Toby!

When Jake turned 3 we started using a chore chart for him that lists his jobs and how much he gets paid. He loves getting his check marks at the end of the day and adding up how much he earned at the end of each week. The chart also lists certain behaviors that he gets "fined" for...he grasped the concept of having money taken away very quickly. We have been really pleased with how this system has been working and the lessons that Jake is learning from it. He's learning when he gets paid that he first has to put money into his give jar for the Lord, then his save jar, and finally his spend jar.

He has been doing a great job of patiently saving up his money and was recently able to purchase one of his favorite trains...Toby! Jake saved up $13.00 to buy Toby and then the morning we were going to make our trip to the store we found a 50% off coupon for any item! In the end he was able to get Toby, a new car from his favorite movie, and come home with money to put back into his savings jar. 

It's been nice to see that Jake seems to understand that the reason he has these new toys is because of his hard work and patient saving. Even weeks later he is still proudly showing off Toby and Boost (the car) to everyone that comes over...it's pretty cute. Also, after a lot of careful consideration he has now decided that he should start saving up for Rescue Squad Mater...hopefully we can find him in the store because he hasn't been easy to come by lately!

I printed off a picture of Toby for Jake to color and also listed every dollar that he needed to earn to reach his goal. We put this up on the refrigerator and every time Jake earned another dollar he got to cross it off on his paper. This worked out great and was a nice visual for him.

Jake's jars...he's quite proud of them.

Showing off the much loved Toby.

He was so excited by his bonus purchase of Boost!