After being away from Allison and Eva while I was in Las Vegas I have been behind in my photo taking of Eva. And since she is a pretty willing subject lately (at least until she learns “Daddy put away the camera”) I will take shots every chance I get. I’ve got to learn and practice my portrait taking abilities anyway to get ready for the December Portrait Challenge. Trevor’s post has some links to some really great articles. I am going to take the month of December to work on taking the best portraits around.
I’d also like to welcome many of my new blogger friends who have been visiting and commenting. I have been reading all of your stuff lately and I can’t get enough. So look for me on your blogs commenting and whatnot and thanks for commenting here. I still have so much to get done from the weekend and have no clue where to start. Maybe I just shuffle the business cards and start from the bottom of the deck and blog about a different one each day.
But as I think about Eva growing up I am going to have to start thinking about allowances. And well, the nickels from my pocket change aren’t going to cut it so I’m going to have to give her something substantial for her doing chores. It is a long way off from that but I probably should start saving for her allowance now because God knows how much things are going to cost when she is old enough for an allowance. Luckily I can have some help in setting aside money for her allowance with Pay Jr. With PAYjr I can set aside money electronically to give to Eva for doing her weekly chores. I can even set up a Chore Chart with Pay Jr and print that out for Eva to manage her weekly chores.
There are two types of cards for PAYjr. there is the 12 and under card (the one I would be using sooner) and the 13 and over card (which I will have to fund also). The 12 and under card can be a Target gift card and since Eva will most likely be a Target kid this works out perfectly for us. I really want to do well in teaching Eva to manage money and I think the PAYjr site can help. For one thing, we can chart her chore progress together and she can see how much she is owed because she completed her chores, there is also additional financial education aspects tot he site and a way that some of the allowance can be set aside as savings and some for spending. I think that striking the right balance between the two is going to be a very important thing to establish early on.
Another nice thing about the site is the ability to send alerts when payment should be added as well as when chores should be completed. These alerts can go to both parents and children. We are living in a digital age and you may think that it is impersonal but I think it is going to be one great way to enhance communication.
