daydreamer89
Well-known Member
Cavy Slave
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2015
- Posts
- 248
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2015
- Messages
- 248
(couldnt think of anywhere else to put this sorry if its in the wrong place)
Thought I'd share this, after seeing a post on how to convince a parent to let you get guinea pigs.
How about one for parents! did you get guinea pigs for your kid/s? what did they have to do to get them? and why?
Im fairly proud of what we did for our daughter (who turns 7 this week) so I thought I would share in case it would help any parents are looking for ways to let the kids show they are responsible enough for a guinea pig. (obviously we all know at the end of the day the responsibility is on us to care for the guinea pigs)
after my husband and I talked about it we decided the best way she could show us that she is responsible and will not get bored of the guinea pigs was to have her earn the money she needs to buy everything the guinea pigs would need all by herself. (knowing that this would take her months to do) if she could do hard chores (not just cleaning her room) and make that money, put it in a jar, and not use it for impulse buys that would show us that this is something she really wants and it will no longer be a "oh my god soo cute i want one" (which is how a lot of people end up with small pets)
what we did was start off with a amazon list of what we needed I involved savanna with this process (so it might be a bit more expensive because she went for cute things), we realized the total cost for us would be about $200.00 USD. we then found this awesome forum (which made me fall in love with guinea pigs in a huge way) so things were taken out of our list and things were added. we are now at $135.00 with the rest of the money to be spent on a awesome C&C cage.
my husband and I went over how much she should make per 'job' around the house (she has now fallen in love with scrubbing the fridge out so thats a bonus lol!) we have made it so that she can earn up to $52.00 a month. which will get her the guinea pigs in 4 months. this doesn't include money from birthdays or christmas, it also does not include the items from her list we have decided might end up under the christmas tree or as a present for her birthday. so it might only be 2 or 3 months before she gets them.
as of next week she will have 2 toys for the guinea pigs and a radish food dish from her list (about $10.00 of items) we did this to show that we support her and want her to succeed.
at the end of the month we will be going to home depot to buy the stuff for a c&c cage and build it. (keep in mind this is for a 7 year old so we are helping keep her on track with a older kid a lot of the things we have done to help her out wont be needed) she is also aware that once she does get the guinea pigs she will still need to do extra "hard" jobs around the house to earn money to at least pay 1/2 of the food/hay/toys/etc. that will be needed monthly and will also have to put 5 dollars a week away to save for any vet bills.
some of this might sound extreme for a 7 year old but at the end of the day if I am able to use things that happen in our home as a teaching tool for responsibility or money management I will.
Here are her lists and helping aids that are on our hallway. (excuse the dirty wall we had a older chore chart there and I stupidly thought oh what a great idea to hand a black crayon/pen here.. to mark the chart) and her guinea pig fund jar.
I'll keep this updated as we go into the next few months. and when we build the c&c cage etc.
What do you guys think? did you do anything similar? anything different?
Thought I'd share this, after seeing a post on how to convince a parent to let you get guinea pigs.
How about one for parents! did you get guinea pigs for your kid/s? what did they have to do to get them? and why?
Im fairly proud of what we did for our daughter (who turns 7 this week) so I thought I would share in case it would help any parents are looking for ways to let the kids show they are responsible enough for a guinea pig. (obviously we all know at the end of the day the responsibility is on us to care for the guinea pigs)
after my husband and I talked about it we decided the best way she could show us that she is responsible and will not get bored of the guinea pigs was to have her earn the money she needs to buy everything the guinea pigs would need all by herself. (knowing that this would take her months to do) if she could do hard chores (not just cleaning her room) and make that money, put it in a jar, and not use it for impulse buys that would show us that this is something she really wants and it will no longer be a "oh my god soo cute i want one" (which is how a lot of people end up with small pets)
what we did was start off with a amazon list of what we needed I involved savanna with this process (so it might be a bit more expensive because she went for cute things), we realized the total cost for us would be about $200.00 USD. we then found this awesome forum (which made me fall in love with guinea pigs in a huge way) so things were taken out of our list and things were added. we are now at $135.00 with the rest of the money to be spent on a awesome C&C cage.
my husband and I went over how much she should make per 'job' around the house (she has now fallen in love with scrubbing the fridge out so thats a bonus lol!) we have made it so that she can earn up to $52.00 a month. which will get her the guinea pigs in 4 months. this doesn't include money from birthdays or christmas, it also does not include the items from her list we have decided might end up under the christmas tree or as a present for her birthday. so it might only be 2 or 3 months before she gets them.
as of next week she will have 2 toys for the guinea pigs and a radish food dish from her list (about $10.00 of items) we did this to show that we support her and want her to succeed.
at the end of the month we will be going to home depot to buy the stuff for a c&c cage and build it. (keep in mind this is for a 7 year old so we are helping keep her on track with a older kid a lot of the things we have done to help her out wont be needed) she is also aware that once she does get the guinea pigs she will still need to do extra "hard" jobs around the house to earn money to at least pay 1/2 of the food/hay/toys/etc. that will be needed monthly and will also have to put 5 dollars a week away to save for any vet bills.
some of this might sound extreme for a 7 year old but at the end of the day if I am able to use things that happen in our home as a teaching tool for responsibility or money management I will.
Here are her lists and helping aids that are on our hallway. (excuse the dirty wall we had a older chore chart there and I stupidly thought oh what a great idea to hand a black crayon/pen here.. to mark the chart) and her guinea pig fund jar.
I'll keep this updated as we go into the next few months. and when we build the c&c cage etc.
What do you guys think? did you do anything similar? anything different?