Monica asked about ways that our girls make a little extra money. I emailed her, but thought my answer might be the start of a useful post. Here are some of the ways our children earn money.
- I have allowed the girls to put items up for sale on Ebay for us. If it’s something I would have sold myself, I might split the proceeds with them. If it’s something I wouldn’t have bothered with, I let them keep the money. Those high-dollar baby formula coupons that arrive in the mail sell surprisingly well.
- They buy items from the Vision Forum clearance shelf (at the on-site retail store, not the online Clearance Outlet) to post on their For Sale page.
- They combined their savings a while back and bought an expensive female Yorkie to breed. This little business investment of theirs was far more work than they expected, but it did pay off.
- Our oldest can now earn a paycheck when she works with her dad at Vision Forum, so she likes to pay her siblings generously to do her household chores on days that she is gone. We allow this because she sees it as a way to share a blessing with her sisters.
- We don’t do allowances, but I often hire the girls to do extra work for me, such as compiling a mailing list or doing graphic design for a family website. I often hire little ones to make my bed, brush my hair, etc. During the warm weather, I usually have a bounty out on flies and daddy longlegs in the house.
None of these might be practical for your family, but we find that there are always opportunities if you look hard enough and have a bit of patience.
We are rather limited because we live in a very rural setting, but if you live in the city you might find many opportunities with the neighbors:
- Yard care: lawn mowing, leaf raking, snow shoveling, poop scooping, weeding flowerbeds, etc. Hubby and I mowed lawns one summer, raking in over $2000 in the evenings with our $300 investment in a mower and weed eater, and a $4 classified ad. We once paid a kid to shovel the snow on our sidewalk simply because we appreciated his motivation.
- Misc. services: dog walking, house-sitting, pet-sitting and plant-sitting for vacationers, putting out the weekly trash, garage organization.
- Offer services: let your young entrepreneur knock on doors and tell the neighbors, “I’m trying to earn $50 for a ___. Do you have any small jobs I can do to get started?”
- Babysitting: an older child of yours could babysit in your own home if you prefer.
- Yard sale: they could have a yard sale for you, doing all of the work and keeping some or all of the proceeds. They could offer to clean neighbors’ garages, etc. and have a yard sale with the castoffs.
- Recycling: the price of aluminum is currently very low, but it fluctuates. My daughter and a few of my youngest sibs gathered a pickup load of cans a couple of years ago and earned over $150!
- Housecleaning: I started doing this for some of my dad’s coworkers at the tender age of 12. By the time I was 17 I had a small business.
How do your children earn money? How else could they earn money?
1. My oldest son is quite talented in music and teaches guitar lessons to younger homeschooled children.
2. Our family does real estate investing and we do alot of the so called “fix and flip” projects ourselves and hire our children to help. This also gives them great skills…laying tile, wood floor, painting, putting on doorknobs, marketing, etc..
3. We find alot of extra furniture and misc. stuff left in these houses. My oldest daughter (who is 13) cleans them up and resells them on craigslist.
4. We live in CO so my son shovels snow.
5. My 13 daughter also breeds chinchillas and sells them as pets. This is great for homeschooling as she has had to learn alot about genetics with different mutations.
6. One year we had a very large anniversary party for my parents in our backyard which left us with alot of leftover pop. We live close to a park, so I let two of them set up a pop stand and sell. They did so well that we continued to look for pop deals at the grocery store, so they could continue to sell
7. Be really creative and look for opportunities!
Selling large cookies, either door to door, or having a basket full at a work place, is a great way to earn money.
I’m so glad your oldest pays her sisters for doing her chores as a way to bless them. I was so mature that I paid my sisters out of pure laziness. haha What a fresh perspective!
haha
One important factor to me in evaluating her motive is that she pays far more than necessary. Her sisters would do the job for peanuts and she pays in real green.
i went back and read your old post kids for hire. do your kids really do that work for .10 or .25 CENTS? geesh my kids would want more. you can’t buy anything for a dime anymore.
maryjo,
They rarely stop at a dime or a quarter. If they’re trying to earn money, they want several jobs. An enterprising 6yo in our house can easily earn $2 or $3 or more in an afternoon.
Kill 20 daddy longlegs in the house during the summer: $1 in 3 minutes.
Brush Mom’s hair for half an hour: 50 cents (plus frequent tips).
Make Mom’s bed and start a load of laundry for her: 75 cents.
That’s not so shabby. At least, they don’t think so. The 13yo wouldn’t work for it, of course, because she has bigger fish to fry, but the little ones are happy to earn this way when they want the money for a purpose.
Those high-dollar formula coupons (the ones that look like checks) sell so well because they ARE checks. I cash them at my bank, seriously, along with the Butterball check coupon that my husband’s work passes out for Thanksgiving and any other unwanted gift checks that folks pass to me.
Yep. If it’s got a transaction number at the bottom, requires a signature, and it looks like a check, you can probably do the same.
What a great post Kim. My two little ones are not all that interested in money yet, but my seven and eight year old earn money by helping me clean a house for someone weekly. They are getting really good at sweeping, mopping, dusting and vacuuming too as a bonus for me!! I pay them from the money I earn so they are just as excited as me every “payday”!
With my oldest being only six we’re just getting to the point of kids being interested in earning. So far our only rule is that there is no pay for any work done in common areas of the house or for helping with things that benefit everyone in the household (washing dishes, folding laundry, etc.). To earn our children have to perform a service for someone else (like making my bed) not themselves (like making their own bed).
I pay my children extra money to brush my hair too. Not too often though. My last one cost me $2 for 20 mins. Acckkk~!!
Thanks Kim, there was alot of great ideas!
Blessings, Monica
I don’t have kids yet, but here are some ways I earned money!
When I was 14-15, I made money by providing basic computer lessons/assistance to senior citizens. I got a lot of jobs by word of mouth.
As a child, I sold excess cherry tomatoes from our garden, typed for my parents or others, did housework for my grandma, and picked up occasional odd jobs. Being homeschooled helped because I was available during the day. I once assisted in preparing a preschool room for the new semester, which included organizing and cleaning. I was only about 9 but word of mouth paid off yet again.
Very amusing! I love it! It’s neat when you can teach kids lessons about money– making it, saving it, and delayed gratification. Thanks for the ideas!