I have figured out the best way to keep my house picked up and to have the occasional “Pumpkin Spiced Latte”- for free! A friend just emailed out that the wonderful fall spiced latte is back in town!
Well then, I must explain, so you, Ms Urban Homemaker, may enjoy one too!
The Jar: Plain, Simple, and brimming with items with a $.25/ea bounty on their heads.
At the end of most days or at least an hour or so after the first and only warning I might give to the collection of nick-knack toys here and there on the floor, I go hunting! I pick up handfuls of little toys that are my eye sore or end up in my sweeping pile- OR the very toys I step on barefoot in the dark no less and I place said items into the jar.
The jar collects many wonderful items! They gleam from the glass! They call to their owners who long ago forgot to put them in their place! The guilty party in this house happens to be a trio of 8 yr olds who can and do forget to pick up after themselves.
Fast forward days or weeks later and a bit of the jar catches their eyes. They know the jar can’t be opened without ransom. So the prized, long, lost item is found and the $.25 ransom is paid. Often I get generous (especially when I know a Nerf gun fight is being prepped for) and hold a 5 for $1 sale. Oh my boys love this; I made, literally $5.75 last week.
Bottom line: Yes, I occasionally reward my efforts and my cleaner home with the occasional well desired Pumpkin Spiced Latte, but it also is a nice way to return the cash back to the kids by offering them to work a chore for money. That money can and does go around and around, but man, I hold out for the latte.. especially now that I heard they are back in town and I have a long night ahead.
~I will warn.. The ransom payment is often painful for the guilty, so ransom cash flow happens not too often, but when it does, may you enjoy!
Kathy
Wonderful ideas!! Wish I thought of them years ago when I had two little munchins at home.