Wood to Money

We ran out f oil and firewood last year - our only two sources of heat. We were determined NOT to run out this year, so since we turned off the oil, in like April, we have been putting a set amount of money per month into a savings envelope - as we cant be trusted with it in the bank, to pay for oil and firewood this coming winter. We also realized, after buying firewood last October, that prices rise the closer it gets to winter so we wanted to buy early. Well, this past weekend, we bought our firewood. Last year we only bought one cord, thinking it would be enough, it so wasn't, so this year we bought two - for a pretty good price and free delivery.

I guess we were lucky last year, the guy who delivered unloaded the wood piece by piece by throwing it over the fence so it was at least in our yard. I didn't realize how wonderful that was. This year, different guy - two cords of wood - no chance of it being unloaded directly into the yard, so I moved my car and two cords were dumped on the street in front of our house. A cord is stacked wood measuring 4'x4'x8', so we had two of those. The men had the kids for the day so they were unable to help, and craftymama, well, she is 7 months pregnant so can't really help all that much either. So it was up to me.

I started by bringing loads in a (borrowed) wheelbarrow to the back, and then stacking. This went on for a while, about 1hour before a nice lady drove by asked if I was doing that on my own, and then got out and helped me. Duncan really does have a good community! She brought the wood to the back and I stacked it. We got about 1/3 done the entire thing when she had to go. It was about 5:30p, and we had been working for about 4 hours. There was no way I was going to get this all to the back of the yard and stacked before it got dark, so I changed my plan. New plan: get all the wood in the yard! So i just started throwing it over the fence into the front yard, Craftymama helped a bit by the end to when my aforementioned knee started to really hurt. So by the end of the day it was at least all in our yard.

Then craftymama had a great idea! Last year it was a whole family affair, everyone helped with the wood. So why not have the kids do it, and if they did it all we agreed we would pay them $5 and give them a movie sleepover night downstairs - this is big for our kids, they don't watch tv or movies ever. (Grandparent's house aside) They were stoked on the idea, they have really been getting into money lately.

I will admit I never expected them to move it all to the back. But...

Within two days they had moved the remaining 2/3 of two cords of wood about 100' to the back shed. It's all now waiting for me to stack - damn kids and their creating work for me!

I am so impressed with them. They actually enjoyed doing it, and not just for the money. Being that physical is great for them, and I wish we had more chores or something for them to do around the house that were physical like this - when they are bigger I am so teaching them how to chop firewood - but that's a ways away yet, no heavy sharp objects for our slightly clumsy little kids.

So we gave them their $5, with the promise of a movie night before school starts (in about two weeks), and they were thrilled. The girls are with NanaJ today, but the boys went to the store to shop!

They still had to follow our house rules - no movie characters, but that didn't seem to bother them, as they both wanted the same thing:

CARS! And buy their cars they did. This was their first actual purchase with money they have earned. They apparently were quite impressed with the whole buying procedure.

Yes we could have taken this opportunity to teach them about saving their earned money, and BigR already kind of gets it as he is saving his money that he finds/gets from adults because they think he is cute lol, for a special surprise. But its hard to teach savings to kids younger than BigR - they just don't get it. They think we are preventing them from spending their money.

Craftymama are a bit at odds as to whether we will introduce every day chores for money - otherwise known as an allowance. We both feel that they should help around the house because it is their house to, but the fact remains, that they don't. Providing a small allowance might encourage them to help out more, I don't know - I'm not in favour of it. But that's just me.

Do you have allowance in your house? How do you encourage your young children to help around the house and do basic things?

The one exception is always K, she ALWAYS wants to help out. She folds her own laundry now, and puts it away - often folding the other kids' laundry as well. She just loves to help out, which is wonderful, I need to have more patience with it and stop thinking that it would just go faster if I did it myself. By not allowing her to help I am depriving her of those skills, I don't want to do that.

But anyways, yay firewood, yay heat. I do not look forward to having to chop all that wood in the rain again this year - chopping wood in the rain in the dark is not fun.