The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Mini Money Mustaches => Topic started by: aceyou on July 03, 2015, 09:38:53 PM
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Fun little story about how an MMM blog post inspired me last week:
My wife and I watched my brother/sister in law's kids for 4 days while they were out of town. 7yo and 10yo girls.
I stole MMM's story about paying his son mileage for biking. When the girls got to our house, I told them, "Ok, in this house, we basically just bike when we need to get anywhere. Also, we don't go out to restaurants. So, any food that is in our house is yours to eat, and I'll help you whenever you need to learn how to make things from scratch. While you girls are here, the going rate is 15 cents/mile. On the last night you are here we'll bike to an ice cream place and you can get whatever you want with the mileage money you earned".
It ended up being a TON of fun and the girls loved it. They completely bought in. I taught them how to make refried beans from pinto beans, how to make tortillas from flour, how to make hot sauce out of peppers and tomatoes. The girls ended up biking a little over 20 miles over the few days they were here, which they were super proud of(after every ride I'd map quest it and we created a bike log on the counter where they'd write down where they went and the mileage). After a couple days, they were dreaming up places we needed to go so they could get more miles in:) Had I not read the blog post about this, I'd have driven them to ice cream and just bought it for them, but they wouldn't have gotten nearly the fun out of it.
I had the girls for 4 days, we spent virtually no money, and we never ran out of fun new things to do. The girls talked about all the biking they want to do when they get back home, and how they want to make tacos from scratch for their parents.
Just another example of how you happiness has nothing to do with spending a lot of money.
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Love it! Thanks for sharing!
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Stories like this are the reason I read the forums!
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Legendary! What a great way to be an unforgettable uncle. That blog post inspired me too to try $/km.
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That is absolutely brilliant. I might try it on myself.
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Wow - you sound like an awesome uncle! Sounds like the perfect age, too...old enough to "get it", not too old to be set in their ways ;)
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Love it! What a great story. Hope they were able to find something at the ice cream shop for $3??? Our frou frou ice cream shops seem to get more expensive by the day. I love the experience of it all but always can't help wondering just how good of ice cream we could buy by the quart at home for that price :) In any case, definitely a fun adventure!
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That's awesome. But if I threw down this offer to my 13-year-old nephew and 9-year-old niece, they'd each lunge for their iPhone6, call their parents, and demand to be picked up immediately.
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cool story! it inspires me to try harder on bike riding practice with my own kids
my daughter is turning 7 this fall and I bet she will be shocked that other kids her age can bike 20 miles!
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cool story! it inspires me to try harder on bike riding practice with my own kids
my daughter is turning 7 this fall and I bet she will be shocked that other kids her age can bike 20 miles!
Lol. I can barely bicycle a mile and I'm an adult. Though I am working on getting back into shape, so there's that.