Being a stay-at-home, I spend about 70% of my day with the children.  In that time I might clean the house one time and re-clean the same areas about four times.  No matter how much I told the children to clean up behind themselves, they still managed to conveniently forget to put their dishes in the dishwasher or pick up their toys.  So I had a brilliant idea.  My oldest children age 5 and 11 always have money.  They save all of their allowance, birthday and report card money.  They also hate to spend their own money. 

I made it a household rule for everyone except dad to pay a fine when they do not pick up behind themselves or do what their suppose to do.  I bought a ceramic jar that says " Shoe Fund" on it to keep the fine money in.  The first time they forget something they get a warning.  The next time they have to pay a ten cent fine, if they still don't clean it up the fine increases to twenty-five cents and I add a quarter each additional time.  I made about three dollars the first two days that this rule was enforced.  I don't think they took me seriously!  I even had them providing change for one another to pay their fines.  What this did was made them realize that they have to be held accountable for what they do or don't do. They are learning the value of money.  

Eventually, they understood that my time is very valuable!  Balancing the resposibilities of cooking, cleaning, homework, extra curriculum activities a one year old and my biggest fifth child, my husband, is a double full-time job and now with the spare time I have from being free from cleaning multiple times a day I can take my shoe fund money and go shopping!