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When I was a girl, my dad was a photographer and I helped him delivering school pictures in the neighborhood. My dad loved landscape photography, but birthday pictures, wedding pictures, and school pictures were what made his artistic passion possible. I grew up and both the neighborhood boundaries and my incomes from this activity grew up with me. I remember the true and complete happiness I felt when I was able to buy birthday presents for my family without asking for money. The same kind of feeling was there every time I went to the movies and bought my own ticket and candies; or when I bought my first volleyball ball and my first – and only – tennis racquet. The list was long enough to make me stick with this thing of earning money, saving it, and when the time comes, buying stuff for me and for others during my teenage years and then, of course, the rest of my life.
I wanted my kids to have the experience of earning their own money and deciding by themselves how much to save, how much to spend, and how much to give. This summer, considering the COVID pandemic that has put every one of us at home most of the time, was the perfect opportunity for us to develop a family program that could help us with that.
Our Summer Savings Program
The program was very simple: they could earn money through chores, given that those chores were not already included in their responsibilities. We created and updated a spreadsheet together with dates, chores descriptions, and money earned. If they reached the goal we set together, they would receive 10% extra as a prize.
There were two conditions: they couldn’t spend everything they earn, and they needed to define how much of the total they were going to give.
Lessons Our Kids Have Learned
Lesson #1: Money, work and accomplishment
Our kids have learned about the value of money, but more importantly, they have learned about the value of work and how proud you can feel about accomplishing even small jobs. Watching their smiling faces and bright eyes showing you a perfectly set table with a complete meal ready for lunch cooked by themselves it’s priceless.
Lesson #2: Appreciation
They’ve learned to appreciate the effort involved in daily tasks: after having organized the living room, they were active guardians of not leaving anything out of place! Isn’t that cool and crazy at the same time? It was like watching myself, but multiplied and shrank!
Lesson #3: Commitment and grace
Our kids have learned to commit to a goal, and at the same time, to be flexible, and to give themselves and others grace when things don’t go as planned. We’ve had weeks with plenty of outdoor time and fewer chores, and weeks filled up with chores options to choose from. We’ve had very enthusiastic weeks and weeks in dispair. All of them were fine weeks.
Lesson #4: Self-confidence
They have learned to be more self-confident. We, as parents, have learned that our kids are even more capable and willing to help than what we thought they were. And believe you me, we think very high about our kids! There were a lot of chores we haven’t considered in the original list, but the kids brought them up and proposed creative ways to do those more complicated tasks, sometimes sharing the load among the three of them.
Lesson #5: Caring and doing things for others
They have learned more about people and organizations that do things for others. We have had very interesting talks about the Humane Society in Kansas, that was their chosen organization to give their money to -we never say they needed to choose an organization or that they need to choose collectively but it was what they decided to do! I think that the fact that our dog, Kale, was adopted from the Humane Society in Fayetteville, played a strong role in that decision.
What Our Kids Have to Say About the Program
We were curious to know what they actually thought about the program, so we asked them. I liked so much their answers that I thought it would be nice to share them here:
“It’s a creative way to use your time in summer instead of playing video games. I liked that I could earn money by doing stuff and also that I learned how to clean the kitchen or make dinner and lots of other things. I want to wait until I really really like something, and then I’m going to use my money to buy that.”
– Nico
“I think it’s fun. If you are bored, it’s a fun thing to do. What I liked the most was that I could do chores outside, like in the garden. I’m planning to buy a drone or maybe a hoverboard, I haven’t decided yet”
– Gabe
“I liked that I learned how to do laundry and how to mow the grass, I don’t think I had learned that without the program. I also liked that now I have money to buy gifts and I’m going to buy a music stand for practicing my ukulele lessons at home”
– Sofia
