Pajama Mommy Write Up

I thought I would share with all of you a post from Pajama Mommy

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I was just at one of my sister-in-law’s house the other day and she set up a chore chart. I find those to be remarkable useful. Heck, I set up one for myself and I’m a grown up :\.

Really these are amazing tools we’ve been using the original idea of them “to do list” but someone finally stepped up and mass produced them for families. I think these are awesome. Currently for my to-do list for myself I use my momAgenda, but what about for the entire family? I don’t want someone man-handling my personal organizer. Well I wanted something that is great and I can just print out in a snap for the next week or even month.

Granted, I am computer savvy but I’m not a designer. I have people who design for me but I don’t always want to pay them to do every little thing so I decided I wanted some for free. As everyone here knows my motto is: “Cheap, Free, and Easy” well what about combining all three for one single site? Who could of thought about that…Hmm PayJr did!

The website is ChoreCharts.com. Now when you go in you can download from several different designs and they are currently working on the new part of their site which will allow you to design your own. I can’t wait. I’m so going back and making one! This site also shows you other ways to pay your kids allowance.

I think it is so great for credit cards/debit cards for kids only for the fact that money gets lost and there is no one who is going to refund you because you dropped your last $5 while walking around the mall. So not only does Chore Charts offer free stuff but they are giving you an extremely useful idea.

1. PayJR Chore & Allowance Program. — This allows you to monitor what your kids do and pay them accordingly.

You set up amount of money per chore and they can do a set number so for example if you say washing the dishes is worth $.35 each finished load and they do 1 load a week that’s $2.45 right there for 7 days. Taking out the garbage every day is worth $.50 and that’s 7 days it is $3.50. So right there for 2 chores your child has $5.95 worth of chores. You can include making your bed, cleaning your room, picking up the toys. Whatever it is that you think is appropriate for their age group.

2. PayJR Visa Buxx Card - allows you to deposit their money into a fully working visa credit card/debit card.

You might be thinking well they can shop online why would I want it? Why wouldn’t you want it? You are able to see where they are shopping through their monitoring and control center, they also offer financial information.

Today with the world of plastic who is informing your kids about the right credit choices? Well my parents informed me the best they could however I got myself into a bit of trouble and I’m working on getting my way out. However, a lot of people don’t do that and it will take them years before they even make a dent into their ever towering credit debt.

Well if kids learn at an earlier age that plastic doesn’t mean unlimited funds, its just access to emergency cash or something they are already used to they may not be as prone to splurge.

I personally think there are so many ways you can set up this card to prepare your kids for the future. For example you can teach them the importance of credit and you as a parent can be their creditor. Setting up a payJR credit card with their approved credit limit for example $300 to $500 where you deposit it in, and you set up a standard apr for new creditors which is anywhere from 12.99-18.99% and teach them how easy in the beginning it is to get out of hand. You explain to them that, that is their entire credit limit. They can either pay you back through “cash” aka chores to work it off but for each month they don’t pay the bill in full there will be “APR” tacked on so that way they will see how quickly $300 can turn into $1000. And if they are used to this and under stand that they have to “pay their bills” you can prepare them for college when people really try to bait the kids for credit cards.

I would definitely do that with my kids because I’d rather not have them go through the annoyances I have because I was a bit of an idiot. However this is where the ideas go wild. What are your suggestions in teaching your children the value of a dollar and how to approach better money spending/saving skills?

Dave