The FamZoo Blog: How to Create an Online Chore Chart in FamZoo

Do you pay your kids to do chores? That's what personal finance experts Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman recommend.

Or, maybe you expect chores to be completed without pay. After all, nobody pays you to make your bed, right? That’s how parenting experts Michele Borba and Dr. Joanne Stern feel.

Or, maybe you like the hybrid approach: basic chores are expected, but extra chores pay a commission, like Frugal Dad recommends.

Regardless of which model best fits your family, it makes sense to use a chore chart to set clear, explicit expectations about what should be done when and by whom.

These days, it makes a lot of sense to spell out those expectations online. Why? Here are a few of my favorite reasons:

Your kids are online. They’re comfortable with technology — maybe more so than you.
Everyone knows what’s due and when. Anyone in the family can get at their responsibilities from anywhere — even on the go via mobile phone. Still hearing excuses? Set up some automatic reminders. Kids don’t have to come to the chore chart anymore — the chore chart comes to them. Can’t you just see your tweens or teens rolling their eyes already?
It’s easier than using paper. It’s easy to set up recurring chores once and have them appear automatically thereafter. It’s easy to automatically tally up commissions for completed chores and credit the proper accounts in the Bank of Mom/Dad. It’s easy to change things as your kids mature.
No more re-writing history. There’s an automatic historical record which comes in handy during subsequent “negotiating” with the kids. I’ll confess that I do enjoy showing them how much money they could have made if they had followed through a bit more consistently.

Ready to get started? Here’s how you do it step-by-step:

Step 1: Sign into your FamZoo account and click on the Checklist tab.

Step 2: Click on a Create link to start creating your chore chart.

Step 3: Give your chore chart a name and fill in some other general settings.

Step 4: If you want to pay your kids for chores (or ding them for neglecting them), check the Rewards & Penalties box.

Step 5: Click an Add Item link to start adding tasks to your chore chart.

Step 6: Fill in the fields for your each new task.

Step 7: If it’s a recurring chore, pick a start day (the Due field) and select options for how often it repeats.

Step 8: Set an “expiration date” on your chore so unfinished chores don’t clutter up your list.

Step 9: If you’d really like to annoy your kid, set up a text message reminder for the chore.

Step 10: If you’re going the pay-for-chores or the hybrid route, indicate how much should be paid to which account when this chore is completed. You can add multiple entries here if you’d like to split between multiple accounts — like spending, saving, and giving.