Raising Cash Smart Kids

They are everywhere!

It seems that everywhere I go, I am finding great stories about young entrepreneurs and the many ways for kids to make money. Kids earn money by finding lost golf balls, uploading photos for technically-challenged older folk, breeding pet rats, and, of course, the old classics are evergreen – babysitting, lawnmowing, car washing, and household chores.

Just the other day I came across a comment on the Connect With Kids blog, which really warmed my heart. Krisi Repp, who has obviously done a great job of parenting her three youngsters, talked about her son.

Our 11 yr old is a boy and this is his 2nd summer to own his own lawn care biz. Last summer he made about $700.00 while the majority of his friends played video games, etc. He bought a cheap rider, pusher, blower & trimmer to get started w some left over Christmas money & money from his dirt bike he sold. This summer, w his approx $500. left in the bank, he decided to purchase a brand new rider on clearance. His Dad & I financed it for him w the understanding that he would be expected to pay it off in full before the end of this summer. 2 weeks ago, he brought $1,200.00 CASH to make his 1st pymt, leaving less than a $150.00 balance. I know he feels very proud of himself & rightfully so! He has vision of purchasing a nice car when he turns 16 & I’m sure he will be able to.

I love hearing these stories, because we are talking about ordinary kids, living in ordinary neighbourhoods, with no lucky talent or physical prowess to set them apart from other kids. These kids achieve their results through good old-fashioned hard work and enterprise.

How many lawns do you think this youngster mowed to raise $1,200?

But what a sense of satisfaction!

I remember when our girls made the final payment to repay the start-up capital for their business – the sense of achievement was incredible. I think they were happier that day than when they actually started withdrawing the profits and spending them.

We don’t help our kids when we give them everything they want – we deprive them of the satisfaction of earning it for themselves, and the confidence that comes with knowing they can negotiate with the world on their own terms.

In fact, by depriving them of the learning experiences that come with taking real responsibility, we actually cripple them for dealing with the harsh, unyielding reality that is “the real world”.

Krisi’s son has been living in the real world for years already – it will hold no terrors for him later in life.

Are your kids so well prepared for adult life?

Dominic McVey started importing motorised scooters to the UK at the age of 13, earning an estimated fifteen million pounds by the time he was fifteen.

Donny Ouyang, of British Columbia, Canada, built several successful internet businesses before turning sixteen. His ventures, which include kinkarso.com, christianavenue.org, battleforums.com, and live.tv.ws,…

Shropshire teenager Louis Barnett, like many successful people, struggled at school. At the age of 11 he was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia in combination with a high IQ, and withdrawn from the…

Young entrepreneur and teen millionaire Cameron Johnson was born to sell. From his first venture selling vegetables door to door, to a series of dotcom successes before he graduated high school, Cameron has shown a sharp business mind and a strong work ethic.

OK, so not every kid does better than every adult. But Ashley Qualls and her $70,000 per month is not to be sneezed at. Even young Carl Ocab, at $800-$1000 per month is doing better than 80% of the adult online marketers. When it comes to making money online, the average kid is more motivated than the average adult, for one simple reason. Adults have an easier alternative for making income.

Every routine shopping trip is a rich field of educational opportunity! Your kids will already be familiar with the concept of a retail store. It’s easy to expand their awareness with a few well-timed comments and questions, and have them start to appreciate the business model underlying retailing.

I was surfing about the net, as you do, and I came across this blog post Teach Our Children Well by Gail Vaz-Oxlade.

Gail talks about the generally poor level of financial education in schools (well, we’re all worried about that), but she gives some really great examples of individual class teachers who are doing some good work in teaching kids about money.

Maybe if we explained the reality of money to kids early enough, we’d have fewer kids dropping out of school. I mean, if you knew that if you settled for making $10 a hour you would have to work 70, 80 or 90 hours a week just to keep a roof over your family’s head and food on the table, maybe then you’d be less willing to blow school off.

My son’s Grade 6 class is learning about money. Ms. Moran has set up a town, Fletchville, in which the kids in her class live. They drew jobs from a jar and have to figure out how to live on their assigned incomes. They started by finding a place to live for the amount they could afford. Malcolm and his friends, Logan and Liam, combed through local papers and the internet to find a place within the geographical parameters set. I heard lots of talk of making sure the rent included utilities because “they can cost a lot of money.”

The project then turned to figuring out a meal plan – based on the food guide – and creating a priced-out shopping list so they would know what their food budget was. Wow! How many of you have done that?

And last week, they had to buy themselves cars. So they had to figure out what they could afford and go shopping for a car that fit their budget.

Doesn’t that sound like a fantastic exercise for 11 and 12 year olds?

Don’t wait for the lottery win that will put your child in a classroom with a teacher like this one – start now, running exercises like this with your own kids. If they have a blog, they can blog their research and results.

I find my kids work better on these things if outside kids are involved – fortunately,my girls have a cousin of a similar age, and her parents are THRILLED that she finds mathematical exercises so entertaining over at our place!

I know you’re busy, I know it’s hard to overcome the moaning and whining when they would rather be on the computer or the phone, I know sometimes it’s easier to put these things off, but hey, we all know it’s important, right? Just make it happen – you’ll be glad you did.

I highly recommend checking out the rest of Gail’s blog, too, because she tells it like it is!

A Suffolk sixth former has received national recognition for his entrepreneurial skills after starting Britain’s largest diabetic gift service.

Giles Peters, 17, was inspired to set up Diabetic Hampers after trying to put together a hamper for his diabetic uncle. He found that there was very little choice for diabetics and decided there was a gap in the market.

Giles raised his start-up capital by selling clothes and books on eBay. He sourced products from a number of small companies, checked them with dieticians for suitability, and launched the company in the summer of 2007.

Now 18, and studying for A levels at Framlingham College, Giles was recently presented with a National Enterprise Award at a prestigious ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in London attended by the prime minister Gordon Brown, enterprise minister John Hutton and chancellor Alistair Darling.

Speaking at the presentations, Mr Darling said: “At a time when the world is undergoing extremely rapid economic change, with massive growth taking place in China and India, we must remember in this country we have a tremendous reservoir of talent and ability. When we have success, we need to shout about it an awful lot more.”

One of my daughters started with a new business idea a couple of weeks ago.

With everyone raving about the social networking platforms like Squidoo and HubPages, I figured there was probably a place in the market for someone who knows how to put together Hubs and/or Squidoo lenses. There’s a lot to get your head around, and if you’re not really technically-minded, it can be quite frustrating and time-consuming.

I showed the HubPages site to all three girls, and one of them just fell in love with the desktop-publishing style layout features.

So she’s launched herself as a Hubber-for hire, and already has three orders to make Hubs for businesses.

Kids are so comfortable with the internet and all these new technologies, and so many business owners are fairly clueless, so I can see this little business being a nice earner for a while!

Proud Momma, signing out …