Forget the Beach, Put the Kids to Work!

Posted June 12, 2010

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Posted Friday June 12, 2010 by Jackie Morgan MacDougall

Being brand new to the "what the heck do we do with the kids all summer" crowd (my oldest just finished kindergarten) I've been blown away with the pressure that comes when the kids get out of school. Camp -- even most of the "low cost" day ones -- can add up to more than the price of my first car (that's right, an '89 Camaro, baby). While I did find some cheap and free alternatives to have fun and save some cash, I know this is just the beginning of many summer vacation dilemmas.

Enter Money Coach Patti Handy, founder of Teens Cash Coach™ and author of How to Ditch your Allowance and Be Richer than your Parents. Patti's got some strong opinions when it comes to keeping the kids busy this summer. In fact, she says forget about spending cash -- get them to work for it! She says any kid -- whether they're 8 or 18 -- can start a small business and create their own income. "Imagine how empowering it would be if your child, or teen, learned how to make their own cash (teen entrepreneur anyone?), learned how to manage that money wisely and understood the tools to live a prosperous and peaceful life."

What I found surprising about Patti is that she actually says to resist giving allowance for things kids should be learning how to do anyway (i.e. cleaning their room and helping around the house), but definitely offer up the cold, hard cash for those things that are additional (read: something you might actually pay for anyway).

Check it out:

For ages 9-12
weeding and raking leaves
recycling cans or plastic bottles
taking out the neighbors trash cans

Psst: There's a girl in my neighborhood who makes bank for walking dogs on the cul de sac!

13-16 year olds
babysitting (be sure to get CPR training), or be a mother's helper for a work at home mom
office assistant for a work at home parent (Hey, I could use one of those!)
help teach senior citizens how to use the computer. (Seriously, this is huge. How many of us have tech-challenged parents?)

For the older teen
be a social media marketing consultant (seriously, no one knows Facebook like a teen!)
do graphic design work for websites if they love being creative
tutoring (the very thing that got Patti making money as a teen)
teach music lessons if they have a particular instrument they play

And once they have a little dough to their name, Patti suggests an online calculator to learn about the power of compounding interest and time (I think I could probably use that lesson myself). Did you know 40 bucks a month, invested for 5 years at 6% grows to almost $3,000? Exactly the amount I spent on that fancy '89 Camaro.

Great info for any parent of a tween or teen, or even for that slug of a sibling who won't get off your couch.

Jackie Morgan MacDougall is a TV-executive turned parenting blogger who lives a crazy life with her husband and three small kids. Her dreams of climbing the corporate ladder have been replaced by the dream of one day having a nap.

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Fight Summer Boredom on a Budget

Ladies, Stash the Cash!

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