What do your sons do as their "money earning project"?

WE don't give our boys an allowance, they come work occasionally in our cleaning business. Our 15 year year old can clean carpets(we have a big steam cleaning machine). They can houseclean(with inspection:0) and do the window washing. My kids enjoy working with their dad and hopefully they're learning to work well. They get paid well, too. DOnt' tell, but every once in a while (if he doesn't have tests), the older one will go out on a carpet cleaning job instead of school--his grades have to be good to be able to do this tho ;0). Up here, other kids make money by babysitting people's animals when they are gone. They can always cut firewood too. My hubby is also teaching the boys the "art of motorcycle repair" :0)

My son likes making rabbit cages, different type cages for carrying fowl etc. Get him a roll of 1/2" hardware cloth and/or some 1" square, etc and some J clips with pliers. He could sell them at farm markets etc. As already stated he can make things out of wood. If you can hook up with a local Sawmill owner so your child could get some Free, Unique, pieces of wood/boards/slabs---Mercy you can make some nice looking shelves, stools etc. My GF pulls this types of wood from my Scrap wood pile(from the sawmill) and makes some nice looking things, but she doesn't sell any at this time, but I know she could and she has no carpenter experience and hardly no tool when she started doing this--she bought a $10 wood-burner that she will burn some flowers or design's into boards and/or do some paint design. Shoot she will take her limb saw and go into the woods and saw some little tree/limbs and make things---she has made napkin holders, paper towel holder, drills holes into the ends of short pieces and made candle holders, stools made completely out of limb's with the bark still on them(not a real rough bark), she will dress these items up using small rope or twine, small vines, dried flowers etc---her latest venture is making a rustic lamp by taking small reed's/bambo and attaching to a lamp shade, then using a twisted/chocked by vines "tree/limb" as a lamp post with this reed lamp shade-----looks nice. He might be interested in doing something like this. When I was young, I helped this older farmer alot after school and on the weekends, made Alot of money doing that. I would get off the buss at his home and help him when he needed me, I was a HARD worker, this man looked forward to me helping him, and was Glad to take me home If my parents couldn't pick me up, But he/your child would Have to be a Hard Worker. My GF Daughter, pet sit's, cleans some of the close's neighbors homes, feeds animals when neighbors are away. The biggest thing to me as a Adult---with a Child---Is if they were willing to be SMART(do their best for their age)------I love giving them chores to do with pay. My GF's 5 year old helps alot, he can pick up nuts, pick some vegetables---loves to gather the eggs, etc-----Alot of help for a 5 year old. Happy New Year!! Randy

MY daughter is 13 and we do not give her any money for household chores...

But if she goes and works with dh (we are self-employeed) then she can earn a few bucks.

She earns a lot of money on her own...she saved and bought a goat and she sold goats milk for about 1 1/2 years, sold the baby goats too.

She breeds rabbits (this is a family project but she earn on it) and we sell them for Easter (usually 30-60 rabbits).

She also pet sits...she has signs at all of the feed stores and vets in town and she has "sat" for a bunch of rabbits when the owner was gone for 2 1/2 weeks. She can also milk so she can "watch" dairy animals and milk while people are "gone" and dont want their animals dried up.

She even collects alumunim cans and saves them for money. She collects them here at home and asks her grandmas for them and such.

She likes to help in the garden and so i let her take "extras" up to the farmers markets and sell things...she usually goes with her friends and they have a good time and make 15-30 bucks each. She also grows flowers and sells them at farmers markets (nothing serious).

Belinda

I collected scrap wood and debris from construction sites and took up dog house constriction. One of those things that started as just something to keep me out of trouble and to fund rat killing munitions and new hunting weaponry. Also and probably most importantly it helped me fund my newly developed predilection for buying things for girls and taking them to movies and such. An affliction which has caused me no end of troubles over the years. It all started out small scale enough but soon it spiraled into quite an operation with orders being taken, people calling me on the phone and networking with various contractors on obtaining scrap materials. Eventually I was hauling away scrap from the job sites and charging for the service. I'd keep some of it for dog houses, scrap some of it for the metal value, burn some and then land fill the rest (usually coming back out the gates with contractor scrap from the landfill for more doghouses). Occasionally I'd be forced to buy materials for more doghouses as the demand was outstripping my contractor scrap sources at times. I made a killing at it for a while. Had several different models of dog houses and everything. Ran ads in the newspapers and had fliers up in grocery stores and stuff. Also took some to flea markets and craft type settings and did really well too. I'd usually sell out and have a bunch of orders to fill.

Not sure how well it would work now days with the cheap plastic igloo dog houses though but it might be worth a shot.

__________________
Respect The Cactus!

I would suggest
Take something that he likes to do and figure how to make $ from it.
(He'll be having to do that in a few yrs.)

here's some advice for him (if I can pull this off)

= Hard life
= Easy life


jim

Thats exactly what my boys do. Fence, feed animals, repair or build buildings.
I pay them $5 /hr for all work.
I have noticed that their "wantto" is directly related to their need. Last year it was hard to get to do anything, then the oldest son's car started going bad, now he wants to work whenever he can. Younger son doesn't feel the need yet. He works mostly when I threaten to turn it into unpaid chores (chaores are covered by allowance).

__________________
Brad Bachelor
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"Loving an old bachelor is always a no-win situation, and you come to terms with that early on, or you go away.”
-- Jean Harris

Indians did wood carving-right? We had a neighbor whose 12yo son carved different types of wood into serving spoons (I think the father helped him with the carving in the begining, before the boy learned how). When the family was hanging around together in the evening, the son would sit over some newspaper and work on hand sanding the spoons really smooth. Some he would drill various size holes into for draining (they started doing this when he accidentily sanded one too thin in the middle one time)-they sold real well. Then, he would rub several coats of cooking oil into the spoons, and buff them.
He made little homemade looking tags telling the type of wood that was used (you could have an Indian symbol, or give an Indian name to his "company" on the tags). Put on fancy little tags, and they sell for more!
The spoons were from maybe 8-14 inches tall, some draining holes-some not, different sizes for different purposes.
This was about 5 years ago, and he sold them for $10-25 each. He always seemed to sell out, and had back orders.
Your son could even get one of those wood burner things and carve/burn in Indian designs into the handle of some/all. He might have fun researching the different designs to use.
I hope he finds something productive to do-idle boys get into TROUBLE ;o)!

Here in our town the high School near us has no longer provided Wood Shop, Metal Shop or Auto Shop. I think this is an outrage. Their thinking is that when they get out of school they can go to trade school ? right, more likely to join a Gang and use a Spray can to tag buildings. My father , close freinds were Carpenters and Welders. They were the Empire builders of this Nation. Any more students push bottons, eat and get FAT. I have never regreted taking Wood Shop and farm Shop in School. We Homesteaded our property and have build most that is here. Young people from the City need to have a chance to go to the country and learn to build things, of wood and metal. They will walk away and have a better feeling for life. Maybe they will go to other countries and help. Have a nice day.

Around here, farmers are always in need of reliable, hard-working help at haying time. Most of them will pay a good wage for someone who will stick with it the whole season. Many would prefer to stick with the small bales, IF they had the good help. I've known some farmers quit haying or go to large round or square bales because of the lack of help. (As a horse and sheep owner, I prefer the small bales) My son, who is the same age, was hoping to do haying this year with a farmer near us. Not sure if he can though - the farmer has his place up for sale, he wants to spend time traveling in a RV.

My daughter works at a horse barn. She gets horses ready for lessons and assists with some of them. I drive her there (10 miles each way) but I think it is worth it. She worked last summer at the same place with the owners dogs - walking, bathing, whatever was needed. She works hard but enjoys it. The pay isn't great but she earned a lot of cash last summer and now works for her own riding lessons.

We sell eggs, but that barely pays for feed!

We also work for a relative a couple of days a month on a special mailing project. That pays well and is where my children earn most of their money.

We have always been able to sell lambs or kids, usually to pay for hay, but if your son is in charge he could earn quite a bit. Maybe he could learn to like doing that??

Just keep thinking, usually one can turn an interest into a business in some way. Lots of good ideas already posted. Good luck!

When our son was young he tried selling eggs but barely broke even, raising rabbits didn't make enough for the work involved, making cages too many others make their own cages, crafts too seasonal, veal calves were ok but also seasonal and a lot of work for what he made so what did he finally settle on? Raising rodents for pets and feeders. He made more than we were making and it is not too much work or trouble. He had people calling and coming here everyday looking for feeder rats, mice. Pet shops were always willing to buy his surplus and wanted more than he could raise. He would pick a litter of rats and hand tame the young which was very easy to do. The pet stores wanted those and got a premium price for them. I'll never forget the older lady who came into the pet shop as he was bringing in a litter of tamed rats. She was looking for a small cage pet such as a hampster for herself so she wouldn't be home all alone. Something alive to come home to. She at first was afraid of the rats but after seeing how tame and friendly they were she tried picking one up. It was love at first meeting for them both. She bought that baby rat. A few months later we saw her walking into the pet shop for food etc. and she had her pet riding on her shoulder! Right thru the mall they had walked, a proper older lady with a rat on her shoulder. She told us that the rat was the best pet she'd ever had. Anyway, when he was raising mice and rats our son was making a bundle, pretty low care and he really enjoyed working with them. If I remember right it was clean cages once a week, feed and water daily and handle the pet litters twice a day. He kept a lot of shavings in the cages, watered using bottles that were outside but the metal nozzle was inside the cage, fed a mix into dishes daily. Didn't overload cages so they stayed clean longer and healthier for the rats/mice. He had some very angora mice that he got premium prices from the pet shops when he sold them. They were beautiful! He sold out when he got out of school and left home.