An App That Actually Makes Your Kids Look Forward to Chores
This post was written in partnership with Chore Check.
At 10 and 13, my kids are getting to that (not so) wonderful stage in life where they ask for money ALL. THE. TIME. We’ve never given them a traditional allowance because between generous grandparents and frequent opportunities to earn money, they haven’t really needed them — However, they tend to spend any money they receive in record time, and it’s no time at all before they’ve found another app/book/toy that they’re DYING to own RIGHT NOW. Don’t be fooled by these innocent faces. They want money and they want it NOW!
Enter Chore Check.
This brilliant, FREE app allows you to create chores for your kids, put a price on each chore, and assign it to one or more of your children. Your kids can open a simplified version of the app on their own devices, view their profile and list of chores to complete, and mark them as completed when they’re done. At that point, you can check to make sure the chore was done to your specifications and then mark the app to pay them, giving them the satisfaction of seeing what they’re owed on their profile page.
We have gotten started on Chore Check (setting up all of our profiles and creating a list of chores took me about ten minutes) and it is a big hit so far with my kids. Here’s what we like about it:
Creating Chores
Creating chores on Chore Check really couldn’t be easier — You can create a chore quickly and easily with the app, assign it to one or more children, set how often it needs to be done, and –my favorite option– make it stealable! *Rubs hands with nefarious glee and laughs evil villain laugh* By making a chore stealable, another child can ‘steal’ it from the kid it’s assigned to and get paid for the chore. This is absolute brilliance, people — It adds a competitiveness to CHORES that my kids and I never saw coming. My children were immediately 100% more intrigued by the app knowing that they could steal chores –and therefore, money– away from each other.
I also like that Chore Check allows more than one family leader to create chores, meaning you, your partner, a grandparent, and even a babysitter could take part in the chore game. Pretty cool, right?
Once I set chores for both my kids, I noticed that it came out to about what I’d pay them per week if they had an allowance. Funny how that works!
I later changed the making beds chore to $.50, by the way. Making beds is not worth a dollar a day in this house.
The Payout
One feature I really love about Chore Check is that you can decide with your child ahead of time what percentage of each payout will go into SPEND, SAVE, and GIVE categories. We are going to be making liberal use of this feature — In fact, I am so excited about it, I can’t stand it. We talk often about the importance of saving and giving to people in need, but this makes it REALLY REAL, as well as extremely easy for us to oversee.
On the other hand, if you want to keep things simple, you can simply set chores and pay out the money when it’s due. It’s all up to you and your kids how you want to handle it.
Lessons Learned
I love that my kids can keep track of their earnings over time, as well as the money they lost by not completing chores. That’s another bit of brilliance, in my opinion.
Another cool feature that you may or may not opt to use– particularly with teenagers– is Chore Check Pay. For a monthly fee, you directly transfer money through Chore Check from your checking account to a prepaid debit card that your child can use. Although this service is available through the app, it is not pushed on you in any way as you’re using it, which I appreciate. It’s just an option that may be great for some families.
Overall, I’m really loving this app. The interface is clean, easy to navigate, and ad-free. The features are thoughtfully designed (It’s VERY obvious a parent created this app!) and allow plenty of flexibility for all types of families and tech comfort levels. This is definitely best for kids who are old enough to have their own devices and are very interested in their apps — If you have kids who fit these two requirements, Chore Works will be pretty much irresistible to them. Meantime, you can feel good about teaching your kids the value of work, saving, and giving to others — and have a cleaner house in the process. It’s a win-win!
You can find Chore Check online or download it at the Apple app store.
