100 Chores to Do Around the House for Money – A Comprehensive Guide

Introduction to Earning Money Through Chores

Teaching children the value of money and hard work begins right at home through paid chores—an effective approach that maintains household cleanliness while offering young people invaluable lessons in responsibility and financial independence.

This approach works because children complete specific tasks around the house and receive monetary compensation for their efforts. It’s a win-win arrangement: parents receive genuine assistance with household maintenance, while children learn responsibility, cultivate a solid work ethic, and develop crucial financial literacy skills.

Examples of monetizable chores around the house include:

• Cleaning and vacuuming the family car

• Reorganizing storage spaces or cleaning a chicken house

• Raking the yard

• Scrubbing baseboards and cleaning inside windows

• Matching socks and organizing DVDs

• Cleaning the fish tank

• Scrubbing kitchen appliances

• Removing expired pantry items and organizing shelves

• Packing out-of-season clothes

By implementing a paid chore system, parents create a structured environment where children discover that money flows from effort and diligence—a fundamental lesson that will serve them well throughout their lives. This comprehensive guide explores numerous money-earning chores organized by age appropriateness and room-by-room categories.

Chores for Children Aged 7-12

Children between ages 7 and 12 are at an ideal stage for embracing regular household responsibilities. Their coordination has sharpened, their understanding deepened, yet they retain that wonderful eagerness to please and contribute meaningfully to family life.

Introducing paid chores at this pivotal age accomplishes far more than simply filling piggy banks:

• Responsibility: Children learn that certain duties are expected of them.

• Independence: They develop confidence by completing work without constant supervision.

• Time Management: They learn to balance chores with homework and play.

• Life Skills: They acquire basic cleaning, organizing, and home maintenance skills.

When assigning chores to this age group, consider their physical capabilities and attention spans carefully. Tasks should be completely clear with specific expectations and completable within reasonable timeframes. Begin with simpler chores, then gradually introduce complexity—this builds both confidence and competence.

The following sections outline age-appropriate chores for 7-12 year olds, organized by different house areas. These tasks typically earn children anywhere from $0.50 to $3, depending on complexity and time investment.

Kitchen Chores

The kitchen presents a wealth of earning opportunities for children aged 7-12 while teaching invaluable life skills. These tasks teach food safety principles, organizational strategies, and the critical importance of cleanliness in food preparation spaces.

Common kitchen chores for this age group include:

• Mealtime: Setting and clearing the table.

• Cleaning: Emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, wiping countertops, scrubbing the sink, and wiping down the exterior of appliances.

• Organization: Vacuuming cutlery drawers, helping put away groceries, checking for expired condiments, and organizing refrigerator magnets.

• Food Prep: Filling ice trays and water pitchers, or helping with simple food preparation.

Each kitchen chore can carry a monetary value reflecting its complexity and time demands, offering children genuine earning opportunities while they contribute meaningfully to household operations.

Bathroom Chores

Bathroom chores offer excellent earning potential for children aged 7-12 while instilling crucial lessons about hygiene and cleanliness. These tasks are valuable because they show how regular maintenance prevents spaces from becoming unsanitary quickly.

Age-appropriate bathroom chores can be divided by complexity:

• Simpler Tasks: Wiping mirrors, emptying trash cans, replacing toilet paper rolls, and refilling hand soap dispensers.

• More Involved Tasks: Scrubbing the sink and counter, washing bathroom rugs (with supervision), and organizing toiletries. For older children, scrubbing the shower, bathtub, and toilet can be assigned with proper instruction on using cleaning products safely.

Assign specific monetary values to each bathroom chore based on difficulty and time requirements. More challenging tasks like toilet cleaning might earn $2-3, while simpler jobs like mirror cleaning could bring in $0.50-1.00.

Living Room Chores

The living room—where families spend most of their time together—presents numerous money-making opportunities for children aged 7-12. These tasks maintain this high-traffic area’s appearance and comfort while teaching essential home care and organizational skills.

• Vacuuming: Clean under couch cushions and on furniture surfaces to remove crumbs, dust, and pet hair.

• Organizing: Arrange DVDs, video games, board games, magazines, and books. Neatly store remote controls and gaming equipment.

• Dusting: Dust shelves, picture frames, side tables, and other decorative items.

• General Tidying: Fold throw blankets, arrange pillows, sweep hard floors, and clean the lower portions of sliding glass doors.
  Tasks typically reward children with $0.50 to $2.00, based on complexity and effort invested.

Bedroom Chores

Bedroom chores work especially well for children aged 7-12 because they cultivate personal responsibility and demonstrate the importance of maintaining one’s own space. These tasks develop organizational skills and establish healthy habits that benefit them throughout life.

• Daily Habit: Making the bed each morning.

• Clothing Care: Sorting, folding, and putting away their own laundry. A higher-paying periodic task can be rotating seasonal clothing.

• Deep Cleaning: Cleaning under the bed, dusting furniture, vacuuming the floor, cleaning mirrors, and changing bedsheets weekly.

• Organization: Tidying toys, books, and personal items on shelves or in storage containers.

Assigning monetary values to bedroom tasks motivates children to maintain their personal spaces while discovering that cleanliness and organization represent skills worth developing—and rewarding.

Pet Chores

Pet care chores provide children aged 7-12 with exceptional earning opportunities while building empathy, responsibility, and understanding of animal needs. These tasks teach a profound lesson: living creatures depend on consistent, quality care. They also foster lifelong appreciation for animals.

• Feeding: Providing fresh food and water to pets on a regular schedule.

• Cleaning: Scooping cat litter boxes, picking up dog waste from the yard, cleaning fish tanks (with supervision), or cleaning bird cages.

• Grooming: Brushing pets to maintain their coat health and giving supervised baths.

• Other Tasks: Gathering eggs from chickens, washing pet beds, and cleaning pet toys.

Pet care chores teach children that earning money often involves embracing responsibilities requiring consistent attention and care. The skills developed—reliability, compassion, attention to detail—apply well to countless other life areas and future employment opportunities.

Chores for Teens Aged 13-18

As children transition into their teenage years, they develop enhanced physical capabilities, sharper cognitive skills, and greater independence. This growth allows them to tackle more complex household responsibilities that better prepare them for adult life while offering opportunities to earn more substantial money.

Teenagers can handle tasks demanding greater judgment, physical strength, and technical skills. These advanced chores typically earn more money—lawn mowing might earn $5-$10 per session, while deep bathroom cleaning could bring in $3-$5. This increased earning potential acknowledges the greater skill and effort involved while motivating teens to embrace more demanding responsibilities.

These advanced chores offer teens benefits extending far beyond immediate financial gain:

• Build Life Skills: They learn practical skills like cooking, deep cleaning, and home maintenance needed for independent living.

• Develop Financial Literacy: Earning larger sums creates opportunities to learn about saving, budgeting, and financial planning.

The system can also introduce professional elements similar to real jobs: negotiating rates for specific tasks, establishing clear performance expectations, and creating formal agreements about work quality and deadlines.

In the following sections, we’ll explore specific chores perfect for teenagers, emphasizing complex kitchen tasks and whole-house responsibilities that leverage their increased capabilities and growing maturity.

Advanced Kitchen Chores

Teenagers aged 13-18 can handle much more complex kitchen responsibilities that generate income while preparing them for independent living. These advanced kitchen chores develop cooking skills, food safety knowledge, and organizational abilities serving them throughout adulthood.

• Cooking and Baking: Planning and preparing family meals or completing baking projects.

• Meal Planning: Researching recipes, creating grocery lists within a budget, and doing the shopping.

• Deep Cleaning: Cleaning the oven, defrosting the refrigerator, descaling the coffee maker, and deep cleaning the microwave.

• Organization: Reorganizing the pantry, sorting kitchen tools, and creating an organized spice collection.

• Inventory Management: Tracking pantry staples and monitoring expiration dates to reduce waste and create shopping lists.

These advanced kitchen chores provide teens with substantial earning opportunities while equipping them with practical skills they’ll use throughout their lives. Many parents discover that investing in paying teens for these tasks provides great benefits in life skill development and household assistance.

Full House Chores

Teenagers aged 13-18 can tackle whole-house responsibilities requiring greater maturity, physical capability, and meticulous attention to detail. These comprehensive chores often command higher pay rates while teaching invaluable skills about home maintenance and management.

• Deep Cleaning: Washing windows, deep cleaning carpets, scrubbing grout, and cleaning ceiling fans and light fixtures.

• Home Maintenance: Changing air filters, cleaning gutters (with safety precautions), power washing decks, and basic painting projects.

• Large-Scale Organization: Tackling the garage, attic, closets, or basement.

• Technology Management: Charging family devices, organizing digital photos, setting up new electronics, or troubleshooting tech issues.

• Laundry Management: Handling all stages of family laundry, from sorting and washing to folding and putting away.

These full-house responsibilities help teens develop comprehensive understanding of home management while earning more substantial money. The skills learned—from time management to attention to detail—transfer directly to independent living and future employment success.

Creating a Chore System

Establishing an effective chore system is important for successfully implementing paid household tasks. A well-designed system creates clarity, ensures fairness, and helps children and teens understand expectations while providing appropriate compensation for their efforts.

Begin by creating a comprehensive chore checklist tailored to each age group in your household. For younger children (7-12), emphasize simpler tasks with very clear completion criteria. For teenagers (13-18), include more complex responsibilities reflecting their enhanced capabilities. This age-appropriate approach ensures children feel challenged without becoming overwhelmed by their assigned tasks.

Developing a fair pay scale is important for motivating participation while teaching the vital relationship between effort and compensation. Consider multiple factors: task complexity, time requirements, physical effort, and importance when establishing rates. Simple tasks like bed-making might earn $0.50-$1.00, while more demanding chores like lawn mowing could command $5-$10. Your household budget will naturally influence these rates, but even modest amounts can prove meaningful to children learning about earning money.

Chore tracking apps or charts help keep everything organized. Options include:

• Digital Tools: Apps like Chore monster, Rooster Money, or Busy Kid for easy tracking and calculation of earnings.

• Traditional Methods: Magnetic chore charts or simple checklists for tangible tracking.

Consider implementing a tiered system that includes:

1. Basic Responsibilities: Unpaid tasks all family members handle, like picking up their own items.

2. Standard Chores: Tasks with fixed rates, such as weekly bedroom cleaning or daily pet care.

3. Bonus Projects: Special opportunities that earn premium rates, like seasonal deep cleaning or major organizing projects.

This approach helps children understand that some contributions are expected as part of family membership, while others represent opportunities to earn money through additional effort.

Regular system reviews and adjustments keep your chore system relevant as children grow and develop new capabilities. Schedule quarterly check-ins to assess whether chore assignments and payment rates remain appropriate, making necessary adjustments to maintain motivation and fairness.

By creating a structured, transparent chore system with appropriate financial incentives, you’ll help your children develop responsibility, work ethic, and financial literacy—invaluable skills benefiting them throughout life.

Final Thoughts on Chores and Earning Money

Implementing a paid chore system delivers benefits extending far beyond maintaining a clean, organized home. This approach creates a powerful framework for teaching children and teenagers essential life skills while providing firsthand experience in earning and managing money.

Through completing paid tasks, young people develop strong work ethics, discovering that effort directly correlates with financial reward. The satisfaction of earning their own money builds real confidence and demonstrates their capacity for meaningful contributions.

Financial literacy develops naturally as children earn regular income through chores. Parents can leverage this opportunity to introduce key money management concepts: saving, budgeting, and wise spending. When children earn their own money, these lessons become concrete rather than theoretical, creating deeper understanding and lasting habits.

The chore system’s structure also teaches valuable life skills beyond the specific tasks themselves. Children master time management as they balance chore responsibilities with schoolwork and other activities. They develop organizational abilities, attention to detail, and problem-solving skills transferring to countless other life areas.

For parents, the chore system offers a structured pathway for gradually transferring household responsibilities to children, preparing them for independent living. By the time teenagers leave home, they should have mastered basic household maintenance, cleaning techniques, and organizational systems—practical skills many young adults otherwise lack.

While money provides immediate motivation, the long-term benefits prove profound. Children gain practical skills, financial literacy, and a sense of capability fostering confidence and independence—invaluable preparation for successful adulthood.