Comments on: Children and money

By: Nadine Aroyo

Nadine Aroyo — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:18:56 +0000

We are very interested in hearing more about your efforts to bring financial literacy to children, and help them be aware and secure their futures.

We are OINK! the Business Newspaper for Kids, primarily aimed at 7 to 12 year olds. OINK! is pink, like the Financial Times, full of money matters for kids and is distributed FREE each month upon request to schools, libraries, children’s hospitals and sports clubs across the United Kingdom.

Over the past four years we have built a steady reputation of bringing information about money and commerce to kids in a fun, creative and highly stylised way. The newspaper’s content is cutting edge, ground breaking and often thought provoking, and has won recognition from the National Literacy Trust and the Schools Library Association as an important literacy and learning tool.

Amongst our many supporters, we are pleased to include the Bank of England, the London Stock Exchange, the Financial Times, ICICI Bank, Capital Disney, FUN radio, SEGA, Hamleys, SONY, Bandai.

We produce a daily radio show, OINK! ON AIR, which is broadcast on http://www.oinkonair.com

We have recently introduced the Piggybank® Fantasy Stock Exchange™ which provides kids with a fantastic opportunity to learn all about stocks and shares and play the stock market absolutely free.

Below please find a link to our websites.

http://www.piggybank.co.uk
http://www.fantasystockexchange.biz
http://www.oinkonair.com

By: David

David — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:39:49 +0000

When I was a wee one, I helped pick up dog poop using the pooper scoopers. I’d get paid by the turd. When my dad wasnt looking, Sometimes I’d divide the turd into two and get paid more for it! So from a young age I was exposed to crappy labor. This very possibly could have contributed to the fact that I have never had a job to this day (I’m 18 now).

By: Trena

Trena — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:45:28 +0000

Lebetho, my mom did the same thing. I don’t remember what I was paid (pennies, I’m sure) to grade tests and even write her report cards. She taught at the same elementary school I attended, so it was kind of fun scoring my friends’ tests. Looking back, I feel a little weird about it.

By: GTT

GTT — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:08:39 +0000

I made friendship bracelets from string and sold them at school. They were hugely popular but took forever to make (plus, my eyes would be so tired that I could only make 1 or 2 a day). The best part was that I demanded to be paid in advance so I could buy the string which resulted in a long line of disgruntled customers.

By: Isaac Bloomfield

Isaac Bloomfield — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:37:17 +0000

The most money my brother and cousins and I made was from selling rocks that had funny paintings on them, derived from our imaginations. The most popular seller was a rock on which my cousin would write, “I forgot to do the chores so my mother turned me into this rock.” Apparently adults liked that one and paid top dollar for it. Good times.

By: Ken Lay

Ken Lay — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:26:44 +0000

When I was a kid my friend Ishmael and I used to shovel snow. We made quite a bit of money when it snowed.

My friend Ishmael and I filled out all of the paperwork for the free lunches one year. We kept collecting our lunch money from our parents almost the whole school year before my brother turned us in. I don’t think we would have been caught if if weren’t for my brother.

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:19:29 +0000

I used to be quite the entrepreneur when I was younger. I would ride my bike down to the local discount retailer, buy up all the toys (squirt guns and those parachuter guys) and candy, and then hock it to the neighborhood kids with a built in profit from a folding table in my front yard.
I also did annual haunted houses out of my basement and every summer held a “carnival” in my front yard. The carnival consisted of a crude obstacle course, a shooting gallery with a rubber band gun with various He-man and G.I. Joe targets, bean bag toss and homemeade bowling alley; all the games had prizes you could earn or purchase.
I would also hold the occasional boxing match between neighborhood kids, that one rarely went over well after a kid would go home to his parents with a black eye.

By: Kelly

Kelly — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:09:45 +0000

i never realized just how many schemes i hatched growing up unti now.
when my friend irene and i were 5 or so, mary kate and ashley were very popular. i was mary kate, she was ashley. we would sell tickets to our neighbors and grandparents and put on very unimpressive renditions of “brother 4 sale” and “i am the cute one”.
in third grade, my friend siobhan and i were convinced that we were psychics and we set up a stand in our apartment complex to perform readings. after only one customer, some really old boys (probably about fourteen, which was ancient to us) came up and thought we were selling lemonade. when they saw that we were being psychics, they laughed at us. we cried and ran inside.
in fifth grade, i used…friendship bracelet string? to wrap pencils with pretty designs and sold them for anywhere from 3 to 6 dollars, depending on the design. business was booming for a while, but it went downhill when people discovered the pencils could not be sharpened and therefor had no function.
my most successful and long-lasting venture took me from sixth to ninth grade. i would buy candy when it went on sale for 25-33 cents and sell it for a dollar. my entire backpack was filled every day. in ninth grade, however, nevada cracked down on junk food and i had to keep it on the down low. 3 boys in my grade caught on and started stealing my customers.
now i just prostitute.

By: Byron

Byron — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:31:58 +0000

First job: formed a “company” when I was 7 with my four best friends to do yard work around the neighborhood. We were ridiculous about keeping everything equal to include taking turns pushing the mower across the lawn, counting how many swipes we took with the car wash sponge, etc. We made a grand total of $127 but, take away the $80 we had to pay for the cast that resulted from a fight…

Second money making plan: Selling my sister’s autograph and kisses. My sister was the school hottie and so I paid her 5 cents to sign a piece of paper and then I had another girlfriend of mine write a personalized note in girly writing above it and sell it for 1-5 dollars. I also kissed pieces of paper and sold them as kisses from my sister. I still have a couple that I send to her in the odd Christmas card or birthday card to her kids.

By: bibli0phile

bibli0phile — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:30:58 +0000

I sold walnuts. We had a tree in the backyard and a busy gravel road in front of the house. I’d collect buckets full of walnuts from under the tree and haul them to the road to dump them so that the cars would run over them and break off the hard green hulls that cover the walnut. The next day, I’d collect them and after a day or so of drying, I’d sell them for about $5 per bucket.