My Little Entrepreneurs

It appears this summer may have a bit of a theme. My children seem to be obsessed with ways that they can earn money. Within the first week, my children had come up with a handful of  money making plans.

Plan #1: Kailani wanted to make flyers to take around advertising her babysitting business. I told her that she might still be a little young for that, but that she could babysit for me anytime.

Plan #2: The next day, Kailani, Kyle, and Karen went door to door at the dorms offering to take out garbage for the girls living there. They charged 50 cents. In 2 hours they made $1.66 each. It was hard work, but they enjoyed it.

Plan#3: In an attempt to deter the kids from being "garbage collectors" again, Ryan and I offered to let the children pick up the pine cones off the lawn in the backyard. When Ryan mows the lawn, the pine cones make him a little crazy. We told them we would pay a penny per pine cone. Karen jumped on the deal immediately. Within a half an hour she had picked up 500 pine cones (and hadn't even made a dent in the number still laying on the grass). Once the others saw how easy it was for her, they started picking up pine cones too. Ryan and I started to sweat a bit when we realized how costly this was becoming, so we had to revise our deal a bit, and add a $10 cap and an "only once a week" stipulation.  In the end, there were around 3,000 pine cones removed from the lawn.

Plan #4: On the 4th day of Summer, the children were begging to set up a lemonade stand. I told them that would be fine if they paid for all the supplies. We went to Walmart, and bought a poster, some lemonade, sodas, cups, and ice. It ended up costing around $4 each child. The children washed the wagon, and hauled their supplies to the corner (after calling and asking the owner for permission). Within seconds of setting up, they had a couple customers. After an hour, they had to run home to restock, and within 2 hours, they had sold out all of their supplies, and made nearly $40! I couldn't believe it. I am pretty sure this was their favorite (and easiest) business of all.

I can't wait to see what else these brilliant little minds come up with!