Early in my career when I would go on business trips, I would bring something home to my kids to let them know I was thinking of them. Usually it was a little trinket or plastic toy, something they looked forward to and promptly forgot about the next day. These toys became one more thing lying around the house to be thrown away in 6-12 months when the kids were not looking. And they were driving T insane.
As they started getting older, I transitioned to something a little more interesting: scratch off lottery tickets.
I know, I know, how awful it is for me to give my kids lottery tickets. I did not play the lottery growing up , and my only recollection of them were the $1 scratch off games that we bought by my relatives. Nothing exciting, but it was fun to use a penny to scratch designs in the card. Even then, I didn’t think people actually won anything.
When I was at the gas station a few years ago, I was shocked to see the price of them: $50 for some of the higher end games! Who spends good money on a piece of cardboard with no real chance of winning?
But then I won something very significant in a raffle (the subject of another post) and I thought “Why not me?” So shortly after that happened, I started buying lottery tickets. Nothing fancy, but $1-$3 for the kids to scratch off and have a quick laugh.
After buying about 10 of these, we had won a combined $15, which was a little less than break even. But we were having fun.
My daughter saw a new scratch-off game in the gas station the other day and really wanted to try it. It was a Bing-O-Rama card from the Texas Lottery, but I to her I would not buy it for $5. You have to draw the line somewhere.
Shortly after this, I had to make a last minute business trip, and my daughter was upset that I had to leave. The night before I left, she asked for this particular ticket, so when I landed I splurged and got her the ticket. I was running late so I picked it up at the gas station right outside of our neighborhood before I came home.
After I arrived, I asked the kids if they obeyed T the whole time I was gone, and of course they said yes. I pulled out the lottery tickets and handed them over. The younger ones tore through their cards right away, and there were no winners. A was more diligent, and was working her way slowly through the card. By then, dinner had started and we were heading over to the table.
A said, excitedly “Dad, if I get a 54, I will win $500!” “Sure, anything you say, sweetie” I told her.
I paused and took a closer look at the card. In the top right hand corner, she almost had made a full X, with only the 54 in the bottom right hand corner remaining. She had 4 numbers to scratch off. I liked these odds, but there is just no way.
I sat down at the table, put A on my lap, and she scratched the next number. We both stopped when we saw it: 54.
She jumped up screaming. I said, “Hold on, let’s check the app.” When I scanned the bar code, the following screen came up: $500.
After the initial excitement wore off, I told her that we needed to do a few things. First, since her sisters didn’t get anything, it would be nice to share $50 with each of them. Then, we needed to give 10%, or $50, to a local charity. That left her with $350, more than she had ever seen in her life. She was still happy even with her reduced amount.
We jumped in the car and headed over to the gas station. The attendant congratulated my daughter, then stated that they did not have that much cash on hand. 3 stops and a grocery store later, we finally got the money and headed home. A said, “This will be a story that we will talk about for years!”
Immediately she wanted to get on Amazon and pick out a new crazy Lego set to add to her collection. But I reminded her of an exercise we did a few months ago where we created a list of entrepreneurial ideas in Evernote, based off the blog post by Mike Michalowicz. She had mentioned that she wanted to start a business, and we had brainstormed more than 20 options that she would like, from lemonade stands to making dog biscuits. She had done very well selling vegetables from our home garden in the neighborhood, and liked creating money from nothing. She started getting excited again, and wanted to use her money to start a business.
So over the next week we looked over the internet to try and find the best way to start making soap. We ended up on Chelsea’s Soap Garden and bought this kit. It arrived a few days later and we stayed up late on a school night making our first batch.
The following Sunday afternoon, armed with a basket and freshly made soap, we made the rounds in our new neighborhood, knocking on doors.
Within an hour, she had sold $40 worth of handmade soap.
Here, a week later, she had turned her $350 to $450, and still working her way through the neighborhood.