Summer Jobs

At the beginning of every summer I try to establish a daily routine of responsibilities to keep us (yes, me included) on track during the summer months. Over the years I have taken different approaches to this and some have worked better than others. This year's system was a huge success! My main goal for the summer was to teach the kids how to work hard and carry more of the daily responsibilities of keeping the house in order. Partly for my sanity, but mostly to help them on their way to being positive contributors in life.
I started by making this magnet board and magnets with all of the kids' responsibilities written on them. Each morning I would put their daily responsibilities on their to do side. Every day they were responsible for making their bed, cleaning their room, practicing the piano, and doing 'homework' (a math, reading, or typing activity I assigned them). Then each day two other jobs would be assigned such as dishes, garbages, clean out car, empty shoe basket, windows, clean bathroom, yard work (weeding or mowing lawn), vacuum, dust, laundry, or watch Ryan. Once a job was completed they would move the magnet over to the done side. The rule was that until all their jobs were done they weren't allowed to play with friends or have any electronic time. This has always been the rule, but having the visual of the magnets made it so they wouldn't even ask until all their magnets were moved over because they knew I would look to the magnet board before giving them an answer.
Along with the increased responsibility came a reward. Upon completing their jobs each day I would give them a blank magnet to put on their name and at the end of the week they would get a dollar for each magnet. Upon getting their allowance they would first pay 10% to tithing and 10% to their mission fund and then they got to keep 80% in their fun money. Our hope is to help our kids learn how to save and budget their money. Because they are receiving what we consider to be a very generous allowance, the kids are expected to pay for most of their wants. For example when we are in the checkout line of the grocery store and they ask for a treat my response is, "if you want to use your money to buy it you can." At first the kids would usually burn through their money as soon as they got it. As time has gone on they are learning the value of saving their money so when something bigger comes along that they want they have enough rather than spending a dollar here and a dollar there on meaningless things. I have watched them spend their money only to experience buyers remorse over a foolish purchase and then seeing how the next time they are a little bit slower and more thoughtful before spending their money.
As always, we still have room for improvement, but all in all I feel like I accomplished everything I had hoped to with our Summer Jobs chart.