A Job Well Done

Vacuum upstairs: $1. Take out the garbage: 25¢. Whenever our children wanted to earn money, they consulted our family “job board.” A wooden cutout of a house, our board had a cup hook at the top for each child. Along the bottom, hooks containing key tags indicated various jobs and payment for each. When our children completed a job, they hung the respective tag on their hook.

“Payday” was usually every Saturday, but sometimes we allowed emergency funds. Or if we noticed that a job hadn’t been done well, we decreased the “wage.” When paying our children, we always gave them enough change so that they could put 10 percent in their tithing box and 10 percent in our family’s missionary fund. As parents, we matched any contributions to the latter fund, enabling our family to eventually pay for one full mission.

If you’re not comfortable paying your children an allowance, you could easily establish other rewards for a job well done, such as family outings or special dinners or privileges.

This earning system helped our children learn the value of earning money and doing a job well, a lesson they are passing on to their children.

Douglas B. Pulley, California