Brush and Earn Jar

I made a brush and earn jar to keep my family’s Colgate Healthy Smile routine on track over summer vacation!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Collective Bias and their client. All opinions are 100% my own.

With summer vacation starting in a few days, all schedules will be out the door! While we are excited to that to happen, one of the things about having a regular schedule is that things like oral care are worked into that schedule. During the summer, everyone is getting up at different times, kids are having sleepovers and there isn’t a regular bedtime any more. So, I wanted to come up with a way to keep up with a good oral care routine, especially for Vanessa and Zack, during the summer. As I thought about different ways to go about it, one of the things I know is that my kids work better when there is a reward that they are working toward. More specifically , they like to have monetary rewards. With that in mind, I came up with a Brush and Earn jar! I will talk more about it below but first I want to share how my family will put their best smile forward this summer with the Colgate Total Mouthwash.

To get started, I went shopping at Target for an entire Colgate Total Care Routine. We have been a Colgate family for years so I just had to replenish our supply. Each person in our family has there own toothbrush (obviously), toothpaste and now they have their own mouthwash. There are many reasons for this but the biggest one is that I want to minimize the change that sickness is spread around. We’ve had strep throat in our house a couple of times recently and sharing oral care products is a huge way to spread it around. Plus, the oral care products need to be thrown away each time you get strep. This way we only have to throw away the items of the person who got sick. Brian just picked up a two pack of Colgate toothpaste so the two of us already have ours. I picked up a new tube for Christine, Vanessa and Zack. I bought four Colgate Total toothbrushes.  Vanessa has braces and gets special toothbrushes from her orthodontist so I didn’t buy a new one for her.

I am excited for all of us to try the new Colgate Total Advanced Pro-Shield mouthwash! The bottle says that it offers 12 hour protection against germs, kills 99% of germs, significantly reduces plaque, helps prevent gingivitis, no burn of alcohol and freshens breath. It also says that it protects even after eating and drinking! That is really neat because we will brush and use mouthwash in the morning and before bed but we will be eating and drinking all day. This Colgate Total mouthwash will help protect us all day long!

Vanessa and Zack’s Colgate products go into a drawer in their bathroom. Their toothpaste and toothbrushes are in plastic containers so that they are separated. I put the Colgate mouthwash right next to their toothpaste and toothbrushes so that they remember to use them. We use floss picks for flossing…except for Vanessa who, once again, gets special floss from her orthodontist.

So, back to the Brush and Earn jar. We don’t buy our kids everything they want…GASP…but instead, we let them earn money so that they can spend it on the things they want. We started this when they were little. They used to get a small allowance and when we went to the store, they could spend their $3.00 if they wanted to. They learned really quickly that $3.00 wouldn’t get them very much. If they wanted to buy a big Lego set, they had to save for a long time to be able to afford it. It also helped them to value the items they did purchase and the things they got as gifts. Anyway, that doesn’t have anything to do with oral care except that my kids are motivated to earn money so that they can buy what they want. Zack is into spending his money on books, which is awesome! Bring him to a bookstore or a library and he is happy! So, each morning and evening that they brush and rinse, they can get a quarter for a total of $3.50 per week. This won’t go on forever but we will continue it long enough for the good habits to stick.

Some people question paying kids for things they need to do anyway. My mom used to pay us each time we went to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned and we didn’t have cavities! She would say that she would rather pay us than the dentist.

Zack helped me make this Brush and Earn printable above. You can download the free printable here: Brush and Earn Quarter Jar Printable

I cut out the printable and attached it to a jar. It is actually a spice jar. I spray painted the lid and filled the jar with quarters. So, when school starts again next fall hopefully everyone can make a good first impression because they will have a beautiful, healthy smile!