I’ve shared with you that I try to support my kids initiative when it comes to making money, and that I don’t give allowances, right? And a few days ago I mentioned that my nine year old son was baking cookies with his friend, right?  Well, I’ll share more on that with you now because I think it’s a good example of how kids learn money management and the value of hard work, without me giving them the money to spend.

He had been asking me what he could do to earn money, and I told him he’d have to think about it.  He got to thinking, and the phone calls were flying back and forth between him and his friend.  They finally came up with the idea to bake and sell chocolate chip cookies.  Initially, they planned to sell cookies individually, and they did sell several, but the presentation wasn’t good and they got some feedback from customers that they integrated the next time they sold them.

The second time was Thursday – they bagged some individually, but made platters with ten cookies each and sold them as ‘family packs’ for a slightly discounted price.  They wrapped it with clear colored cellophane (I got several rolls for free from someone and was happy to let them have it) and it looked really nice.  They were so excited to come home with everything sold out!  They split the money evenly between them, and that was also exciting, when they saw that they each made a nice sum of money.

Then my son was so excited he wanted to bake every day.  I firmly told him that twice a week was all I could handle, and told him I would make the kitchen available for them both to bake together on Sundays and Thursdays.  Yesterday his friend was unavailable, so he spent the entire day baking, wrapping them, and cleaning up.  By the time he was finished with all of it, it was too late to go to sell them.  But they were well wrapped and stayed fresh, so the two of them got together late this afternoon and again went door to door selling them.

And they sold out again!  Something nice they mentioned when they got home was when they returned to the homes where people bought cookies from them on Thursday, the people told them how good they were and were happy to buy again.  After counting his money, my ds asked me to help him put his money into his savings account (we bank with USAA, located in Texas, so he can’t go in person).  The simplest thing was for him to give me his cash, I made a direct transfer from my account into his, and voila! – a minute later the money was in his account.

He told me tonight he has another idea for a business.  I told him that I didn’t feel ready to hear it, because just this one business is about all I can handle him being busy with right now!  Maybe after a few weeks if they get into a groove with the cookies, then it won’t feel so all consuming when they’re doing it, but for now, I’m very conscious of the time and kitchen space being used (meaning, my kitchen was a mess all day long yesterday, and still in use this morning). 

I’ve seen it again and again, when you give kids some freedom to make their ideas happen, they can come up with better ideas and are more emotionally invested in the process than they would be if I gave them suggestions.

Avivah