Remember that soap business my daughter started? Well, it's going strong. We've made four batches of soap now, and no one has gotten burned, maimed, disowned or divorced.
I consider that a success.
And an even greater success is the fact that Catherine isn't just interested in the soap-making. She's also getting into the BUSINESS side of the business. Last week, we sat down and figured out the materials cost for each variety of soap we are making, and set our retail prices. She learned how to calculate costs, and how, if we can buy supplies in bulk, her profits will go up.
She also learned about debt service, since I agreed to front this operation on the condition that I get paid back. (Eventually. We figured out that she's going to need to sell 750 bars of soap in order to pay back my initial investment, but even that didn't cow her.)
It is more fun than I expected to share my love of business with her, and to see her start to catch on to the concepts that drive any business, not just soap-making, forward. And now that she's got the finance basics handled, we'll move on to the fun stuff - sales!