"I'll need 150 one dollar bills please."

I mentioned awhile back about how we have had many forms of the chore/allowance system at our house.  Good news:  I have a new one!  I actually got the idea from a book I picked up at Desert Book the other day.  I'd tell you the name of it but I'm much too lazy to go upstairs to my bathroom and find the book.  (Yeah I know--I'm a total bathroom reader but I promised to be real so you don't get much "realer" than that revelation.)  Anyway, the author used the jar system to inspire/threaten her kids and so we're giving it a go around here.

Basically, each kid gets a jar at the beginning of the month with $30 in it.  Each day I check to see that my cleaning expectations are met.  If they are, they keep the cash.  If not, I take $1 out of the jar.  At the end of the month they get to keep what's in the jar.  The kids liked this idea but I think that's mainly because I offered them double allowance for the month of June to get the plan started.  (Normally they get their allowance at the beginning of the month and since this new system will work backwards with them receiving the money at the end I figured it was only fair to give them the expected cash at the beginning as well as at the end.  Also--it was worth paying extra to not hear them complain...)  So, this is what we agreed on as far as rules:

1.  Bed must be made--this should be pretty dang easy because none of them use top sheets.  I know, we're barbarians around here.  Someone said once, "they need to learn how to sleep with a top sheet so they are used to it when they get married."  Trust me--learning to sleep with a top sheet will be the least of their problems when they get married.

2.  Floor of room must be clear with clothes put away and trash in the garbage.  (Again, trash in the garbage should be a given, but remember, we're barbarians.)

3.  Towels hung and dirty clothes in hamper in the bathroom.  (Seriously, why is it SO difficult to just hang up the dang towels?)  I could do a whole post on our towel situation alone.  Maybe I will...

4.  All must be done BEFORE leaving for school.  (If they are smart they will clean up the night before.  If they were smart.)

My part in all of this is to actually check the rooms each day.  That's a pretty big commitment for me but I figure that it will be easier if I do it in the morning before my brain becomes to full of all the other things I have to do.  Like Facebook.  Or People.com.

So now you can go ahead and place bets on how well this system works.  Who knows?  Maybe I've stumbled onto the answer to all of our chore problems.  But probably not.