Happy Day Punch Cards

Sorry for the sporadic or should I be honest and say "lack of" posts lately.  We are on spring break around here.  Normally that would mean that we high-tail it to the mountains for some family fun and relaxation.  But this year we needed to stay close to home.  So we are taking advantage of the extra time to get some things done around the house.  Both of my older kids are in dire need of some extra cash.  I am more than happy to pay them for extra work around the house.  I am not talking your average everyday chores.  I could tell you my philosophy on that, but I will save it for another day.  I am talking extra projects that I need help with.  I make them work hard for the money!  The problem is, that I am not so good at keeping track of what they've done and whether or not I have paid them.  So I devised this punch card system to keep track of the hours they work.  When the card is full, they can trade it in for cash.  It's up to them to keep track of their punch card.  We've been using them for a couple of days now and they are working like a charm!

This is how it works...determine how much money each smiley face is worth and write it on the left side.  Then just use a hole punch and punch out a smiley face for every hour worked.  Simple.

Want to know what we've been working on?  It's amazing what can get done when three or four "adults" are working together!  So far we have...

*washed, vacuumed, and prepped the boats for some summer fun

*scrubbed all of the cars inside and out

*tilled the garden, amended the soil, and planted some spring vegetables

*cleaned up the yard from a long winter--lots of leaves and lots of sticks!

*weeded the lawn and fertilized

*fixed the swing set (we came across an extra slide that the neighbor was getting rid of, so we moved the stairs  to the back of the fort and now we have two cool slides coming off of the front!)

*hosed down the siding and all of the porches

*pulled out all of the wicker and other patio chairs- cleaned them and got them all set up for spring/summer

*cleaned the grill

*cleaned the garage

*cleaned the shed

I'm sure that I am missing some stuff, but you get the idea.  We have had gorgeous weather the past couple of days, so we have been concentrating on outside projects.  All of that is about to change though.  So, maybe we will head inside and do some spring cleaning?


UPDATE:

My littlest one is not quite old enough to work for an hourly wage yet. But, she wanted in on the fun. So, I made up a punch card for her too. This one is job based instead of time based. For every extra job she does, she gets a punch on her card. Decide beforehand how much each smiley face is worth and write it on the side. Nickel? Dime? Quarter? Maybe even a dollar? Whatever you think is fair.

Would you like to have some punch cards for your kids?  Just click on the printer icons below, print and cut out your cards.  That's all it takes!