Extra Chores For Kids To Earn Money?

My DD is 8 now and spotted a Karaoke machine at the store the other day. She loves to sing and dance so I told her to save her money. So now shes looking for jobs to do to earn some money.

I love the idea of her learning to earn money for what she wants. I don't give her an allowance because in a family everybody has a job to do to help. So she already does things like clean and vacuum her room, help fold laundry, unload the dishwasher and help cook dinner.

So now I need to come up with some extra jobs she can do to earn a little money. Any ideas? I was thinking weeding my new shade garden where hundreds of maple trees sprouted. I've pulled hundreds but there are more in the back and it's hard on my back to reach that far. Whatever she does it should be something "extra." Maybe emptying and sweeping out the shed. I once paid her to clean her brother's room but hes older now and I was just that desperate.

I think the weeding is a great idea, if the weeds are hard to pull, moisten the soil a bit and those 'lovely' things come out much easier.
Hmmm, is there a neighbor who needs some help in the yard? I'm still seeing people posting on Next Door that they need yard help, but by this time in the season it might be more than an 8 year old can tackle unless it would be a catch up type of situation where it just got away from the person in the past couple 3-4 weeks, maybe?...

We did give our son an allowance; he was expected to save some of it, but he could do as he wanted with the rest. He did a lot around the house. I worked a seven-day swing shift, so he and his dad knew that if they wanted dinner they had to make it. I taught him to cook and bake from the time he was really young and then he could take it from there. Sometimes he would do laundry, clean litter boxes, vacuum, etc. Not when he was really young, but as he got older, he needed to help around the house. There were nights when he would make dinner when I was working.

But things like school clothes and school items were purchased by us. His allowance was for CDs, games, and the like.

Do you think she'd be willing to help you wash your car? How about cleaning the litter boxes? She's not too young to work in the gardens as long as she knows what weeds look like. Water the veggies? What about having her vacuum/dust the house, not just her own room?

What kind of thing does she like doing?

My parents made all of us do a lot of chores too. My favourites were putting away groceries (Even aged 8 I had to have all the cans and packets lined up and facing the same way) folding and putting away towels and bed linen and dusting ornaments.

I kind of wish I'd asked my dad if I could hep him fix things, the way my brother did. I think having more mechanical skills would be really useful now.

She can weed the gardens. She is usually very helpful so shes done a little of everything by now. She loves to cook. She makes me nervous with the vacuum because shes just shoving that around like shes going to bang into the furniture. Like please don't dent/break/scuff that! She might do well washing the kitchen cabinets. I hadn't thought of that and it needs to be done. She'll need a step-ladder for the tops but that's easy enough.

She made the mistake of asking DH for $1 per weed last night when he was weeding crab grass from the rock-scapping out front last night. Um it doesn't work like that kid! Hes not so sold on this work-to-earn money. I think it's a good teaching tool. She's not going to get enough money overnight.

I wish she could do something for a neighbor. Unfortunately we don't have any right now. DH does the yard work for the elderly lady on one side; but there isn't much to do beyond mowing and a bit of weed-eating. I'm not ready to let her go on the lawn mower yet. The house is literally falling down too. So I don't really want her over there anymore. The kids used to pick up pine cones from the trees between our houses. We're down to 1 tree so there hasn't been much to do in that department either.

Dusting? Scooping the litter box? Putting away groceries?

I used to have a list of my own chores that I'd pay the kids to do, but they never took me up on it so I took it down. Other ideas: washing walls, windows, mirrors, cabinets, doors, sweeping the porch, wiping down the bathroom sink/cabinet, helping to clean out the refrigerator or pantry, helping to hang laundry on the clothesline & take it down, folding laundry...