Another way to earn money: start your own business

You’d like to earn a bit more money because your weekly allowance and the gifts you get just aren’t enough to meet your financial needs? Why not start a small business of your own?

Type of business

• Babysitting
• Mowing your parents’ or neighbours’ lawn
• Raking leaves in the fall
• Delivering newspapers or ads
• Taking care of spring cleaning (washing windows, raking leaves, cleaning the pool, etc.).
• Returning empty bottles
• Washing the neighbour’s car
• Shovelling snow
• Watering your neighbour’s plants when he’s on vacation
• Making and selling jewellery

Measure your business’ success

In order to know if your business works well and if you’re making profit, you have to calculate your earnings and expenses. For example, if you decide to rake leaves and that 5 neighbours hire you for $10 each, here’s how you can measure your profit.

Earnings
5 neighbours x $10	$50
Tips	$5
Total	$55
Expenses
1 rake	$15
25 outdoor garbage bags ($0.25 each)	$6.25
Total	$21.25
Profit
Earnings less expenses	$33.75

The following year, you’ll already have your rake. If the same neighbours hire you at the same rate, your profit will increase by $15.

Managing your profit

1. Deposit your profit in your caisse account.
2. Add this amount to your budget.
3. Decide what you want to do with this money:
   • Buy new equipment for your business
   • Treat yourself or someone else
   • Put it aside for later (in your savings account for example)