Couch Potato Organizing Your T-Shirts

I do a lot of my organizing sitting in front of the TV with my family.  Not that we watch a lot of  TV.  Really.  But it's an easy way to tackle a chore that needs to be done and still spend time with the family.  I call it "couch potato organizing."

Does that sound easy or lazy?  Maybe it's both.  Hmm, will have to think on that one.  It's a great way to not feel guilty. 

• You're spending time with the family 
• Or you're making your relaxing time relaxing AND productive.
• You're ticking chores off your "To Do" list.  Multi-tasking, yea! 

Ok, let's start.  Run and grab your t-shirt drawer, or bin or pile.  If you're the ultimate multi-tasker, have each family member bring their t-shirt drawer, too.  Sit down in front of the TV and turn on your favorite show.  I prefer to sit on the floor so I can pile things all around, but you can easily work at a table, if you'd prefer.  Depending on your home and your "clean freak" level, you'll want to lay a sheet or blanket down before you start working.


Take your drawer and dump everything out.  It's okay to dump it, because we'll be refolding everything before we put it back.

Go through every t-shirt with a critical eye and ask yourself:

 

 1.  "Is this in good shape?  Are there any holes or stains?"  If it's not in good condition, move it to the Donate pile.

 

2.  "Is this shirt one that I really like?"  If your answer is no, move it to the Donate pile.  Life is too short to wear things we don't really like.  It's better to have 3 shirts that you love than 20 ho hum ones. 

 

3.  "Is this shirt one that I really like?"   If the answer is "Yes" or "I'm not sure",  then ask yourself, "Is this flattering on me?"  Life is too short, you should only wear things that make you feel GREAT about yourself.    If you like the shirt AND it's flattering, move it to the Keep pile, otherwise put it in the Donate pile.

 

Once you've gone through all the shirts, put your Donate pile in a bag and move it to another room so you're not tempted to raid it and add shirts back to your Keep pile.  You can hold onto the bag of Donate for a week or so just in case you find you really can't live without one of the shirts.  But most often you'll find that you don't even miss them once you make the decision.

 

Now take your Keep pile and sort them into piles by color group.  The colors don't have to match exactly just break them out into piles by white, black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.  If the shirt has a pattern or multiple colors, pick the dominate color and put it in that pile.  Don't get hung up here, there's no right or wrong answer.  It's just a tool to help you not a fence to limit you.

 

So, look at each different color pile and ask yourself:

1. Do I like this color? Does this color look good on me? If no, move the shirts to your donate pile. If you just can't get rid of all of one color, then keep 1 shirt. But if you don't like the color or it doesn't look good on you, really, why keep it at all?

2. Do I have too many of this color?

 

Look at each color pile.  Do you have too many of one color?  I can't tell you how many are too many, but be realistic. My favorite color is purple, but 10 purple shirts would be too many for me.  If I had 10, I could wear a different purple shirt every day for a week and a half.  For me, about 5 purple shirts are plenty.  Oops, I've got 6 purple tees in my drawer right now.  I guess I need to look at them and find 1 to donate.

 

Now you're ready to start folding your shirts.  Take a tee and holding it by the bottom at the side seams shake it out and then lay it down flat.  Straighten it out so there are no wrinkles.

 

Next take one sleeve and fold it in about 1/4 of the way.  Then fold the other sleeve in the same distance.  Smooth out any wrinkles.

 

Take the bottom of the shirt and fold it up to the top.  Smooth out any wrinkles.

 

The fold the shirt in half again so it looks like this:

 

Once you have all the shirts folded you'll place them back into your drawer.  Stand them up like file folders with the folded side up. 

 

 

 



You'll be amazed at how many more shirts you can fit into your drawer this way.  Put all like color shirts together.  I put my shirts in Roy G. Biv order, but in this drawer above, my daughter preferred hers in alphabetical order.  Whatever works best for you, just put all like colors together. 

By placing like colors together you'll be able to tell immediately every time you look in the drawer if you have too few or too many of a certain color.  That will help you next time you're at the store and find a good deal on a shirt, you'll be able to remember if you need more of that color or have enough already.  It will also help you when you're getting dressed.  No more digging through the drawer to find a shirt.  You'll be able to see it immediately.

On the next commercial, return the t-shirt drawer (or pile) to your dresser or closet.  This should have taken you about 30 minutes, 60 if you have a whole lot of shirts.  Now that you've put these all away, grab a drink and finish enjoying your show.


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Pookies - Oops!

(Aka Poo Cookies, aka Oops Cookies)

Have you ever seen the fake poo you can buy for pranks?  I've always wondered  who are the people  buy fake dog poo.  I've wondered not in a judgmental way, but just curious. 

If you were one of the wonderful people at a charity walk in Northern Virginia this weekend shaking your head and wondering who in the world donates fake dog poo cookies to a charitable cause, well, it was ME!  (picture me with my head hung low in embarrassment)

I signed up to donate cookies to the Good Shepherd Alliance 8th Annual Walk for Shelter.  It's a wonderful organization in our community helping homeless families and families that are struggling.  Every September they sponsor a walk to raise awareness and funds.   Our church supplies the food and drinks for the participants.  I love to bake, so signing up for cookies was easy.

I'm trying to use up the food stored in my pantry this month.  I had several chocolate cake mixes in the pantry and a cookbook of cookie recipes using cake mixes. I searched the cookbook until I found a delicious recipe for cookies using a chocolate cake mix, white chocolate chips and pretzel sticks.   I was so proud to be able to use items I already had in my pantry.  The cookies were delicious.  I was also quite proud that I'd timed the cookies perfectly for when the kids got home from school and had them sitting on cute plates just waiting.  June Cleaver, anyone?

My beautiful, appreciative children came in exicited by the wonderful smell of cookies, looked at the plate in confusion, then in disgust.  They looked at each other and started laughing.  When my daughter caught her breath, she asked me, "What are these and why did you make poo cookies?"  I'm sure you can imagine all the comments a 10-year old boy, 14-year old girl and 16-year old girl can come up with about "poo cookies."

I had to laugh, because it's exactly what the cookies look like.  You know, the really disgusting poos that include items the dog ate that it couldn't digest.  The funny thing is I totally did not see it while I was happily placing 2-3 cookies in individual bags and adding cute little labels that said "Sweet and Salty Cookies."

I keep going back and forth between laughing till I cry and then hanging my head in embarrassment.

So, is a generous deed no longer kind when the deed is donating dozens of cookies that look like dog poo?   What do you think?

Tombstone Decorating with Repurposed Boxes

A couple of years ago, we threw a Halloween party for my daughter and a bunch of her friends.  It was the first year that my daughter was too old to go trick or treating.  (I know, I know.  We still have old teenagers coming around every Halloween, too.  But we just decided that at 13, it was time to do something different.)

We decorated outside the house with "monster foot prints" leading up to our house.  We simply used sidewalk chalk to make the monster prints.  Easy and the kids did it all on their own.

We also made tombstones with funny sayings.  I just took old moving boxes (you know we always have lots of those around with as many moves as we've made) and cut them into tombstone shapes.  We painted them grey by mixing left-over black and white craft paint.  After that dried, I wrote names on the tombstones with Sharpie marker. 

I let the kids pick the names from a list we'd come up with ourselves plus a quick internet search.  The tombstones were a big hit with the girls coming to the party and with the trick or treaters.    My favorite?  I'm glad you asked.  Lee Ning with the tombstone leaning, still makes me laugh.  The kids' favorite?  Seymore Butz.  Yeah, yeah, they were 6-13 years old then.

The best part of all - the decorations were free and a fun project that the whole family did together.

Tuna Box CD & DVD Holder

Am I the only one that sees an empty box, falls in love with its shape and then holds onto it for 3 months until I figure out the perfect use for it?  I know I'm not the only one.... right?

I was at the grocery store about 3 months ago and saw this empty box on the shelf.

 

                                                                            

It's a box that holds pouches of tuna on the grocery store shelf.  




 

 

I still don't know exactly what about it made me think that I just had to take it home, but something about its shape and size made me pick it up.  I knew I'd find the perfect organizing use for it I just had to percolate on it.   

 

The tuna box  sat in my basement for about 2 months, until I was straightening up my computer desk.  Then I realized it would be perfect to hold those CDs and DVDs that I need in my office. 

 

I had the perfect wrapping paper already at home.   I had just gotten it at Target and I love that it looks like old newspaper print.  When I bought it I figured it would be perfect for some future craft project in addition to being the perfect wrapping paper for my family of book lovers.

 

 



 

It was super quick and easy to cut the paper to size, wrap it around my box and use a glue stick to attach the paper.

 

 

 

 

                                                   I left the insert in the box to help hold the CD cases in place.

 

 

 

It looks great on my bookshelf and my computer "stuff" is easily accessible.

 

 

 

 

This project took me about 10 minutes (and it took that long because I had to keep stopping and helping my son with his math homework) and cost nothing.  Yep, NOTHING.  Even better, it saved a box from the landfill and kept me from buying something plastic to hold those CDs.

 

 

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Scary Eyes Halloween Cake

A couple of years ago when it was my now 17 year old's first year to be too old to trick or treat, we had a bunch of her friends over for a Halloween party.  Unfortunately, it was pre-blogging days and I didn't take very many pictures.  The party was great fun, with all kinds of themed foods and a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood. 

But the biggest impact for the least amount of stress was this scary eyes cake.  It was VERY, VERY easy (my favorite kind). 

Make any box or homemade layer cake.  I used store bought chocolate frosting (you'll want 2 cans to make sure you have enough, but you'll use less than half of the 2nd can).  I put the frosting into a pastry bag and piped squiggles, using the star shaped tip, all over the sides and top of the cake.  You'll get tired piping miles and miles of squiggles, but you absolutely can't mess it up 'cause it's supposed to be messed up.

This is the fun part.  Get any and all "eye" shaped candies.  We used M & M's , Skittles, gummy rings, candy corn pumpkins, and jelly beans.  Play around combining them to make different styles of eyes.  Try stacking smaller candies on larger ones to give the eyes more dimension.  Put the eyes all over the sides and top of the cake first then decorate them  with various icing to make different styles of eyes.  I just used store bought icing in the tube for this part.    You're going for the idea of lots of different cartoony scary eyes looking out at you.  So add pupils, eye brows, eye liner, eye lashes, whatever your imagination can create.

Super easy and idiot-proof  Halloween cake.  If you make a mistake, just confidently say, "I meant to do that" and no one will know any different.

 

Soda Bottle Pumpkins

I still can't get over how brilliant {this} adorable and earth-friendly apple project is over at Creative Jewish Mom.




She used the bottom of two 2-liter soda bottles to make these gift boxes.
                                        
I love that she repurposed items that would otherwise end up in the landfill and I love that they're quick and easy.





I wanted to try something similar and since it's only a month or so till Halloween, of course, I thought of pumpkins. 

 I started with a 2-liter soda bottle that I cut the top 1/3 off.  You can cut it any height  to create the size pumpkin you'd like.  The 2nd bottle I tackled was a 2-liter one that I cut shorter to make a smaller pumpkin.  And the 3rd bottle was a smaller 1-liter size.  So, you can pick the size and the height of the pumpkin you want to make by the bottle you choose and how short you cut it.


Next I cut vertical strips about 3/4 to 1 1/2 inch wide down the bottle.  Make sure you have an odd number of strips or you won't be able to weave the yarn around.  Having the strips different widths makes it look more authentic so don't worry about having perfectly even strips, just make sure you end up with an odd number.


Once you have the strips cut into the bottle, it's time to weave the yarn.  I used inexpensive sports weight yarn.  Simply weave in and out of the strips going around the bottle continuously (as you see around the bottom part of the bottle in the picture) until you reach just short of the final height you want your pumpkin.  It's important that you've continued around and around the bottle weaving in one direction.
This portion will make up the body of the pumpkin.


When you think you're near the height you want for your pumpkin, try folding down the strips to see if the height and shape is what you'd like. At this time, you need to start weaving the yarn around 2 or 3 of the vertical strips.  Choose to wrap around 2 strips if they're wider and choose 3 if they're narrow.
 

 

I used a hole punch to punch holes in the top of all the vertical strips.  This allowed me to tie off the yarn after each vertical section so that it wouldn't unravel. 

                                                          After wrapping each set of vertical strips, I tied the yarn off on the inside of the bottle.  Be sure to trim the yarn tails so they won't show at the bottom clear portion of the bottle.

Once all the vertical strips were wrapped with yarn, I folded them down to the height and shape I wanted for the pumpkin.  This part will require a little fiddling to get it just right.  I used the pipe cleaner laced through the holes on the top of the strips to lace them together and hold them in place.  On the 1-liter bottle, I just folded the strips down inside the bottle and they stayed in place so I didn't have to lace them together.

 

 

After I tied the strips down and the pumpkin formed into the shape I wanted, I drew some pumpkin leaves freehand on a piece of green felt. I chose to hand stitch the leaves to the top of the pumpkins.  You could easily use fabric glue or hot glue to attach the leaves.  I finished by curling the pipe cleaner around a pencil to give it a little character. 

 

 



I was able to make these 3 pumpkins with a half a skein of yarn, pipe cleaners and 1 piece of green felt with enough supplies left over to make more.  You could get 6 or more pumpkins from the skein of yarn and felt, depending on the size bottles you use.  So, all this for under $5 in supplies. 



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                    Creative Jewish Mom

Tray Repurposing from Ugly Duckling to Happy Isles

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped donations off at a local charity and stopped in the store to look around.  I found this ugly unattractive tray on the 75% off shelf.   Can you say  "1990's!?"

I got it for 44 cents.  I figured that at that price, I  could do something with it.  I had no ideas what I'd do, but brought it home anyway.  I guess I was bored and looking for a project (again).




About a week after bringing the tray home, I found a pack of Spam note cards at Target.  My daughter told me I had to get them. 

I grew up in Hawai'i. And if you know anything about Hawai'i, you know we lo-ooove Spam.  Really.  There's nothing better than spam, rice and eggs!  Loving Spam is a quirky, endearing trait of folks from Hawai'i. 

I also adore shows from the 50's and Elvis (50's Elvis, not 70's Elvis).  The note cards have that 50's flair to them.


My daughter, growing up eating Spam and watching 50's shows, immediately appreciated the quirkiness of the Spam note cards and that's why she insisted that I buy them.


Of course, I bought the cards (there was never any question).  I wanted to use them on the 90's wine tray.  I thought I could Mod Podge them in a random pattern and use the tray in the kitchen to catch odds and ends in my junk drawer.  That way I'd get a smile every time I opened the junk drawer.  I try to build those little pick-me-ups into my decorating and organizing.

I tried laying the cards out in a million different patterns.  But every different pattern looked just as busy as the one to the left (like Chuck E. Cheese chaos for your eyes).

It was just too much.  So after a couple of days of trying to make it work, I moved on to another picture I've been wanting to use.  My Hapy Isles Pineapple picture.

I printed out 3 copies of the picture, cut them to size and then Mod Podged them to the tray.  Once it had all dried, I added a coat of Mod Podge to the top of the paper to seal it.   So the entire project cost under $1.                 44 cents for the tray + 3 sheets of paper + some printer ink + a little Mod Podge

 

I'm currently using the tray to hold loose sewing supplies. 

 

 

                                                                                              I like to keep items that I use frequently out and easily accessible.  All my other sewing items are stored in my sewing box.  But these few things I like to have at my fingertips.  Now they're easy to reach and I smile each time I reach for one of them on my Happy Isles tray.        

 

Organize Your Pantry by Using Up the Food You Have

Did the "Extreme Couponing Bug" bite you about a year ago?  A friend of mine (who shall go nameless, C!) got me interested in watching the TLC show "Extreme Couponing" about a year ago.  I then became interested in couponing and saving money on our grocery bill.  Maybe I'm just a lemming, but I think it's more due to our move 2 years ago to the wealthiest county in the country (which translates into "very expensive cost of living" county).  Since my husband is active duty military, our income remained the same even though our expenses sky-rocketed. 

Enter couponing.  I've saved my family quite a bit with couponing. I've been able to donate A LOT of food and personal care items to my church.  And I was able to grow a mini-stock pile of food.  I (thankfully) never qualified for "extreme" couponer, but I did make a good run at "serious" couponer for a while there.

Now though, I've decided that couponing to save my family money is GOOD.  Couponing to end up with a bunch more stuff in my house is NOT GOOD.  Even if that stuff is food.  Even if that stuff was free or close to free.  We just don't need more stuff!  It feels wasteful.  I'd already been thinking about greatly reducing the food in our pantry and in our basement (where I store most of my food) when I stumbled on  The Year of Less blog and their "Eat Your Pantry" challenge.



The challenge is to eat from your pantry for the month of September.  There are no limitations on what you can buy and you're not required to eat everything in your pantry (their example is you don't have to eat the bottle of almond extract).   The purpose is simply to focus on using food that you already have in your pantry.  I'm all in on this one.

But, I'm adding one more stipulation to my personal challenge.  At the end of September, I'm going to look over the remaining food carefully.  If it's not something that we'll be using before the end of the year, I'll donate it to a local food bank and homeless shelter (with the bottle of almond extract types of items getting a reprieve). 

My goal is to make sure that everything in my pantry will be used in the next 3-4 months.   First, 3-4 months worth of "stockpile" is plenty for my family (I'm not judging anyone who feels more comfortable with a larger stockpile, I'm just determining what is good for my family).  Second (and probably more importantly), we may have another military move coming up this spring.  We don't know yet, but I don't want to be caught facing a move with 6 glass bottles of ________ (fill in the blank with soy sauce, jelly, pickles, etc.) that I'll have to unload in a panic before a move.  I'd much rather take a deliberate look now at what we can use and what we can donate.

Are you with me on this challenge?     To keep me honest I'm going to show you a before picture of the two pantry shelves that I have located in the basement.  This is what they look like on September 10, 2012.  I  pledge to post another picture on October 10th to see how well we've done in a month. 

 

How embarrassing!  Come back and see my basement shelves in a month.

Organizing Necklaces

After I made the earring holder for $3 this summer, I started thinking about a better way to store my necklaces.  I don't really have that many, but I often forget what necklaces I have until I see it later on one of my teen daughters (and I think, "Doh.  that would look great with what I'm wearing today!" but it's too late.  Unless I want to be a meanie head and wrestle away from my daughter.  Which I'd never do.)

 I had been storing my necklaces in plastic snack bags stored in a jewelry box that belonged to my grandmother.  The plastic bags were left over from our move (a couple of moves ago).  I'd put the necklaces in the bags so they wouldn't get tangled, and then found that it was an easy way to store the necklaces in "real life", too. 

The mustache on the woman (can you see it in the picture?)  gracing the jewelry box was drawn by my uncle many years ago.  It gives me a smile every time open my jewelry box (and I also wonder what my grandmother thought about that mustache.)

This system worked just fine for storing and organizing my necklaces.  The problem was "out of sight, out of mind."  Because I couldn't see the necklaces, I just didn't think about them when getting dressed.   After making the earring holder, I thought I could do something similar for my necklaces.  I wanted a temporary solution since we'll probably be moving again next summer and who knows what my room set up will be next time. 

So instead of using a picture frame, I opted for a cork board tile.














And Command hooks.





With the Command hooks, I could hang my necklace board anywhere and be able to remove it easily when we move.



I used a piece of decorative paper that I already had and cut it to size.  I used to double stick tape to attach the paper to the cork tile.


I used some eye hooks and some push pins that we had.  I didn't have enough of either one, there were enough if I used both.  You'll see the eye hooks on the top row and the push pins on the bottom row.  They both work equally well in holding the necklaces.



 

I hung the board on a wall in my closet using the 3 Command Hooks.  I used 2 hooks on the bottom to help support the weight and 1 hook on the top to just stabilize the top of the board.

 Having the necklaces where I can see them in my closet has worked really well.  I can easily pick a necklace to match my outfit.  And because they're right in plain view, it reminds me to pick a necklace out.  Since I used decorative paper and pins that I already had, the project cost me about $7 (the cork tile came in a package of 2, so really it cost me about$5.50) 

No more out of sight excuses AND the whole project took about 10 minutes, and that includes hanging it up. 

Comprehensive Allowance and Budgeting for Teens - Part Two

 

I'd like to be able to claim this allowance budgeting as my original brilliant idea.  But I cannot tell a lie; my parents used it with me when I was a teenager (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, if you ask my teen daughters).   My parents taught me well about budgeting, managing my money and financial responsibility.  The lessons they taught me shaped my adult life and have served me well.

When I was 13,  my parents started me on an allowance of $35/month.  I'm not sure how they arrived at that amount, but knowing my parents, they had contemplated it a long time.  It was a good amount of money for a 13-year old.  But the "catch" was that I had to pay for EVERYTHING.  I had to budget for all my own clothing, my entertainment, school supplies, gifts for friends and family and other "stuff" a teenager just has to buy.

What did I learn from my parents'  financial lessons?
1.  I learned to budget my money.  I learned the difference between necessities and nice-to-haves (do I need it or do I want it).  Would I rather  have the most expensive pair of designer jeans and then not be able to go do anything fun with my friends OR would I rather have a less expensive pair of jeans and have money left over to go out with my friends?
2.  I learned to earn money to supplement my allowance so I could  buy more of those nice-to-have (I want it) things.
3.  I learned to save a significant portion of the money I so carefully earned and budgeted.  There was very little frivolous spending of MY hard-earned money.
4.  I learned how to balance a checkbook.  My parents had me open a checking account at age 16 so I could learn how to write checks and balance a checkbook.  (I'm constantly surprised at how many of my adult friends don't balance their checkbooks!)
5.  I learned to delay gratification.  I waited until Christmas or my birthday to ask for expensive items so that I didn't have to spend MY money.
6.  I learned critical budgeting and financial responsibility lessons that only become more important as you start a family and deal with larger dollar amounts.

Having had the experience my parents gave me, my husband and I have decided to do the same with our children.   My oldest daughter has been on a comprehensive allowance for almost 4 years and my youngest daughter has been on it for  over a year.  It has been such a great learning experience that several of my friends have started the same with their children.


When we first started planning my eldest daughter's  allowance, I created a spreadsheet to figure out a realistic amount for her monthly allowance.

Let me start with the disclaimers. 
1.  I created this spreadsheet when we lived in Alabama, so don't get hung up on the amounts of different types of clothing items; we were living in a much warmer climate.
2.  I created this spreadsheet when my daughter was still growing so she didn't have many items of clothing that she wore more than one season. 
3.  Because my daughter was 12-years old when I first created this worksheet, I didn't budget much for entertainment.  But I figure it all evens out since she's not buying new coats or pajamas every year any more.  
4.  The girls are expected to tithe from their allowance (and any money they earn). We specifically did not include a line item for tithe.  We want them to understand that they are choosing to give that amount as a donation; we are not giving them money to then give as a donation.

The spreadsheet allowed my husband and me to arrive at a reasonable total amount for allowance, how my daughter chooses to allocate that allowance is part of her learning process.

I've left the "Cost Each" block blank because you have to determine this based on your family's finances, your family's principles and the area of the country you live in.  When we filled the worksheet out 4 years ago, I budgeted $20 for jeans, so $100 total for jeans for school.  As my daughters will tell you, that's not enough (said in an offended 13-year old voice).  But I figured you could get a pair of jeans at Target for $9.99 ($7.99 on sale) or you could but a pair of jeans for more than $100.  I explained to my daughters that they had several choices:
1.  My daughters could choose to buy 5 pairs of Target jeans and have money left over for other things.

2.  They could choose to buy 1 pair of $100 jeans.

3.   They could buy jeans that cost somewhere between $9.99 and $100, with fewer pairs of more expensive jeans or more pairs of less expensive jeans or any combination of less expensive and more expensive.

4.  They could choose to earn money to buy more pairs of expensive jeans

5.  They could ask for jeans for their birthday or Christmas.

As you can imagine, the conversation was a great learning experience for my daughters (I didn't say it was a happy learning experience or an easy one, but it is a critical one).  We were able to discuss the trade-offs of the different jean purchasing options.  We discussed our family principles when it comes to budgeting and finances.  We discussed saving for a rainy day.  We discussed whether having the "trendiest" jeans were important or whether having money to do things with friends was important.  We discussed ways to save money so that you can have more of both trendiest things AND doing fun things. 

I'd like to tell you that after one discussion, that was it.  My daughters have learned and implement all the budgeting, spending and financial wisdom we've shared with them.  But, unfortunately, no. 

Budgeting and managing money is a life-long learning process.  What I will tell you is that there have been many benefits beyond the obvious one of financial education for my children:

1.  I don't like to shop and I used to dread going shopping with my daughters and being begged for some item.  Then I would have to be the "bad guy" and say no.  Now I don't mind at all going shopping with the girls.  They'll ask me if I like an item and I can simply answer "yes" or "no."  It's up to them if they have the money for it   I do help them think through whether it's a practical item or whether it's worth the price, I'm guiding them in their decision, not making it for them.  I do still have veto power if the clothing is immodest or inappropriate.  But it's not the emotional battle it was before.

2.  I've been impressed by how motiviated my daughters have been to find work and earn money.   Good work ethic developing early. Yea!

3.  They are careful not to "waste" money that they have earned.  It's interesting to watch my two daughters and the choices they make in what to spend their money on and what they each think is wasteful.  They have different interests and priorities, but they each weigh whether they want to spend ("waste") money on something before they spend it.

4.  When we started the comprehensive allowance with my oldest daughter, we lived in a small town in Alabama where the cost of living was lower.  Two years ago we moved to Northern Virginia, ironically, to the wealthiest county in the country, so the cost of living is much higher.  Since my husband is in the military, our income did not increase when we moved here and so we did not increase my daughters' allowance.  The higher cost of living has led to many in-depth discussions about finances, salaries, wages, cost of living and the trade-offs that you have to make in budgeting and managing your finances.  My daughters are very aware of what things cost and what things are worth.

5.  Living in the wealthiest county in America has made my daughters aware of how others choose to spend their money as compared to how we choose to spend ours.  We've had many in-depth talks about money, its importance and that there is more to life than money, and the priorities we choose in our lives. 

6.  It's fun to watch the creative ways the girls have come up with to save money and get the most for their hard-earned dollar.  Whether it be signing up for text coupons at their favorite clothing store, or buying school supplies on sale, or going in together to buy birthday gifts for family members.

7.  Now that my daughters have real-life experience with budgeting and the trade-offs that have to be made, we have been able to have advanced discussions about the economy and choices that our government leaders are making.  Economic and political discussions have more meaning to them since they have practical budgeting experience.

If you're interested in calculating a comprehensive allowance for your teen, you can download my worksheet {here}.  Let me know how it goes for your family.

You may be interested in Part 1:


Allowances to Teach
 Financial Responsibility