3 Money-Making Tips I Learned from My Children

Want to make money? Watch an enterprising 4-year-old.  Granted, my kids have watched two parents work from home and have been to the bank more times in their short lives than most kids go in a few decades, but they’re fun to watch and have taught me quite a bit about making money.

Maximize Productivity

If I have a project that takes about two hours and I have all day to do it in, it will take all day. If I have a two hour naptime to work with, that project will be finished in exactly one hour and fifty-five minutes to be sure I have time to get a fresh drink and go to the bathroom before my angels emerge from their beds rearing to go.

You hear of people “working” for twelve hours a day online, but I wonder how much work they are really getting done. My husband ran a PPC network and did some affiliate marketing and his hourly rate would be dismal thanks to the amount of time he wastes on other online avenues. Some breaks and variety are good, reading the forums for two hours before even starting work for the day…not so good.

Never Waste a Penny

If you’re my two-year-old, you get excited about anything that is bright and shiny. First time parents will die at my wanton neglect of parenting “rules,” but my two-year-old loves money. He loves to hold the little coins in his chubby fists and hates to let them go. He will go out of his way to pick up pennies on the grocery store floor and stop in the middle of the parking lot to grab a shiny (or not so shiny) coin if he sees one.

How often do we waste money working online? Have you shaved hours off a bill because it made you uncomfortable to charge what you’re worth? Have you taken on projects that were almost a waste of your time they were so cumbersome and paid so little? Have you let your business grow stagnant and decline? Writing is a business designed to make you money. Don’t waste any of the money that should be yours.

Do Something You Like

With two under five, we do things that are fun for everyone, at least as often as possible. After all, what’s the point of doing something on principle if nobody gains from it? Sure, I could force my kids to do any number of things because I had to do them growing up, but if you stop and think about it, a lot of things we tell ourselves to do don’t really make sense.  What’s wrong with making a mess? Why can’t we just leave the clutter in the living room overnight? Kids like to do what they like to do, and so long as it suits us, what’s wrong with that?

Rather than forcing myself to do something, I work hard at finding aspects of the job that I enjoy. Of course I’m working on the bills over here, too, but I already took a huge pay cut to start teaching because I liked it. So now when I take on writing projects, I’m always willing to try something new, but I don’t do things I don’t want to do. Take for example the sales letter. There are some fantastic copywriters out there who write wonderfully converting sales letters. I’m not one of them. I don’t like the feel of it, so I’m not going to do it.

I do plenty of other forms of writing, but refuse to suffer through something I know I’m not good at or that I don’t feel right doing. If I need to, I’ll throw a tantrum and threaten to run away, but I haven’t been pushed to that point yet in my career.