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.
