I use eBay to teach kids how to make money

As long as I can remember, I have had a side hustle. My first time side hustling was to make enough money to go on a choir trip in the 4th grade. The trip was $450 and I knew my mother didn’t have it to give me. So I called my Grandmother.

“I need you to help me start my first business,” I told her. She humored me and asked me what I needed from her. I smirked and looked into the phone as I spoke because I thought that was what businessmen did.

“Cookies. I need lots of cookies.”

No offense to my mother but there is no one on earth who makes cookies better than my Grandmother. No one. She agreed to make the cookies for me and I started dealing with immediate success. I sold to students, teachers, school administrators, crossing guards, parents, dogs, whoever would buy these cookies. I sold $1255 worth of cookies in two months. I was hooked. The side hustle became my way of life.

My latest side hustle is eBay. I love everything about it. Buying and selling basketball cards, jerseys and sneakers give me a rush! I wanted to give my students the gift of side hustle while teaching them how to handle money. Grassroots financial literacy and entrepreneurship at its best!

Why eBay?

eBay is a phenomenal playground for students to learn to make and spend money. They never have to meet up with a person, never have to share pictures or videos of themselves and don’t even have to message buyers if they don’t want to! eBay is the safest, high risk, money moving tool we can use.

Does it work?

YES! Kids love this! The first thing I did was give them all a random item that I bought from Goodwill. In order to learn product value, they had to guess what the item was worth, then try to switch items with another student solely based on what they think the items are worth.

Next, they looked up their items worth on eBay, create a listing and attempt to outsell the other listings on eBay.

With the money from their first sell, they created a wishlist from eBay and had to buy and flip all the items on their wishlist.

It is working! Students are talking about what things cost, what they should cost, the products they love and HOW to acquire them.

The big WHY?

Why is flipping items on eBay important? Why is this novel? Because it makes money real. If you’ve ever spoken to a middle or high school student, you will quickly realize that most have no idea how much things cost. Yet, most adults rave about teaching “financial literacy” in schools. So many people are trying to teach students to balance checkbooks, save money and to invest money. The problem is, most kids don’t have money.

If you want kids to learn about financial responsibility, it helps if they have actual money to be responsible with.

Thanks for reading! This is just one of the crazy workshops I get to run this year! If you want to know more, please reach out and let’s talk!