You see a snow day, she sees a business opportunity

On the first of three snow days last week, Z's general interest in earning money went turbo. After brainstorming a bit, she decided she would create a school where parents could drop off their snow day kids for $1 so they could still go to work. She made a sign for the front window of our house and settled into her "classroom" to wait for the flood of students.

Not surprisingly, none came. (Cue plaintive wails.)

CG and I are a little perplexed by Z's new obsession with earning money. Long time readers will remember that she gets a weekly allowance, to teach her about handling money from an early age AND to tame her persistent begging for trinkets during every shopping trip. (Every errand, really. On one memorable trip to the post office, Z threw a fit because I wouldn't buy her her own stamps. STAMPS.)

But it's not enough. She wants more money, though it's not entirely clear what she wants to do with it. She periodically gets excited about spending her allowance on something in particular but with only one dollar a week to spend, there's not much out there to buy. So most of the time she will go weeks without mentioning it. It seems she's just interested in the process of earning money.

CG and I don't tie her household contributions (it's fussy, I know, but the book told me not to call them chores) to her allowance but we have talked about giving her extra tasks to do when she's older to earn extra money. In my opinion, she's much too young to really do any real work well enough to warrant folding bills.

So we try to turn it into play time, though she stubbornly insists that she doesn't want to play store, she wants to "MAKE REAL MONEY". We are trying to focus her general interest on entrepreneurship, using it as a chance to teach her how to count money, what certain things are worth, how businesses need to pay for supplies and labor and other start up costs.

But even this may have been too encouraging because the girl will not let up.

The day after "Z's School" there was "Z Restaurant", where she hoped to sell grilled cheese and peanut butter and jelly. That she expected me to make, of course.

Snow day #3 found our front door announcing "Z's Drink Sale" featuring a "mystery drink" that she stirred up in our kitchen with approved ingredients (OJ, cinnamon, water, salt, and sugar) (Hey! She reinvented Gatorade!)

Snow day #4 brought "Z toy store" where she hoped to sell off her old unloved toys. This was the day that, despondent over a lack of customers, Z had to be repeatedly talked out of going DOOR TO DOOR selling toys and/or hot chocolate.

Then, today, Z hit on the one idea I can get behind.