Fun and Easy Ways Kids Can Make Their Own Money
by Amanda van der Gulik

Does your child treat you like their personal ATM/bank machine?

You’re not alone. Just go to your local grocery store and you will see kids yanking on their parent’s pants talking so loudly almost the whole store can hear them, “Mommy, Mommy, I want….I want…I want!”

But what can you do? It’s not like kids can make their own money right? Wrong!

I’m so excited today to share with you some incredibly fun and easy ways that your child can earn their own money using my children, Xanthe and Quinn, as examples that your child can follow.

Let’s begin with my daughter, Xanthe. She’s now 11 years old. Just over a year and a half ago, our sweet little doggie, Candy, passed away. We were all heartbroken. Candy was still back in New Zealand and we were in Canada so we couldn’t even be there to give her a proper burial.

I couldn’t bear to see my children hurting so deeply so I started to remind them of all the funny and loving things that Candy used to do; like the way her tail would go round and round like a helicopter every time she was excited. Their crying turned to tears of laughter and happiness as they remembered how blessed they had been to have had Candy in their lives.

We decided to bake some cupcakes in Candy’s honour and sang, “We love you Candy” to the tune of “Happy Birthday to You” since Candy had just turned 10 years old two days before she had passed away.

That night, before my kiddos went to sleep, they put out a special blanket on the floor between their beds and asked Candy’s soul to rest on the blanket and stay with them always. A day that started out so painfully ended with such peace and happiness.

A few weeks before Candy passed away my kiddos had been saving up to buy a new gaming system. It was a family goal and we were all pitching in every week to get our goal.

A few days after our special remembering day for Candy, Xanthe came to me to ask for an idea of how she could make some more money to get our family goal faster. I suggested she write and illustrate a book for kids since she is a talented artist. I mentioned to her that a book that helps others would be easier to sell. We would then market it on Amazon for her.

Well, Xanthe took me completely by surprise and made me feel so proud when she told me that she wanted to write a book about Candy; about how she had passed away and how we had celebrated her life. She wanted to help other kids who have to go through their own pet loss. My heart just swelled with pride.
Xanthe asked us to work on the book together as a family. We wrote out the story line and we illustrated the book together. We launched “Remembering Candy” on Amazon and it has been selling steadily every month ever since. It helped us get our family goal gaming system and kept Candy’s memory alive forever.

Is there something that your child is passionate about that they could write a story about? Your child can create their own story and publish it on Amazon using Amazon’s special self-publishing site, CreateSpace.com. Just think how proud your child will be to be a published author!

Now let me tell you about my son, Quinn. He’s only 9 years old and for the past 5 years he’s had the constant dream of owning his own hotel. It’s a fabulous creation with special play rooms for dogs that have fun video games where the dogs put their paws up on special doggie control panels. His hotel has a special zoo, an attraction park, and on and on. His imagination is endless. I personally think it would go over really well in Los Vegas!

Anyway, a few months ago he found this wonderful game called, Minecraft, where he got to create his own hotel and so much more in a virtual world. He wanted to learn all he could about Minecraft and started religiously studying how-to videos on YouTube.com.

Quinn is a natural born entrepreneur and he’s always watching what’s going on around him. I make videos for my cake decorating business and post those on YouTube and then allow the site to place ads on my videos. That brings me in regular monthly income. So with that in mind, Quinn has been watching the Minecraft how-to videos keeping in mind how the videos were being created. He wants to create his own how-to videos showing other kids what they can do in the game.

He has come up with a special intro video and his own unique title, “Stunt Quinn”. He has the whole video series all mapped out in his mind and he has already started recording his series. He will be launching his series on YouTube shortly and allowing the site to place ads on his videos so he can earn ad revenue on them.

What is your child interested in? What are their hobbies, or natural talents or passions? For example, Xanthe loves to dance and Quinn loves soccer. They could easily create their own dance or soccer videos and put them on YouTube and have ads placed on them to create monthly income that way.

These are two fun and relatively easy ways your child can create their own income. Find something they are passionate about, create a book about it and sell it on Amazon, or create videos about it and post them on YouTube to earn ad revenue. Both ideas not only create money for your child but they create passive income! Your child does the work once, and gets paid for it over and over again for life!

Now that’s the kind of income we need to be teaching our how to children to create!

As a homeschooling mom, I like to make these entrepreneurial learning lessons a part of their daily homeschooling lessons. Most kids are never taught about money in school, we homeschooling parents have an opportunity to help our kids learn about money at home in a fun and easy way.

I hope you’ve found these ideas helpful and can’t wait to hear all about what ideas your child comes up with to create their own income and stop using you like their personal ATM/bank machine!

Best-selling author, Amanda van der Gulik has been homeschooling her own two children for over 11 years. As founder of www.TeachingChildrenAboutMoney.com, Amanda is constantly being interviewed for parenting shows, like Radio Disney, on TV, radio, in newspapers, magazines and blogs all over the world. Visit Amanda’s site today to grab your FREE copy of her book, “50 Money Making Ideas for Kids and Teens”.