Chores Incentive Program.

This is an interesting program. You register with the site, create/choose tasks for your children, designate a point system, and create awards goals. You and your children can log in to monitor progress and "claim" the rewards. (More in full post.)

I admit, I was quite skeptical when I stumbled across HANDIPOINTS, if for no other reason than it looks too slick to be free. Heh. But I have registered with it so that I could really check it out and I went over every point of the Terms of Service. As far as I can tell, the biggest "catch" is that as long as you use the service you cannot opt out of their mailing list and you will receive advertisements because of it.

I was also wary of the awards system. I certainly didn't want to get into some sort of situation where I'm promising my kids I'll be them a Nintendo Wii! However, when I clicked on the "most popular rewards" section, many of them turned out to be things like "1 hour of computer time" or "play a board game" type rewards. In addition, you don't have to use a listed reward - you can create your own.

My hiccup with this system is this: Obviously, this program was created with the intent to get you to purchase things. It asks that you "support" the site by purchasing your rewards through their "featured merchants". Now, this is NOT a requirement whatsoever; the service is offered for free, but it remains a personal decision on whether or not using the site without ever buying anything would be completely ethical or not.

I will give the system a try for a few weeks and let you know what I think of it.

Just one other note - the site has a referral system; however, as I am only posting this info FYI and not trying to actively promote it, I am not "referring" you with that above link. It simply directs you to the main page.