Holidays

I have been very VERY behind on posting lately. With the holidays approaching us, a sick child, and general chaos I have let this slide.

I am happy to say we are almost done shopping :-) We always look through the clearance sections all year round and pick up things as we go. This year we scored several large items much cheaper then even waiting for Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

We scored an awesome desktop computer that was originally $800 for about $200. I needed his for my upcoming classes in January that I am taking online and my laptop is evil. Next after several years of saving we purchased and iPad Mini with 32G and Retina display for under $100.

The break down:

For the computer my hubs researched online for months about the type he thought would be best. next he watched for sales and then looked ahead at the holiday ads. He had his plan in place but it did get thwarted as the model he wanted was discontinued and they were putting out a newer version that was not even as good as the one he wanted. The miracle on this was that we found the exact model at a store most people don't go shopping for computers at and found they were selling the display model on sale plus an additional 20% since it was the model. BINGO we got it and they did a fantastic job of  getting it ready and packed for us. They spent a good deal amount of time showing us how to reset the computer out of store mode and get all of the factory setting back including the trials of all the fun stuff. I know I know this is really luck but he had it down to $400 prior to them discontinuing the model. We also had points saved up on our credit card that we put towards it brining the cost down further.

The iPad has been something we've been working on for years. Hubs has been doing online surveys that he turned in for Game Stop gift cards. We also waited for sales and got a used one. They have great warranty's for this kind of stuff. I have bought him an used Xbox years ago from a store and they replaced it no problems when it didn't work. It was on sale for $299.00 then we had over a $100 in gift cards. They also had a special deal with free shipping. Score one for us! They shipped it in less then a week and it looks like it  has never been touched.

So moral of the story is to do the leg work it pays off! Even when it's frustrating.

Chore/Behavior Chart

Lately we've had trouble with having our daughter complete her chores and keep her behavior in check. We decided to create a chart.

There are many different chore charts and behavior charts out there. I have not been able to find just one that I like. I also didn't want two different charts floating around our house. So I found different examples of charts and combined them to make one chart that fits with our family's needs. Essentially it's a bunch of ideas put into one.

All items I either had already or purchased from Walmart.  The supplies used were round sticky magnets, dryerase magnetic board, ribbon, tape, my computer, and a laminating machine.

First I searched Pinterest for different ideas of chore and behavior charts. I went to many different websites and looked at all the different types that they have. I made sure to find items that I would be able to use for free.

Next I printed out the different ideas that I liked best. I then wrote on note paper how I wanted it to look like. This helped me organize my thoughts.

Once I have my thoughts together I started creating with pic monkey and Microsoft Word the different items I would need for the chart.

I laminated all of the important parts that would be needed for our chart. I then placed magnets on the back of each laminated piece. Every piece was cut out individually. I laid them all out on our dry erase magnetic board.

After messing around with a bunch of different layouts I finally decided on one.

Our chart has several different parts to it. There is the upper part where it's divided by the days of the week as well as things to do, things that are done and the total for the day.

The to do column has a list of chores she needs to complete for the day. When she's completed them she moves them to the done pile. 

At the bottom there is a how's my behavior doing section. It is divided up into five sections. Awesome where she can earn three tickets, good where she can earn two tickets, start of the day, warning, and loss of privilege.

Some loss of privileges we may use are loss of television, loss of innotab time, loss of play date, or loss of activity.

 Each day she can earn up to three tickets. At the end of the week she adds up the total amount of tickets and can redeem them for a prize.

They're only five choices of prizes for two different prize tiers. We did 7 to 14 and 15 to 21 tickets earned. She may pick out one prize from each section depending on how many tickets she earned for the week.

Some prizes we used were pick out dinner, pick out dessert, rent a Redbox movie, pick out a family activity, and pick out a game. These are just some examples of the prizes we used.

It's not perfect but hopefully it will work for us.