, we'll sit down and figure out what you get money for - things that are above and beyond, what you get stars for - that you just need to do, and what you lose stars for. I think allowance will happen if the stars minimum is met, maybe as a reward. There are SO many ways you can do this with iAllowance, it's hard to decide on the best.

Thanks for listing your chores!

Anna

1st - Children ages 3 & 5 (only started at 3 cause the older child was ready to learn)
 I started this parenting adventure by giving them $3 a day.  They had 3 piggy banks labeled "Spend", "Charity" and "Save".  Every night they put a dollar in each.  And... Every month I was at the bank withdrawing one hundred $1 bills and feeling like I had to explain to the teller why I needed so many one dollar bills.  Oh, and even though they were only using one of the three dollars on themselves, it got to be pricey.  I could have switched to quarters but I did not want to have all that change in my house

2nd - ages 5 & 7
I got them debit cards ( which I kept in my purse due to their age) and basically did the same $3 system but monthly online.  (I know, hard to believe the bank wouldn't let me deposit a $1 a day,Ha Ha)

Very quickly it became obvious that without that daily handling of money and the act of physically putting money in savings and charities...that they were not learning anything except to countdown to the 1st of the month when they received their $30.

3rd - ages 6 & 8
        To present (ages 8 & 10)
Ahhh the age of the IPhone and apps arrives.  Chore chart apps rule! 

The system that appears to be the keeper is ten cents a star.

I do have about 70 chores on the list so they could earn a $1 or more a day.   For example, I have household chores and daily habits listed  and then I also have stars for watching 31 minutes or less of TV or playing an iPad educational game of my choosing for 20 minutes or playing outside for 45 minutes or more.

Daily habits that we need to practice have a positive star and negative star.  If I have to ask them to floss their teeth - they lose a star.  If they floss without me prompting them - they get a star.

  I have a "parent bonus" chore setup to reward them for unexpected acts of kindness with the flexibility to give them 1 to 500 stars.  I also use the "parent bonus" to handle birthday/holiday gifts of cash/check/gift cards.  I convert the cash/check/giftcard to stars which lets the children purchase items at the best possible price whether that be online or at a store.

I have tried 3 chore chart apps.  I enjoyed each of them but the ability to sync between devices without plugging my device into a computer made this app a clear winner.  

Onillam wrote:
I do have about 70 chores on the list so they could earn a $1 or more a day.

70 seems like quite a list. Do you mind going into more detail? I'm very interested in making our household list as robust as possible, and I'm curious as to what all you have listed.

For those that are using stars, and are converting to a certain money amount, is it functioning correctly? No matter what I set the conversion amount to, it gives me $1 per star, which basically makes the star setting useless.

We have both chores, because you are part of the family. And extra chores to earn extra money. This also included babysitting for our oldest. She got paid when we had a choice as parents to go out. If it was for school or church etc, it was a family obligation to help out and care for her siblings, therefore she did not get paid.

Allowance isn't tied to chores in our family. Allowance is to help teach money responsibility. We also have the, savings, mad money (their spending money), charity/tithe, and investments. Since their grandmother doesn't buy presents but give gifts of stocks, we thought this was a good opportunity to teach about life savings for retirement or emergencies. We give $5 a week to spread between the jars (and now piggy banks) to also teach them to save up or try and do extra if they want more money.

By having the chores "because you live here", it helps them to realize that they are part of a family and take responsibility for their home. We have a magnet chart, that was originally used for chores for one child and i. created it for three kids. Each magnet chore group had one annoying chore no one wanted and two that were done on "as needed" throughout the week. These chores then rotated weekly so one child wasn't always stuck with dishwasher or garbage. When my oldest went to college, the two took on her duties to their own.