Have you ever know someone who is a Christian and yet they never take their kids to church or teach them about Jesus? I have and it always makes me wonder, how could you have this wonderful, life-changing knowledge and not want to share it with your kids?

The same could be said for teaching your kids about money. How many grown people do you know who think they should still get to eat and shop even if they don’t work? I do eventually want my kids to leave the nest, and I want them to do it on their own power, not the government’s.

I had read in Dave’s book, The Total Money Makeover, about giving your kids envelopes for Spend, Save and Give and helping them divide up their money accordingly. We have been doing this, but one thing I learned in the most recent lesson in our Financial Peace University class was about how they should earn this money, and it has totally changed how I do things around here.

I have tried many charts, systems and methods for chores and all of them have failed either on my end (not keeping up with it or checking behind them) or on their end (not doing what was required or not checking it off the list). We have given allowance, not given allowance, forgotten to pay allowance and I’ve been frustrated at my own inconsistency. But, as I listened to Dave talk last Sunday, I worked out a new system in my head and came home excited to implement it.

This week we started commission jobs. I posted a list of all jobs they can do for pay and hung it on the fridge. Things like clean the living room that used to be an assigned paid job is now a choice for commission. Each day they can choose to do one or several of the listed jobs and, when they do it, they write their name in the box on the corresponding day. For each job they get 25 cents.

Some other jobs include: unloading dishes, folding laundry, mopping, sweeping, cleaning windows, cleaning out the van and vacuuming.

Only 25 cents? Slave wages, you say? Maybe so, but I have 4 kids to pay (well 2 1/2 right now, but they’re getting older every day) and one highly motivated worker. This chart has the potential to release as much as $50 a month out of my pocket. But let me tell you, it works!

My house has been cleaner all week than it has been in a long while. The kids are motivated by this chart. I’m not sure if it’s having the freedom to choose what chores they do, how many and when, or the prompt payment (I’ve been paying them daily—works best for me).

They don’t get paid for everything. Keeping their room and bathroom clean are top priorities and must be done without payment. I use Meredith’s popscicle stick method for keeping track of this, and if I don’t see the colored end sticking up, they don’t get to play wii. Furthermore, if I check their room at bedtime and it’s a mess, they lose their commission pay for the day.

Also, Milo usually only gets 50 cents per day just for being obedient and doing the chores I ask him to do (and doing his reading lesson—don’t judge me).

They are still managing their money by using giving, saving an spending categories and, they have discovered, they really like to save!

Dave always says changing the way you deal with money can change your family tree. It sure is nice to see it at work.

We’ve got corn coming in from the garden now and a friend gave me a sack of corn. Today I blanched and cut off all the corn my kids couldn’t eat for lunch.This is just the beginning. Later this summer, my dad will bring me two big bags of corn that will need to be shucked, blanched and put up for winter.

While I was working on the corn, and trying to finish school with the kids, the baby was whining at my feet and my house was steadily becoming a disaster area. She was following me around whining because isn’t that what always happens when you’re trying to do more than one thing? A squeaky wheel shows up.

A squeaky wheel with sad eyes.

And I wondered, why do we do this? Why do we put up food for the winter from a garden when you can buy it all from Kroger? Why do we do all this extra work when it’s easier to buy it in a can? We do it because we know we’ll be hungry for it again. We’ll be hungry for the taste of fresh summer food. And some of us do it because it saves us money.

Speaking of saving money.

What if your husband lost his job? What if you had a major medical event? Do you have enough saved to get you through those rough times?

When we read the Total Money Makeover we found out the first baby step is to save up $1000 ($500 if you make under 20,000 per year). We already had that step done, but I loved what he had to say about having this cushion between you and an emergency. It makes sense. Now, $1000 doesn’t seem like that much, but if you need new tires, if your brakes go out, if your child needs to go to the emergency room, that $1000 is there to give you peace.

After you pay off all your debt, you save some more. Baby step 3 is to save 3-6 months of living expenses. This, to me, is huge. We’ve never had that much in savings and when we do, I will feel real financial peace.

It’s not easy to save, and it’s nearly impossible when you put all your money in the spend pile. For us, what works is having my husband’s check direct deposited with some money going directly to savings and some money going directly to our tithing account. These funds are taken off the top first, that way we never see them. We never group them with our spend money and it’s much easier to forget about that saving pile and let it grow.

Why save? Because you will be hungry. It will rain. Rainy days happen to everybody. The only difference between you and everybody else is that you’ll have an umbrella.

I anticipated writing this installment early in April. I knew I’d have good news to share by then and it just seemed like the perfect time to tell you the rest of the story. But…

When I left off last time, I shared that a friend had given us a suggestion that re-inspired us to dig in our heels and get excited about paying off our debt (again), specifically our van. The suggestion was to stop contributing to retirement.

This suggestion, at first, was not something I even wanted to consider. I love to have a big pile of savings somewhere hidden away, and the retirement savings is the perfect place for it. It’s hard to get to, it automatically comes out of the paycheck and there’s a penalty if you touch it. All the more reason to leave it alone and let it grow.

But, if we temporarily stopped contributing, not touching what was already in that pile, and threw that extra money at paying off the van, we figured up we could have the van paid for in 3 months.

That was such a huge incentive, we decided to do it. In fact, we decided to keep it going until the truck was paid off as well.

We started off strong. More than doubling up on our van payment was dwindling that payment down fast. It was exciting to be so close to a big payoff.

However, things began to get in the way. New glasses for the kid who’s eyes got worse, medical expenses and most recently, a $500 brake job on the van.

April came and went and we were still not quite there. I was disappointed and not feeling like writing about it.

We will make our last van payment this month. Finally.

Our church is starting the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University this month, and at first, I wasn’t sure we needed to attend. We’d read the book and were working the steps. However, I think the encouragement and accountability will be good for us.

On Dave Ramsey’s television show he often asks the callers what kept their momentum going through the hard times. Most of the time the answer is staying focused on the goal and the reward each time they pay off a debt.

By our estimation, in two years we will be debt free (except for the house). Two years isn’t that long. Staying focused on that goal helps, but having friends who are on the same journey have helped even more.

What helps keep you focused on your financial goals?