Picking chores for kids have become a little outdated. Gone are the days of the flat fee, weekly allowances for doing chores. You know the ones, where you give the same amount of money every week using the one dollar per age method (7 year-old gets paid $7 per week). Now is the time to teach kids financial responsibility. Giving kids a flat fee every week regardless if they worked more or less than the previous week, does not teach them about financial consequences. I have a method that we use at home to encourage kids to make their own decisions about their money.

Pricing Chores for Kids

Pricing chores for kids makes giving allowances easier. We have chosen to give each chore a price or payment. I love this system! We assign a price per chore. In our house, sweeping the floors earns you a dollar and feeding the dog (Susie Q) earns you 25 cents per day. It is important to be reasonable with pricing chores for kids. Don’t expect your child to mow the lawn for $2, it won’t be worth it to them. Let the pricing give some incentive for them to complete the chore.  See the chart below for chore ideas per age group.

Encourage Entrepreneurship

Putting the kids on a price per chore system encourages entrepreneurship. The more chores they complete, the more money they get and vice versa. Children are able to learn consequences of their actions, whether good or bad. Using the price per chore system to encourage entrepreneurship will help develop additional characteristics in your child such as self-motivation, versatility, and decisiveness to name a few.

Value of a Dollar

Let’s face it, kids want everything when they don’t have to pay for it. Once they start using their own money to buy things, they start to figure out what is important and what is not. Giving kids an allowance means that parents are done spending money to toys and other fun stuff (yay!)…well kind of, there is still Christmas and birthdays after all.

Kids will learn tough skills such as math and decision making when they are making their own purchases. Hint: this would be a great time to start discussing savings, especially for big items, if you haven’t already.

It’s time to show kids that not only are they responsible for how they spend their money; they are also responsible for how they earn it. Teaching kids about earning equity and not just a salary will show them they have many options to make money when they are older. Besides, we all know money doesn’t grow on trees.

Proverbs 22:6 – Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.