With such long chore lists, you might be wondering how I keep my kids motivated to do chores. Enter, the ” Mommy Store.” I do not take credit as the original inventor of this idea. Rather, I built my own version based on the one we had as kids and from the one that Rachel (over at The Ohana Adventure) does for her kids.
What is the Mommy Store?
The Mommy Store is basically a collection of prizes and treats that the kids can shop from at the end of each week after earning tickets/points/dollars to spend at the mommy store. This can be anything and everything and ours includes:
Candy
I have candy in there as my cheap ticket items. It’s my sort of “everyone wins a trophy” item. This way, even if they didn’t earn a lot of tickets, they still get to buy something. I have found that this keeps them excited to keep earning tickets – aka, take more chores off my plate. Clever right?
Small Toys
These toys come from the dollar spot at Target, dollar tree, or where ever I find things super cheap.
Coupons
These items are the best sellers in our home. The best part is they are generally free for me to stock up on. They include things such as staying up past bedtime, special date night with mom and dad, get out of doing a chore pass, etc.
How do they earn spending “money”?
They earn spending money by doing extra chores that are not on their regular chore list. I assign each task a point value and they get to pick and choose which chore they want to do. I assign point values based on how long it takes to do a chore. They get 100 tickets per each hour worked. So if a job takes a half-hour, then they would get 50 tickets for that job. A 15-minute job gets 25 tickets. And so on. If it’s a less popular chore in the house, then I will give it some extra points to motivate them.
**The one rule we have for earning spending “money” is that they are not allowed to earn any until all of their regular chores are done.
Other things to know
- It is first come first served for claiming extra chores.
- You cannot reserve a chore as yours until you are done with your regular chores.
- They are allowed to save unused points/tickets/dollars toward a bigger prize at a later date.
- The “Mommy Store” is open for 15 minutes every Friday evening after everyone has finished with their chores.
I think that’s everything! Do you have any questions about the mommy store? What items would your kiddos love to buy from a mommy store? Let me know in the comments below! I’m always looking to add more items into our store.
-Janice
