A Lesson in Free Enterprise

Our neighborhood had a "Community Garage Sale" on Saturday, so our family decided to join the "fun". We cleaned out our garage... which is a joyous event because now I can park my car in there! And we sold a few things that we no longer need.

" One man's trash is another man's treasure!"

The bigger purpose though for participating was to teach our kids a little business lesson. On Friday, they helped me make cookies and muffins and then sold them to people who came by. Todd also bought them some water bottles and soda to sell. We were going to sell hot dogs, but there were no people left when it was lunch time. Anyway, we taught them to pay us back for the supplies we used to make their products and then they could keep the rest. (It turned out that they helped us clean up afterward, so we told them they could keep all of the money) But, they understood the concept nonetheless. Even though I could have easily reached into my purse and handed them $16 (that's about how much they made) I thought this was a lesson better learned. They learned that they have to work hard to earn money. And they better understood the value of money as they counted each quarter and each dollar that came in. They also discovered that if they were eating the cookies, they were "eating money". It was fun to teach them. To my suprise, they were quite the little salesmen. They explained to everyone what they had and how much it cost. They captivated total strangers with their conversation and interest in earning money. It was fun to watch!

Here are the entrepreneurs patiently waiting for their next customer.

Even though I am sure we could get a pretty penny for him, Spencer was not for sale!! But, the big red truck was. He sure had fun in it before it was snatched up!!