Chores Challenge

 

Recently it has come to my attention that my kids think that money grows on trees....don't I sound old! Remember your parents talking like that...wow, I never thought it would happen to me but there you go! With birthdays and Christmas followed by a trip to the happiest place on Earth {to me that Disney World} my hubby and I had a heart to heart about our budget and how to start teaching the kiddos about responsibility. It was a 17 hour drive to Orlando! Lots of time to talk.

We also have quite a few projects going on around our house. Remember the post about the porch?? Well that has lead to thoughts of other things that our little, but old, house needs. We are buckling down and getting serious about budgeting. And I am sure like any other kid, ours are always asking to buy this or that whenever we are at a store. So in an effort to show our kids that money does not grow on trees...sounding old again I know...we decided to start working weekly chores into our routine and give each of them an allowance.

I do believe they think that clothes magically appear in their drawers and that the dishes are washed by a lovely dish washing fairy....wouldn't that be nice!!! So I went to Pinterest...of course...to get the wheels moving on this. I found lots of printable chore charts and examples of age appropriate chores. I liked this one the best from I Should Be Mopping the Floor...the one on the left for Lizzy and the one on the right for Jake.

I have also been reading this wonderful book...Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement by Kay Willis Wyma. So far a fabulous read and you can check her blog out here. I think the book planted a seed of this challenge in my head.

So I am challenging myself, and my hubby by extension, to commit to a chore chart and holding the kids accountable to their chores...which may be the most difficult part of this in whole thing! It is also going to be my challenge to post some updates about how this all goes!

Above and beyond this challenge I hope this is one step in making my children good people when they go out into the world.

We hope to help them learn a few things through this:

1. How to manage money and save for something they really want! And to come to an understanding that it takes time to save.

2. Work as part of a family {this house doesn't run on me alone...haha}

3. The responsibility to take care of their things.

So I will do my best to update our progress. Share any stories you have had with getting your kids to do chores. I love hearing how this works for other moms!

 

This House

This is our home...I love our little house in our little town

{which you may have heard about lately...Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco is our hometown boy}

Our little house needed some up dating, I have been waiting to do this since we bought the house more than 9 years ago. The front porch was a big selling feature to me.

I love front porches. I grew up playing on my parents front porch, listening to music and hanging out with friends. It still remains a great spot to sit and visit with my parents and brothers.

I love it!

But with two layers of out door carpet {YUCK!} and dingy siding it was time for an update! We thought this would be a perfect way to add square footage to our little home, too.

Here are a few pictures of the progress so far!

 

Don't you just love the brown cedar shake shingles??

I am beyond pleased with our new space so far.

And thanks to the energy audit we got before Christmas we were able to get rid of the oil tank that was below the porch and open that room up to get a full size storage room! Adding more space to our little house!

The excitement of what it is going to be over flows as I look for ceiling lights and doors.

Did I mention that we are also redecorating the kids' nursery into a bedroom for the hubby and me?? Nothing like project on top of project!

Looking forward to posting more pictures