So, we watched the second Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie over the weekend and found it even better than the first one. Side-splittingly funny, especially given the plot of brothers - Doug and Rodrick's constant fighting - and Fish/St. Nick's similar inability to get along. The movie got to the part where Mom starts bribing the boys with fake money to spend time together, and Fish/St. Nick got excited. 

"Mom Bucks! Can we do Mom Bucks?"

Huh, why not? Up until now we've been having Marble Races. Each kid has a jar, they do chores and put marbles in the jar. Whoever fills their jar first gets to pick where we go for dinner on Friday night, and the race starts over. Now picking a spot to eat ended up being not enough of a carrot, so we decided each marble would be worth ten cents. The jars took about 100 marbles to fill all the way, so that's $10. With the change, when the race "ended" each child got paid according to their marbles (and the one with the most still got to pick a restaurant).

But St. Nick always seemed ahead - maybe because mowing the lawn earned him, oh, eighty marbles. And Fish/Pie would lose steam with the slow, "one drop in the bucket" filling of their jars.

The solution? Mom Bucks! Stolen blatantly from Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. The boys wanted me to use Monopoly money. Likely so they could sneak more bills out of the game box when I wasn't looking (or buy up old Monopoly games like Rodrick did to have Unlimited Mom Bucks). Hahah. I'm so much smarter than some fictional mom. I designed my own Mom Bucks.

Fun, huh?

Now the kiddos can earn "money" for the work they do around the house. And I get a good excuse to spend a day playing with PhotoShop.

I also bought some mark-down toys and trinkets to set up a Mom Buck store. They can spend their cash at the Mom Shop, or they can trade it in for real dollars. The catch? Each Mom Buck is worth *half* in cash (so 10 Mom Bucks equals 5 dollars). A little lighter on the Mom Wallet.