Money Lessons for Kids

Money lessons for kids become much more powerful when children experience them in real life. For Flynn, that meant negotiating with his Grandad, harvesting raw honey, making an investment and learning what it really takes to grow a small business.

This is Part 2 of Flynn’s honey business story, where his idea moved from plan to action — complete with bee suits, honey frames, sticky hands and a very serious investment for a twelve-year-old.

Money Lessons for Kids: Flynn’s Honey Investment Continued

You may remember from a previous blog that Flynn’s Enterprise for Kids plan was to buy honey at wholesale and sell it at retail. All he needed was a good source of cheap, quality honey that he could buy in bulk.

If you missed the beginning of the story, you can read Part 1: Honey Pot of Gold, where Flynn first explained his honey business idea.

Finding a Product for Flynn’s Honey Business

Flynn’s Grandad has kept bees for over twenty years and had a number of hives which he regularly harvested honey from. The honey produced from his bees is very light in colour and tasty, as the bees forage over the Mid West fields of Paterson’s Curse and coastal gums.

Flynn knew that he had a good quality product.

His plan was to pay a visit and strike up a deal with his Grandad.

Flynn’s Grandad saw that Flynn had thought through his plan. He was more than willing to support Flynn with his new honey enterprise. Flynn negotiated a good price per kilogram, however, the deal included Flynn having to help his Grandad rob the honey from the hives.

You can listen to Flynn explaining the deal he made with his Grandad in his own words.

Money Lessons for Kids Through Real Work

Flynn was up for the challenge. He donned a pair of overalls, gloves, boots and bee veil. Then he and his Grandad disappeared for the morning, returning later in the day with a heavy load of honey supers in the back of the ute.

They were carted around to the rear of the house and quickly stacked in the garage. Already the local bees were honing in on the honey, hoping to pinch it for their own hives. The garage door was closed to keep the bees out.

This is where money lessons for kids become very real. Flynn was not just talking about business. He was helping collect the product, understanding the effort behind it and learning that profit starts long before anything is sold.

For families in Western Australia interested in bees and beekeeping, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has useful information about beekeeping in Western Australia.

Extracting the Raw Honey

Grandad sliced the caps off the honey combs with a hot, special-purpose electric knife and Flynn slotted them into a honey extractor.

The extractor uses centrifugal force to extract the honey from the combs. It was Flynn’s job to spin the extractor, which proved to be a lot of fun. Although everything nearby became sticky with escaping honey, including Flynn!

Preparing the Honey for Sale

Flynn’s brother Jai, and a family friend Jack, stopped by to lend a hand. Many hands made light work and before long, after warming and sieving the honey, it was sealed into 10kg buckets.

Angry bees do not take too kindly to people robbing their hives. It was pretty amazing that Flynn managed to do all this work without getting stung. His Grandad and Dad were not so fortunate though!

A Big Investment and Money Lessons for Kids

Enterprising Flynn paid cash for 80kg of honey from his Grandad. He loaded it all up in our car to take it back to his home.

It was a large investment for a twelve-year-old and Flynn, knowing its value, took great care to ensure that the honey was well sealed and cushioned for the long trip home. He did not want it spilling, nor did he want any ants finding their way into his containers.

This was one of the most important money lessons for kids in the whole project. Flynn had to understand cost, risk, value and responsibility before he even made his first sale.

Flynn wanted to sell his honey at retail. He had done his research and found that honey generally sold in shops for around $12 or $13 a kilogram.

He had a unique product. It was tasty, raw and full of enzymes, which are generally destroyed during commercial pasteurisation processes.

Learning About Presentation and Retail Value

Flynn had also searched online for plastic honey pots. We discussed with him that people would pay a premium for his product if it looked professionally bottled and was not sold in recycled jam jars.

New plastic honey pots were not cheap. The larger the order, the better the price.

Flynn made his order over the phone and bought five hundred 500ml pots. These were delivered by mail within a few days, arriving in a massive cardboard box.

So now he was all set to go with his Enterprise for Kids project. He had his honey and honey pots and had spent every cent that he had.

It was a huge investment and Flynn had no choice but to make it work. He had overcome fear and had taken a calculated risk with his business. All he had to do now was bottle, market and sell his honey.

And this will all be revealed in a later blog!

Flynn’s Honey Business Series

Key Takeaway: Money Lessons for Kids Need Real Experience

Where to Next?

If you enjoyed this part of Flynn’s honey business story, you may also like:

• Family Business Ideas: Flynn’s Honey Enterprise Story — Part 1 of Flynn’s honey venture.
• Flynn’s Honey Turns to Gold — Part 3 of Flynn’s honey business story.
• Financial Education for Kids — a practical lesson about money, assets and liabilities.
• Kids Business Ideas: Amber’s Kids Biz Program — another real family enterprise story.
• Entrepreneurship for Students: How Entrepreneurs Think — why mindset matters for young people.

In our next Enterprise for Kids blog, we check back with Candy Man Chayse and see how his enterprise has been progressing.