Beans, beans, good for your heart . . .

. . . the more you eat them, the more you . . . oh, wait. That's not where this is headed.

How about the more chores you do, the more beans you earn? Not following me?

Let me explain.

My bff, Toni, and I often vent our woes to each other over how to get our children to pick up after themselves and help out more around the house without hearing all the whining, complaining, and gnashing of teeth and also without having to stand over them with a stick to keep them on track. Are you following me now? *Just kidding about the stick.

Rewind back to earlier this afternoon. I was having an afternoon chit chat about picking blackberries with said bff and she happened to mention to me her bean chore system. Her wonderful hubby came up with this ingenious idea and was more than happy to email it to me.

It goes something like this: Each child has a jar with 100 beans to start. Mom and Dad have the "bank" jar. One bean = 1 penny. There is a list of jobs that can be done to earn beans. If the job is not done correctly then the child owes the bank beans. There is also a "general store" list with privileges they can use their beans for (Wii time, computer time, TV time) and a list of things they may lose beans for (sassing/being disrespectful to parents, hitting siblings, etc.) The catch is they can't spend the initial 100 beans for privileges. They must earn beans before they can use for privileges. At the end of the week they have the option to cash in any beans over the initial 100 beans if they choose to or they can keep saving. Each child also has a ledger to keep track of his beans. The whole idea is they choose what chores they want to do without mom or dad nagging.

Ingenious, right?

I'm sure there are probably other parents out there somewhere that have done something similar to this, but I love this idea because a) I didn't have to wrack my tired brain for an idea, b) it didn't cost me anything and, c) it's working like a charm. I was prepared for it to take a few days.

So far, so good. I hope I don't jinx it.

Aren't they beautious? A few mason jars, scrapbooking stickers, some beans and you're good to go. Well, technically, these are chickpeas, but they were kinda old and I didn't want to use my good kidney beans.

I'll let you know how it's going in a week or two.