Poker Anyone?

Lately I have had several genius moments. 

You know, those moments when you just stop and say, "Holy (insert favorite word here), that's GENIUS!"

Like the other day, when my friend was complaining that she hated having the litter box in the kitchen and she needed to get a kitty door for downstairs.  Wait. Whoa? Yes. A kitty door. So the cat could get into the unfinished area of the basement, do his business in his box, and return to patrolling the house.  No odor, no mess, and no gross out factor in the kitchen or bathroom.

I know....GENIUS!

Now, most of my genius moments happen as all genius moments do, in times of supreme irritation.  As was this next idea... chore chips.

I have said many times before that I don't believe in allowance.  I think there are just some things the kids should do because they are part of the family.  However, we do have other small jobs around the house that they can do for set amounts of money that make my life easier and give them the opportunity to make some extra cash.  Problem is, they always want to cash in when I am broke.  Or, they tell me they've done things and then I find out they didn't do them, or do them as often as they remembered.  

So, I took Tony's poker chips Shh, don't tell....

And then printed out some chores on return address labels...

Then I put the labels on the chips, with different colors representing the different values.  I took a razor and traced around the inner circle.  If you're super crafty and have a circle punch you could use that.  But I didn't have one, and really didn't care how perfect they came out...

Then I whipped out the hot glue gun and stuck a magnet on the back of each one.  If you're super organized you can pre-heat your glue gun while you're doing the label part.  But again, I'm not, so I threw in a load of laundry while I was waiting for it to heat up.  Then, I used two old frosting containers for each of the kids to collect their chips.  I cut holes in the top and labeled each one with their names.

Then I stuck all the chips on the side of the fridge....

....and explained the rules. When they do a chore, they tell us, and we put the chip in the container.  When I have money, I will replace the chip with the allotted amount of cash.  Then the chip goes back on the fridge for the next time.  There are an equal amount of chores for each, and all chores are up for grabs.

So there ya have it.

Chore chips.

Hopefully things will get done a bit easier around here.

Or, my boys will be well on their way to becoming professional gamblers.