Our neighbors’ house was on a homes tour this Saturday, and the children decided to capitalize on the long lines of hot patrons waiting in the sun. A simple plan to peddle lemonade expanded to include brownies, lemon squares and cookies.  To encourage their little entrepreneurial spirit, I happily purchased the supplies, which didn’t seem like much.  However, I conducted an experiment and found interesting results.

The children – well, one of the children who gypped the other child out of his share of the profits, even though he dutifully performed as the “ice man” for 3 hours – made a profit of $47.00. Ever so ironically, when I calculated the cost of the supplies, the total was $47.79.  Essentially, it cost $.79 to feed and water the tour-goers and entertain the children for most of a day (which was very worth any expense and effort.)

• 2 boxes of brownie mix $8.79
• 2 boxes of lemon square mix $10.46
• 1 carton of eggs, bottle of vegetable oil and 2 bags of ice $13.11
• 1 container of Country Time mix $5.76
• 1 slice ‘n cook cookie packet $3.79
• 2 sleeves of jumbo plastic cups $4.04
• 1 packet of napkins $1.84
• Water – free from the tap
• Cost of the tablecloth to be sent to the cleaners is undetermined, like the electricity used for the baked goods and the plate that was broken.

The children set ridiculously high prices on the food, like $3 for brownies. “That’s what brownies cost in the store,” rationalized my young Donald Trump. Finally, the price was reduced to something that still seemed fairly steep: $1 lemonade, $.50 water, $1.30 brownie/lemon square and $.50 cookies.

My daughter stuck to the $1 lemonade. I would have sold it for $.25 and worked four times as hard for the same money, but that's how I like to do things. People had no problem buying $1. Clearly, the girl-child should take a bigger part in the financial future of our family.

The point of the story is that food really does cost more these days, and it’s going to drive the lemonade stands out of business. Can you imagine how much food would cost if we tried to have a garden in our backyard --the trucked-in soil, the compost, the water, the Valium? How will this end.

Comments

[Bee]

I found this fascinating.

I am about to do an all-day open house (drinks, cookies, lunch) to raise money for a charity marathon that I am doing. I've wondered several times if the money I will raise will actually exceed the money that I will spend. Not to mention the effort that I will put forth. Unfortunately, I cannot factor children's entertainment into the financial picture . . . which obviously enabled you to feel that you didn't run this stand at a total loss.

I would have undercharged, too. It's obviously a generational thing -- as our kids have only known a world where you pay 3 bucks for coffee.

[austin homeboy]

Reminds me of the charity benefit dinners we held here annually for eight years or so at the stately Homeboy mansion.

There would be 14 guests in our place who paid the charity $75 each to attend. Between the caterer and entertainment, we usually spent around $1200 out of pocket. Then you can factor in how much time and money the non-profit expended to attract all the people to the event, which had similar dinners in other homes all over town.

Oh well, what the heck-- I ran a business on that principle for 28 years and I'm still alive and happy.

[susu]

Wow. This is an eye opener. You just don't think of those items as adding up to 75 bucks. Amazing. How is we're not all filing for bankruptcy?

[austin homeboy]

Ain't it the truth, susu -- and Bitsy cut them some slack by saying the water from the tap was free! I wish!