great way to educate your children

When the youngest turns 18 buy them a run down reno job. Renovate it together, then flip it. Share the spoils. Let them learn the process, understand money issues like cashflow vs cap gain, how banks work, the time cost of money etc. They can get their hands dirty too....might also pay for their university if works out well!
 
Why wait until there 18?

Get them involved earlier and pay them a wage for working or offer them a share of the profit in exchange for wages. Would be a good lesson to learn the difference between working for ones self and working for a wage.
 
Why wait until there 18?

Get them involved earlier and pay them a wage for working or offer them a share of the profit in exchange for wages. Would be a good lesson to learn the difference between working for ones self and working for a wage.

good point! Only thing is they will be studying but they could manage..
 
I think it boils down to more than what the parent wishes to teach.....

Our kids have grown up helping us to renovate. They have ripped out walls, ripped out kitchens and bathrooms, painted houses and helped with landscaping and just about everything we have done.

They are over it now. At 21, 18 and 14, the two older boys just are not interested any more.

I remember very well booking our first overseas holiday just over four years ago. We bought an IP which settled the day before we were to fly to the US and we wanted to get the bathroom ripped out, replaced, floors sanded and the whole house painted inside. We tried to get it all finished with the approval of the vendor before we settled, but ran out of time, so had to leave it empty for three weeks while we went on our holiday.

The thing that I most remember is that after all the help our boys had given us, they didn't want to do it any more. We had always paid them something, even when they were little, but as they got older and could actually do a fair job, we paid them quite well, so it is not like we were using "slave labour".

Hubby and I and my mother did the work, sweating up on trestles painting ceilings in the stinking hot December heat, knowing that my two teenage sons were sitting at home watching television in the air-conditioning.

They have said to us that they don't want to do renovations any more. It is not like it is something we did regularly, but probably once a year we would tackle something, and over the years they were happy to help.

They have learnt valuable skills from doing it, but that mad rush before the overseas holiday made me re-think a few things. They did reluctantly give us a hand, but I remember sending them home in disgust when I had to stop what I was doing to push them. They both had part time "clean" jobs and just were no longer prepared to be so "hands on".

We have to respect that, and in fact, I am feeling the same now, and have felt this for a while. I don't plan on being so "hands on" any more. I have enjoyed it in the past, but I plan to do less "dirty work" now that I am getting older.

I suppose my point is that this can backfire and you risk them losing interest.
 
Hi Wylie

Thanks for the perspective. I reckon there is no doubt your kids have learnt heaps and will thank you in 10 years for sure!

From my side I would not necessarily want my kids to do more than one reno. Also I would give them all the profits so hopefully they would look forward to it. I would also try and walk them through the financials.

For me there would be little risk in doing a 6 mos reno flip on say a 2 bedroom unit. They would not necessarily be involved in too much of the labour (maybe the painting) more the project management.

At the end of the day if they said 'no interest' then no skin of my nose either. I got the idea from one of those foxtel UK based home renovation shows.

Cheers
Aussie
 
I don't think I could interest my eldest in this at all. She's not interested in earning money, doesn't look at what she is doing (I'm not kidding - it makes me wince seeing her cut a tomato with a sharp knife while looking anywhere other than at the tomato. She also rides her bike smack into stationary objects far too often so I am dreading her getting to driving age) so can't be trusted with tools or a paintbrush, has no colour sense and has a brown thumb and thus isn't even any use in the garden. She also has an amazingly poor knowledge of plants/bugs/birds despite living in the country for 4 years with parents who are very much into that kind of thing and have oodles of books on the subject.

Other one though ... she can name most of our tools (elder one can't) and knows how to use some of them, she knows what to do with plants and is starting to ID different plants and bugs, and she helps paint, plaster, weed and mulch the yard. And she's already worked out that moneys can be used to buy foods - something the other one took about 7 years to figure out and still hasn't quite grasped it. We'll see how that goes.

Thing is, we also do computer stuff - child junior was enthusiastically helping assemble a computer last night (thermal paste is NOT skin cream, FYI) while child elder was watching TV. Junior might end up becoming a total geek and not wanting anything to do with houses. Elder has also never expressed any interest in computers ... I swear she's actually someone else's kid and grew up in a completely different household.
 
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