What would you do for a quarter?

We go back and forth about allowance and chores and should we pay the kids.  There are pros and cons to all of it.  Some very dear family member was paying our children to try new food.  Well our kids are pretty smart and Grant came in announced one morning that he had paid his sister to not tell what he had just done.  Wait, did I say they were smart? Well maybe manipulative is more accurate.  There is such a fine line between paying for a service (which is the way the real world does work) and doing things simply because you were asked and because you are part of this family.  Enter the genius mind of a mother.  I ask them to do a chore and they don't know until the job is done if they will get paid or not.  Brilliant, right?  Also allows for quality assurance at the same time, because let's be honest there is more than one way to pick up your bedroom.  The typical chore is unloading the dishwasher and they know the routine and are really good at it.  They are saving up their quarters for the ice cream truck this summer.  This week the maple seedlings are really bad so I had them pulling weeds and they had to collect them in a bag so I could count how many they pulled.  And because I am really serious about my weed pulling if there wasn't a root it didn't count.  I mean really, is there any thing worse than just pulling leaves?!  We will see what happens when the ice cream truck makes it first round :)