Glad Bags

At the beginning of this summer the kids were driving me crazy with arguing and tattle-taleing. I remembered that when we were kids, one summer Grandma Berry put together "Mad Bags". In the bag she had put $5 in dimes. If we fought then we had to give up one dime. I think Troy broke the system the first time he got in trouble. He gave his whole bag to mom and said, "Just keep them all." So I decided to try to implement the idea, but called them "Glad Bags" and hope that the kids wouldn't outsmart me like Troy.

So Porter and Eva get a bag of $5 in quarters and Ivy gets $2 in dimes. If they fight, argue, throw fits, tattle tale, etc. they have to give me a quarter/dime that then goes in MY "Mad Bag". On Sunday before church we go through our bags and talk about why they had to pay me that week and how we can be better this next week. I then buy back whatever quarters they have left with dollar bills. Then they do tithing. And they get more quarters for the next week.

It's worked really well for us and has been a good way to encourage good behavior, practice counting, understand tithing, start new each week, do an allowance. Their favorite part is when I buy back quarters and dollar bills with larger bills. At first they were a little upset that they didn't have as many coins or dollars, but once they figured out that the higher bills were the same and didn't take up as much room, they fell in love with the idea.

Well, Porter decided that he really wanted this Wii game called Skylander. So we told him he would have to save his money to get it. So he has worked all summer to save his money to get the $70 together to buy his game. This last week he finally got it all together and went to Target to get it. Luckily it was on sale for $60 and we had a long conversation about taxes. He loves his game and is so super proud of himself for buying it.

Eva decided that she wanted to buy something too. But she didn't want to spend all her money

and wanted something small. So I took her to Claire's. Claire's is a teeny-bopper type store with tons of costume jewelry and stuff like that. As soon as we walked in the door she squealed and clapped her hands and yelled, "This is AMAZING! This is my favorite store in the WORLD!" We then took the next hour to look at every little thing they had. She finally settled on a makeup compact. While she can't wear makeup anywhere, she has had fun learning about it and putting it on her and Ivy. It's been super cute.