{Heitmann Family Economy}

{Wyatt is on dishes this week}

This new year brought some changes to our home.  After months of praying, thinking and strategic planning,  Ryan and I have implemented the "New Deal" so to speak at our house.  Several months ago, the thought had come to my mind that I needed to be doing more to teach my children about work, money, entitlement or the lack thereof, in their case.

My kids are normal kids.  If they can get something that they want for free, or with very little effort then they will do just that.  Very little.  Sadly I think there is a whole generation of teenagers and young adults that would fall into that same frame of mind.  I was tired of hear myself nagging constantly for them to get stuff done, and I am sure they were done hearing me nag as well.  And I didn't like the lack of pride in a job well done.  I can't count the number of times I had to remind the kids that a job done well the first time takes less time than doing it over and over again until you get it right because they didn't care to do right the first time.  Ayden also happened to be working on his Personal Management merit badge for scouts and has to keep a personal budget for 13 weeks.  How could he keep a budget if he didn't earn any money?

So I started praying for answers and scouring blogs and websites looking for an answers to my question of how to teach children, effectively, about responsibility and then about managing money.  Because let's be honest.  It couldn't hurt to have a few more people in this world who are responsible and know how to manage their money wisely.

I found that there are a million different points of view on this topic.  I couldn't find just one that fit my family and how we would like to approach this.  The one idea that is closest to ours, I found on a blog here.  So I started with what I wanted my outcome to be.  Ryan and I want children who worked hard, who took pride in doing a good job and knew how to manage money wisely.  I also wanted them to learn about wants and needs and forgoing immediate wants for long term needs or wants.  So after doing that, Ryan and I mulled over just how we were going to implement this into our family.  The end result is what we like to call the "Heitmann Family Economy".  Now this may not fit every family's needs or may not work with the personalities of your children, but so far it is working for ours.

We tried to liken our home to the real world.  In the real world when you have a job, you have responsibilities that you are expected to take care of.  If you do that you are paid a specific amount.  If you do it well you may receive bonuses or promotions.  If you don't do your job then you can be docked in pay or lose privileges   We can't really fire them from being in our family!!  If we wanted to prepare them for the real world then by golly our home needed to be operate somewhat like it.

To start off we decided that our children have responsibilities as being a part of our family.  Those include their personal space (bedroom, clothes, ect) and spaces that they use in the rest of the home (bathroom, kitchen, ect).  They have responsibilities at school with homework and learning instruments or learning to read in Wyatt's case.  And they have responsibilities as being a member of our church (ie scouts for Ayden).  We are choosing to pay them once a week based on how well they accomplish the responsibilities that they have for that particular week.  They each have a chart listing out their jobs and the required things needed to be done that week.  They get the satisfaction of marking off each one as they are accomplished.  I based my charts off a blog post I read.  We personalized it for our kids and what was needed in our home, but how we pay our kids is also similar to theirs.  On the money management side for our family, the break down is 10% is paid in tithing, 40% is put into their savings, and 50% is for them to spend.

We started this on Monday.  So far there has been far less nagging and much more work going on in our home.  And my house has remained clean for longer than an afternoon.  Now I realize some of you may be thinking, "it is only been four days" but when Meysa looks at me this morning and says, "we totally get this mom", it leads me to believe that it may actually work.  And after the new American Girl catalog came in the mail yesterday, Lauryn declared she wanted the new Girl of the Year doll Saige.  Without any prompting from me, Ayden helped her figure out, based on what she has to spend each month, how long it will take her to save up for that doll.  It will take her 9-10 months and not once did she ask if I would buy it for her.  It made my mom heart happy.

So there you have it,  the "New Deal" at the Heitmann house.  Ryan and I are really hopeful that it will work and that our kids will gain something beneficial from it.

What do you do for teaching your kids about work and money?