He stood outside the state fair grounds all 11 days this past August and sold completely frozen bottles of water for $3 which he bought 36 bottles for $2.50. Inside the fair slightly cool water is $5. He kept selling them as his older brother kept bringing cases in the car fresh from the freezer. Then one would sell outside of one entrance, the other a different entrance. Cars would pass by slowly while they were in line to get in. Water is the only carry in the fair allowed. After the fair was over they both split a profit of over 8K. No help from anyone else. Just a 12 year old and a 16 year old.
Impressive that he managed to fill out the paperwork for setting up a retail outlet and getting the appropriate vendor permits all on his own. I also assume that he paid the appropriate sales tax for the state and county? I know that can be a pain.
And of course, the 16 year old must have been doing something right, to have been able to afford to buy a car all on his own to be able to facilitate this business enterprise.
Good also that this was enough for him to cover the bills that he is obviously paying all on his own in order for him to be reasonably compared to people who have to pay bills for rent, utilities, food and clothing for themselves and their children, and the like, and not just a completely irrelevant anecdote of a child with no actual fiscal responsibilities being in a fortunate position to make a bit of money as a one time deal.
Some might see thinking that profiting $105.50 on $2.50 of actual worth is a virtue as the root of the problem here.
Kinda like charging $100,000 for a degree that can’t even guaranty a minimum wage job for its holder.
No one else had the vision or energy to do this, or no one else had the connections in the local constabulary to ensure they didn’t get arrested?
I wasn’t, in any case, claiming that no 12 year old manages to have $1500 ready to hand. I was pointing out that to a very large number of adults, this is genuinely a large amount of money.
If in your family that’s pocket change – yes, I’m well aware there are families like that.
I also note, in addition to what’s been said here by others, that your 12-year-old was apparently sufficiently able-bodied to stand out in traffic all day; had nothing else he needed to be doing with his time; had a willing older brother who had a drivers’ license but no other job he couldn’t take two weeks off from; that there was a functioning car available that nobody else in the family needed for close to two weeks; that the children had available to them functioning freezers with lots of spare room in them and the electric bill paid for, and also access to enough cash up front to buy the first batch of cases of water at $90 a case.
Actually it’s a solution. He Sold a product for less than what is charged inside the park. And it was superior as it was frozen solid. In the August heat it liquified quickly but remained cold. You know, the proverbial better mousetrap.
[quote="thorny_locust, post:485, topic:970242, full:true] and also access to enough cash up front to buy the first batch of cases of water at $90 a case.
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WTF are you talking about? They bought 36 count cases @ 2 cases for $5 even at Woodmans. They reserved palates of them.
I’m quite proud of their work ethic. Revealing how the rest of you loath their capitalistic endeavor.
Right, depriving the people who actually paid for permits and licenses of revenue, along with sales taxes to the local and state government.
How much per pallet, and did they pay upfront?
Next year, do you expect to see a bunch of kids out there selling water? Or do you think that the venue would shoo them off, as they probably should have your grandson?
That’s quite the non-sequitur and jump to conclusion. I can only assume that you didn’t bother to read the posts actually in their context, and jumped on the first thing that you could find to express your outrage about?
I also assume that, as this thread is about student debt, you have shared this story in some relation to that, and that maybe this is your grandon’s plan to pay for college?
You said he
I thought you meant the bottles were 2.50 each if purchased in packs of 36. If the whole case was $2.50, then that makes sense of @crowmanyclouds’s post about the markup.
I don’t buy bottled water. I have no idea what it sells for; or what size the bottles were.
Revealing how you assume that I loathe it, just because I pointed out a) that lots of people can’t do it and b) that your nephews didn’t do it entirely on their own with no help from anybody.
The point you appeared to be originally trying to make was that anybody ought to be able to easily come up with $1500. The point I’m trying to make, and which you appear to be dodging, is that this isn’t true. Whether the particular children you know should be praised at being quickminded and hardworking enough to make money by undercutting somebody else’s capitalistic endeavor has nothing to do with it. (Whether they should be taught that they were lucky to be in a position to do so, instead of being taught that anybody who wasn’t lazy could have done the same, is another matter.)
To be fair, his original point was to tell me that I was pathetic for not being able to come up with $1500, completely ignoring how I specifically said that I could and that it was an insignificant amount to me.
But, as you very rightly point out, a large portion of our fellow citizens cannot, and that’s a problem. One that is not addressed well by an anecdote of a child getting a windfall from filling in a niche that no one was was filling, as it was most likely illegal for him to do so.
I have to wonder if @pkbites has similar admiration for those making a living off of selling drugs, or if he loathes their capitalistic endeavors.
Or even loose cigarettes.
Completely frozen?
Then they must’ve opened every bottle first before freezing.
And what good is ice when you want a drink of water right now!
I just assumed that they were selling split water bottles that, as they thawed, dumped water all over the customer and their car.
If it’s insignificant to you, why haven’t you just paid it off?
Why should I pay off a loan early?
It’s what was left when it went to deferment at the beginning of COVID. I pay no interest on it. I planned on probably just paying it off once repayments started up. I don’t think I’ll bother to apply for forgiveness, as, while I did suffer economic hardship during the pandemic, I’m not really suffering any such hardship now.
OTOH, why shouldn’t I? I mean, I could use an extra $1500, if it’s being offered to me.
Why would they have to open the bottles before freezing? We’ve used frozen water bottles as an icepack in a cooler, and when it melts a bit, you have ice cold water to drink. No breakage, splitting, or spillage.
It would be fiscally irresponsible to pay off a loan that is on the verge of being forgiven.
You’re right about that. If you weren’t paying interest due to the deferment, there wouldn’t be a benefit to paying it off early.
It’s not on the verge of being forgiven. First, President Biden and Speaker Pelosi both said the President didn’t have that power. Later, when he pulled the “pen and phone routine”, it was blocked by the Courts, and could be tied up for years.
This is completely irrelevant. You know this doesn’t matter in the slightest, right?
And it would still be fiscally irresponsible to pay off his student loan in the current circumstances.