Tag Archives: Kids

Getting Paid for Recycling Aluminum Cans Update

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Getting Paid for recycling

Getting Paid for recycling

Getting Paid!

At my son’s school, they had the kids collect aluminum cans for a school trip to the big city in my state.  It was a win-win because the kids paid for their trip by doing something beneficial for the planet…

After the trip was over, I encouraged my son to continue to collect the cans as a money-making experiment!  I told him I would find a way to get money for the cans that he collected and crushed.

After he starting collecting the cans, I wasn’t sure if I could find a place to turn in the cans for money after all. I created the post called:  “Is Recycling Aluminum Cans Worth Doing Anymore?” because of doubts that it would be worth it (especially taking in a long drive to do so).

Well I’m happy to say that I did find a recycling plant and as an added bonus, it was less than 2 miles away from where I work!

So what was the payout that my son got paid?

For the 16 lbs of the crushed cans that I took in, he received $10.40! The price per can turned out to be 65 cents per lbs!

I was actually quite surprised with the payout!  I thought that cans were going for 40 cents per lbs in my area, so I expected a number closer to $6.00 for the single bag I took to the recycling plant.

It was a pleasant surprise for the both of us!

A side perk of recycling the aluminum cans was that I found out that the recycling plant also take many other metals too.  And the biggest find was that they take old computer and monitors for free!

Our experiment is now done, but we both are much better at the entire process, so who know…  I may continue the process…

Have you ever considered participating in a recycling program?

If you don’t care about getting money for your recycling efforts, check out nearby fire stations, call them and ask if they take aluminum cans or plastic water bottles.  I know that they will recycle the cans and give the money to burn victims, or at least that’s the case in our area!

-MR

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Encouraging Kids To Be Entrepreneurs

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Encouraging Kids to Be Entrepreneurs

My son came up with another clever business idea, where he decided to create a comic club that would sell comic strips.  He decided that he would recruit his friends, and they would all draw comics and sell comic strips.  So they created a series of 8 episodes and were able to sell them to few of the surrounding neighborhood kids.

My 6-year-old daughter saw what was happening, so she and one of her friends started another comic club too.  My daughter has been writing books (8 pages long) since she was 4, so she could really crank these out fast!  But instead of trying to sell the comic strips to kids, my daughter went after the market segment called “my wife and I” (and the grandparents) as potential buyers.  Now there is no way I could turn down my daughter so I bought 6 comic for a quarter a piece.  My wife bought some too.  All said and done, sa far she has made $4.00 on selling comic strips that she creates.  not to bad for a 6-year-old!

I felt bad about my son because he wasn’t make as much, and they put a lot of effort into the comic strips.  I was going to ask him if I could buy some, but he beat me to the punch and asked me if I would be interested in buying some.  I happily said “yes”.

The beauty of my son’s sales proposition, is that he realized that he was missing a potential market and adjusted his sales techniques.  I’m happy because he came to that conclusion by his own thought process instead of me twisting him into thinking that way.

What Did My Son Learn

I’m not sure if he realized it or not, but he learned quite a bit about marketing!  If you don’t ask, nobody’s going to come to you for it.  He also learn to adjust this sales tactics to reach a broader market.

What Did I Learn From My Daughter

Some times people are just naturals.  My daughter knew that her mom and dad were excellent candidates for buying the comics, so she jumped on the opportunity with enthusiasm and determination.  She really sounded like a sales person!  I was floored again!

Maybe I over-analyze my kids, but they are awesome to watch! 

Do you have kids (or have similar relatives) where you have seen the lightbulb go on, extra bright? 

-MR

Trophies in Life, Which Holds The Most Value?

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When I was younger, I studied Tae Kwon Do.  I was pretty good at it because at my first tournament, I won first place for my division.  What especially made the victory “oh so sweet” was that everybody in my dojo said it would be a great experience for me, but said I wouldn’t win.  They based this believe on the fact that the tournament was a state-wide one with people coming up for it that lived hours away.  It was a very big tournament!

The 2 1/2 foot trophy is great, and I when I look at it, I still live some of the tournament challenges in my mind…  I remember the special kick that I invented and how I got nailed in the head with a spinning back kick from an opponent and how I overcame that opponent; and then how I won the last match after being down by 2 point.  But that was then and this is now!

As much as that trophy hold value for me, the picture of my family at Disney and the memories that it invokes is worth much more to me than my old karate trophy!  You see, my karate trophy is a memory that only I have…  My family isn’t part of it so it has little meaning to them, but the family picture of when we went to Disney, everybody remembers.  The karate trophy was one day in my life, whereas the Disney family picture was for a shared week for my family!

So while I like and value my karate trophy, I still value the photo of my family and I in Disney with Cinderella’s Castle in the background more so.

What common items have more value than your past trophies?  If there was a fire in my house and I had to choose between our Disney Family picture book or a my karate trophy, I wouldn’t even hesitate to grab the Disney family pictures…

-MR

Losing Technical Relevancy With Kids

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I just realized something today, I’m losing technical relevancy with my kids.  Not in the way that they think of me as their dad, no… more along the lines of knowing what’s important in their lives!

I thought I would be able to cherry pick the best things from my childhood and let them share in those experiences that I deemed incredible.  Well, now I realize that what I thought was important is no longer relevant!  Time has moved on and my personal childhood joys are now obsolete.

I would like to say that kids are different today, but really they aren’t.  What different is technology and the way kids adapt to it and thrive! 

From an early age, kids are exposed to electronics… even at the infant stage!  They push a button on a bear and it growls, or its eyes light up, or it sings a song or whatever the new fancy is.  Next, it’s the portable gaming systems like the Nintendo DS, my kids (including my 6-year-old) take them everywhere!  Then it’s cell smart phones, like the Apple IPhone, that do everything except iron your clothes!  My son and daughter already plan on laptops, soon I’ll hear one of them ask for an Apple IPad for a Birthday or Christmas…  it’s just a matter of time.

Electronics and computer (and computing devices) are exposed to them constantly… and they soak it up like a sponge!   The stuff I had as a kid looks like a joke compared to what kids have these days!

Then there is the sports!  Kids need to start sports  when they are young because the competition is so fierce!  If you didn’t start your kids out in sports around the ages 5, 6 or 7…  it may be too late!  And the other parents involved; OMG, you would thing that sports were a matter of life and death.

Yes, it was different when I was a kid, the things back then now seem very slow and hokey to kids today.  Electronics and the internet have really changed the game with respect to kids. 

My poor parents can no longer understand what I do on the computer, let alone my kids.  My parents are truly of a different time, and watching them on a keyboard is like watching a fish out of water flop up and down in the grass.  The technical chasm between my parents and my kids is huge!

Readers, do you feel the same as my parents sometimes? 

I know that I’m personally trying my best to keep up…  I don’t want to become totally irrelevant with respect to technology!

-MR