Have you seen that commercial where the little boy comes home licking a giant rocket popsicle and his dad asks him where his new bicycle is? The little boy says he traded it. His dad asks what he traded for and the boy smiles and holds up the popsicle.

I saw it a few nights ago and howled in laughter.

I can’t remember what they were advertising and for the purposes of this post it really doesn’t matter. What it reminded me of was the moment Ceaser and I realized it was time to start teaching our boys the value of a dollar.

I don't remember my parents ever sitting me down to explain money to me. But my mom sure could squeeze a dollar from a nickel, I do remember that.  I can still hear her saying, "Money don't grow on trees.." Eventually we figured it out. But these days are different. You gotta teach your kids early to have respect for a hard earned dollar. 

My oldest, Trey, was really into Pokemon cards starting when he was about 7 I guess. By the time he was 8 or 9 he had collected stacks of the things some of the harder to find ones too.

This was before teachers stopped letting the kids bring them to school. Trey had taken some of his favorite cards to school one day. Several of the cards were worth about three bucks or more a piece. When he came home he was really excited about the trade that he had made in school. He holds up a dollar with this great big smile on his face; Kind of like the little boy in the commercial.

I, of course I was really curious to know where he’d gotten it from and he proceeds to tell me that he had traded his most expensive card for money, a whole dollar.

My first instinct was to go to school the next day and try and get his card back for him. But instead I explained to him that the card was worth far more than the dollar. That he had been taken, but that it wasn’t the fault of the boy who ended up with the card, It was his fault for not knowing the value of what he had and then trading for something of far less value. I’ll never forget the look of surprise and sadness on his face. I also told him it was my fault for not explaining the value of a dollar to him sooner.

Ceaser chimed in that the reason the boys didn’t understand the value of money was because they hadn’t earned any.

That is when we came up with our money for chores lesson.

The boys had chores, cleaning their dishes from the table, cleaning their room, loading the dish washer, taking out the trash, just a few small things to help around the house.

They also go a small allowance each week. But until then we hadn’t connected the two.

So we explained to them that at the beginning of each week each would have $5. That money was for doing their jobs or chores. They would get the money at the end of the week but only if they had done their work during the week. Every time they failed to do a chore or to do it properly we would subtract money from the $5. At the end of the week they would get what was left.

Boy did we have fun with that.

The first week, I don’t think either of them believed we would actually subtract from their allowance and by the end of the week I think they each ended up with about $2. Now we would tell them each time we subtracted money. For instance if Trey didn’t load the dish washer after dinner and I had to do it instead, I’d tell him that he’d just lost 50 cents for not loading the dish washer or a dollar for not taking out the trash, cleaning his room and so on.

But Jordan was the worse. Some times he actually owed us money by the end of the week. When that happened he would start the next week with less than $5.

Oh yeah, they could earn money too by doing extra chores, such as volunteering to clean out my car or unpacking the grocery bags and putting the food up. Or cleaning the bathroom, any number of things. But they were never to ask for extra money. That way they were just helping out and sometimes, most times we would say, for that you get an extra dollar.

Jordan never really excelled. He just got smart enough to choose whether he thought the chore was worth the money and sometimes he would decide he would rather play than set the table, knowing it was going to cost him a dollar, but he made the choice. He really wasn’t buying anything anyway so he didn’t mind so much. His brother on the other hand wanted to buy Pokemon cards and other toys so he quickly got good at getting his chores done and even doing the extras. They both also got good at saving up if they wanted to buy something special. What we never did was pay them for good grades. The payment for that came in the form of knowledge that would pay off for them down the road. Paying attention in school, studying and working hard was laying building blocks for your future so eventually you could make the big bucks. After a while that just became the norm.

I don’t know if our chores for money game really paid off, but it was a lot of fun. I do know one thing though, they did learn work ethic from it. And another thing; Trey never sold another Pokemon card. When he got too old for them he handed them down to his brother. He still has boxes of those things in his bedroom.

If he keeps them long enough, who knows, some day they could be worth something.