Our eldest is motivated to make money. Or, I guess I should say, he's motivated to spend money. We don't buy many extra toys, outside birthdays and Christmas, for the kids these days (I'm overwhelmed by them), but we do allow him to buy them with his own money if he chooses. In time the younger ones will get there. It was once Paw Patrol vehicles. Then Hot Wheels. Lately it's been Hot Wheels branded mini skateboards and accessories, and, amusingly all the rage again, Pokemon cards.
He seems to always have cash in his wallet, much from birthdays or whatever, but we've also taught him to ask for jobs. We can use the help, he's willing and we're not just going to give him money to buy more junk. Over time he's cleaned the glass doors, wiped down baseboards, attempted to clean the fence outside (stained by sprinklers), stuffed Christmas cards, and done other odd jobs we could think up that he could help with. But those jobs can run dry and he kept asking for more, the ad hoc methodology wasn't working. We needed a change.
I wasn't fully ready to get started with an allowance, but that's me being often off-put by not having all the details figured out in advance. Of course once I got going it wasn't that bad, or hard. I did need to take charge as I would be the one managing it most of the time. My wife had, thankfully, already put together a spreadsheet outline and brainstormed chores that regularly need doing. I took these and added a couple tasks, then assigned 'points' to them based on how frequently they could be done. The idea was he needs to reach so many points in a week to earn his allowance, or forfeit it.
Then I moved an old whiteboard that had fallen into disuse and set up a system to track this, not being a big proponent of printing this on a sheet of paper each week. Some wet erase markers (I bought these) were used to make a sharp enough looking grid that, mostly, won't erase when I reset it. There's two parts, daily tasks and weekly tasks. All the daily tasks (taking out the trash, emptying the dishwasher, sweeping/vacuuming after meals) are worth one point (or 'X') a piece. They can't actually all be done by him every day but it's close. Many of the weekly tasks are more labor intensive but these (cleaning his room, doing his own laundry, vacuuming upstairs) can earn him up to two X's each. I made a best guess as to what an appropriate number would be and started with 12. So far that's seemed to be a solid expectation and we haven't shifted it as yet.
A few comments. He doesn't do everything exactly how I would. I move items around in the kitchen after he's put things away (he also needs help putting things into the taller cabinets). I need to not watch as he puts away his clothes. Cleaning his room is a to my satisfaction thing. I already started bargaining with him a little on what qualifies for certain tasks, and adding a 'parents discretionary' line was helpful in fudging it a bit if we need to. We want him to get there, continuing to want to do this etc., without clearly bending the rules.
So far we're a little over a month in and it's going quite well. He isn't always looking to do his tasks and it's kinda our (the parents) responsibility to ask him if he wants to. I find myself intentionally leaving the dishes or trash for him, which is a battle within myself. He's successfully earned the allowance ($5/week at this point) four of five weeks. The one he didn't he wanted a break and that was fine with us. Much of the time there's been a bit of a scramble to get to 12 on the weekends (we're doing the weeks as M-Su), but that's also what our life is like right now as a whole.
We also needed to figure out how often to pay him, and how else that money would be earmarked. When I was a kid I remember my mom pulling out envelopes to pay us for doing certain things and we had a fairly complicated breakdown, with spending money, short term and long term savings, a tithe for church and perhaps a couple more. I was also older than six. For now we're paying him each time he earns an allowance twice, so $10, and then he owes $1 to church. Eventually we'll probably break it up more.
I'm glad we got started. He's earning money, which he's happy with, and we can outsource certain things, even if we want to keep one eye out and he requires some help too. Much of the time he acts a little begrudging when asked if he wants to do (such and such), but he just about always does it. The money is a motivator.
What's interesting to think about, as well, is that all this is flexible. As time goes forward we can alter the number of points needed. We can alter the tasks. We can pay him more, if that makes sense, and make him put some amount in the bank. But we've built a system to ensure that he earns it. And this'll get really interesting if/when we have multiple wannabe workers.
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