How to motivate a son?

V

virgo

Hiya

My son comes back from his really "posh" private school yesterday and was musing his thots...


Apparently one of the school's "richer" kids is flogging off school cans for $2 each after school at the gates and making lots of pocket money in the process..
Apparently rich daddy is spearheading the whole attempt.

I thot; what a great idea....


So, i am going to provide seed money to my son to start a small enterprise; i don't really care if he makes a profit or loss; i just want to make him appreciate the value of money and hard work as well boost his self confidence...he has agreed to try it but i think the soft drinks/chips/lollies market is already cornered...

Any suggestions?
 
If this is all your idea, I'll be surprised if he makes a profit.

As far as I know, there's no age requirement for the stock market.

What's he interested in? Besides cans?
 
virgo said:
Hiya




So, i am going to provide seed money to my son to start a small enterprise; i don't really care if he makes a profit or loss; i just want to make him appreciate the value of money and hard work as well boost his self confidence...he has agreed to try it but i think the soft drinks/chips/lollies market is already cornered...

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

The flip side of a mature market is that there is obvious demand.

Your son doesn't need to take over the market - he just has to maintain an edge on his competition.

Is like one hunter saying to the other - I don't have to outrun the tiger. I just have to outrun you!
 
My son 17 has been buying boards for skateboards from the US (and Sydney when the dollar was down) since the age of 13.

He usually buys around 10 at one time with at least half being preordered, and makes about $20 profit on each one.

Decent boards start at around $85 retail and he sells for $60 with grip tape, to kids that can't afford to replace broken boards every 6 weeks or so.

His future scheme is buying about 4 cars per year from auctions for around 10K and making 3K or so on each.

The plan is that each vehicle will be his to drive until the next purchase to avoid any hassles with the law :rolleyes:.

Throw around some ideas and see how he goes.
 
You didn't mention what age he was, but perhaps a local delivery round, where he can put great swaths of really annoying advertising material into every else's letterbox.

Great exercise for him on the pushie, no face to face selling and he'll definitely learn the effort required to turn a dollar.

I started out with my first job running the boundary umpiring at the local footy comp for $ 5.00 a game. Compared to my weekly $ 1.20 pocket money (10c per year of age), I thought I was king of the world.

Moved onto helping the local milko, running like a mad chook off the back of a ute. I don't see that anymore, the obese parents are happy to drive their 4WD around the corner nowadays.

Moved onto helping out on Thursday nights and Sat. morning at the local Kmart. $ 45.00 per week. I thought I was king of the world.

Plenty of opportunity for fit Aussie young lads if they button their lip and grit their teeth.
 
Awesome idea - probably learn more doing this than in his formal education.

What is he good at? Computers? Maybe an after school computer fixing dude.

The key here is that he needs to look at his strenghths

1. he is cheap
2. he doesnt have to turn a profit

I would like that kind of competative advantage in my world. he could do anything really. Why not start an underage disco, or start a mini 'big day out' with school bands and 1000 of his closest mates...(geez I like that one - he better hurry!)

That way he get the birds aswell!
 
My nephew used to mow lawns. Easy to be cheaper than the men who do it for a living and great money for a youngster.
 
skater said:
My nephew used to mow lawns. Easy to be cheaper than the men who do it for a living and great money for a youngster.
Click to expand...


That's another great idea.

One of my sons friends has a mowing round as well, built by offering neigbours a competitive price.

I know this family are quite wealthy, but according to my son, they don't dish out the cash freely, and expect their son work towards some of his expenses.
 
It really depends on what his strengths and interests are, but here are some ideas:

- trading the stock market, could be good to really get his brain going.
- odd jobs, mowing lawn, painting fences, weeding gardens, etc
- niche one off cleaning jobs (like the oven).
- creating a website for a local business
- creating his own products and selling them on ebay or at a local shop (bird houses, biscuits, preserves, outdoor furniture, kids toys, etc).
- make an organic vegetable garden and sell produce to local restaurants or on the side of the road (perhaps herbs or garlic or something like that).
- start his own car wash, car detailing (with recycled water of course!)
- recycling cans
- provide a service to organise peoples sheds for them.

It's hard to give advice like that without really know what he's good at. For example, my step father is in an irish band, when he's visiting from NZ he goes down the road with his tin whistle and makes $100 in a morning of busking!

Give us some more info ;)
 
when I was a kid I used to collect old batteries and scrap metal and take it to the cash for scrap place. I also went to the local industrial area and collect all the refundable bottles, most factories let me for free, some did a deal where I clean the lunch room each week and they stock up the bottles for me. That was 35 yrs ago and I would make $7/wk.

A few of the single mums at my kids school do the sat morn garage sales, haggle it down and resell whatever on ebay. It makes them a few hundred a week. If your son knows the price of stuff that could be good earner. Shoot around the suburb on his bike on sat morn, bring back and clean up whatever, resell from home on ebay. He will learn the value of things, what sells and what doesn't, abit of marketing and postage fees and can use those skills for the rest of his life when buying cars, houses, etc.

We use ebay alot and will be getting the kids into it more as time goes.
 
I like what your son is doing with the skateboard decks, Weg. I like it because he isn't just exchanging time for money. Baby sitting, mowing lawns, washing cars are all just the exchange of time for money.
My cousin made good money bringing in ski goggles from somewhere and selling them here on eBay. He had an interest in skiing, so he knew what was good. There would be loads of eBay shops like that.
I recall another kid who was at my school hit on a great idea. He had an older brother who used to buy Playboys, Penthouse etc (I suspect he really nicked them). So this kid at school used to nick them from his brother and sell them by the page - naturally, the centrefold commanded a premium.
Another kids used to get his older brother to buy him packets of cigarettes and he would sell them one by one.
Looking back, I have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of those kids.
 
depreciator said:
Looking back, I have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of those kids.
Click to expand...

My husband ran a book at school. Apparently the boy that took over when he left got caught and suspended :confused:.

FIL was a bookmaker so I suppose it was a given that he would fulfill the gap in the lucrative school market.
 
Every school needs a bookie.
I ran a football tipping competition every season. It ran in the school and outside school, so nobody knew how many people were in the thing or how much money I was pulling out of it.
 
I used to sell 'KA - BLUEY' Candy at school. As any rebellious kid would love to have their mouth turn bright blue. Just make sure you don't eat too many as it will also turn something else blue....;)

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/KA-BLUEY-Sod...QcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Food?hash=item1e5a6c180e
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/KA-BLUEY-Ori...QcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Food?hash=item20af70550c


So $27.85 + postage (about $10)

This would give you 100 items, so selling them at $1 a pop he would be looking at about $60 profit for every tub he can manage to sell.

I used to sell a couple tubs a week until I couldn't get any more of the product.

You would be surprised how quickly word of mouth spreads when its blue...
 
Last edited:
At 10yo I made fair pocketmoney doing data entry.

The farmers would scribble down their cows' milk production and I'd punch in endless pages of figures into dbase III+. The local computing guru would then produce all the reports to help them track their output.

Rather boring work but occasionally livened up as some farmers were really creative in naming their cows. I earned enough in a year to buy my own computer.
 
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