Saturday, July 29, 2006

Princess's Money Jobs

So, Coach and I, in the interest of teaching Princess about working hard, saving money, and paying tithing, have started to offer her what we call money jobs. We give her a chore, one that is above and beyond what she already has to do, and pay her for it. The jobs are usually things that Coach and I don't want to do, and we never pay her very much, (like, max, $1) and she can save for the things she always wants. Seems pretty simple. Coach and I thought we were being so smart. Well, I think Princess is the smart one, and this is why-- she has figured out how to beat the system. Today, Coach was working in garage, and he offered Princess the chance for a money job-- earning $1 for emptying about 20 various containers of their contents and throwing the containers away in a trash bag, which was already in the garage. This was a good deal because it didn't involve heavy lifting, or complex instructions... just dump out the stuff and throw the container away. Princess was thrilled for the chance to get 4 quarters. I went inside after I saw that she was following instructions, and then after a few minutes, I hear the garage door open and close and hear Princess in her room. I was impressed that she was done so quickly, and when I went to see her, she's working at opening her piggy bank (it's one with a rubber plug on the bottom). I said to her, "are you done? Did Daddy pay you?" To which she says to me, in a very matter of fact way, "no, I'm getting some money out to pay Daddy to help me finish." Apparently, she had decided after emptying all the containers, that paying Daddy back one of the quarters she was going to earn was worth having him hold the trash bag while she threw the containers away. She was basically subcontracting out her money job! At the tender age of four she is honing her entrepreneurial skills. I was going to object, but then I decided "hey, why not?" and let her pay someone to help her (it ended up being me... easiest quarter I ever made). I just thought it was so funny that she realized if someone could pay her to do it, she could pay someone to help her. Or that it was worth it to her to get paid less and have help/attention from Coach and I. And on a side note, do you teach her to pay tithing on the whole $1, or just the 75 cents (after she subcontracted the trash bag holding)? I made her pay just on the 75 cents, but since we can't hand over seven and a half pennies to the bishop, we ended up counting eight pennies out instead. This money job thing can get pretty confusing, what with my scheming daughter and counting half pennies and all. I just hope several years from now, she hasn't amassed a small fortune and will be paying us to do her regular chores as well as her money jobs. This is just one indication of many that Princess is smarter than we sometimes give her credit for.

5 comments:

1tiredmama said...

I love it! Isn't it amazing how smart kids are?

Sunnie said...

i really need to start doing something like that with elle. i think it would be good for her.

Anonymous said...

oh my word, she's so great!

scraphappymama said...

She's a bright one alright!! We need to do something with Brooklyn so she can learn the whole tithing, hard work thing. We have good intentions, but in the end just forget!?!?!

Anonymous said...

I love it!!! What a smart little kid. She's the greatest!