So Much Candy

The past few years I've had a system with dealing with all the Halloween candy.

This year has been a little different.

For a few days I let them have at it.

They made daily trades and even made a vending machine from a cardboard box.

"Three for one deal!"

"I'll give you this Almond Joy for your sour worms."

And I almost just let them keep going because they were so nice to each other.

"You can just have this one."

"That's ok, I'll just let you have that because you like it."

"Did you see what she gave me for FREE!?!"

But I decided to put an end to it because they were eating lots of candy, wrappers would be found here and there, and Paige was often a recipient of charity which caused me sticky everything issues.

This year I tried something new to see how it worked out.

I collected all the candy (which they knew would happen at some point so they were OK with it.)

Separated them into groups of least exciting to most exciting.

Then I gave them a dollar to use to spend on candy.

There were six groups:

5 cents

10 cents

15 cents

20 cents

25 cents

and a dollar for the big candy bars

They could also take whatever money they didn't spend and keep it.

They went shopping.

Leila and Eden bought some treats and kept a quarter for themselves.

Molly's method was quantity over quality and banked on all the 5 cent candies, including the few bigger (but less sugary) 5 cent items like pretzels and the granola bar.

I did this yesterday.

Today I gave them 50 cents and said if they were really good about doing their chores (because the house was in need) I'd give them a dollar on top of that.

It has worked out well so far.

Not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow.

School has been struggling...so I think I'm going to let them choose any candy (except the big candy) for every subject they complete in school. If they want to do extra school for more, I'm ok with that.