If you have four kids who want to be an engineer, a doctor, a veterinarian and Spiderman, they need to start earning their own money early and the Monge-Grassi family near Wakefield are doing it with kindling.
Thomas, 12, Isabella, 10, Oliver, 7, and Mateo, 2, spent time every day through summer collecting and cutting kindling so they can achieve their dreams.
“I didn’t want to go and do it, but I wanted the money,” Oliver confesses.
It began last year when Thomas was selected for Nelson Suburbs Football Academy and it was going to cost a lot of money, so he needed to earn some to pay for it and he cut kindling which he advertised on Facebook.
“We got lots of donations last year and people were very kind,” he says.
That led to the rest of his siblings joining him this year to help pay for their various sports.
“Things are expensive nowadays and they want to do everything,” their mum Louise says. “They didn’t like the idea at the time, but now they see the money going into their bank account, they do.”
Through summer they worked for an hour every day collecting and cutting kindling – with the help of a kindling cracker this year – and then had to wait until May before they could begin selling it which Louise says was a lesson in patience as well.
Now they are collecting not just for sports and hobbies but the possibility of university, and Louise says they need to start early to make it easier when they are studying.
“We’re not in a position where we are going to be able to pay for everything for them, so I’d rather teach them now, how to put some money aside. In Year 13, I was working 15 to 20 hours a week and it was hard balancing work, sport and studying.
“It doesn’t matter what career they choose. It’s about having options and having the money in the bank when they’re in Year 13.”
For the past two years, Thomas and Isabella have had another “little side hustle”, sewing material gift bags to replace the wrapping paper and tape that ends up in the rubbish. Having a mum that has a sewing business has helped and now the pair make a range of bag sizes including one big enough to be a Santa sack which they take to markets where Louise sets up a stall.
Through the year they make about 25 bags every week, and in the holidays they push that to 50 a week. The pair are practised with the sewing machine now, with Louise doing the finishing touch, though they will soon be able to take over that role as well.
If that is not enough, all of the siblings have begun propagating strawberry plants and are halfway through propagating 3,000 plants for sale. They even have a Facebook page set up now, Nelson’s Kindling Kids, where customers can order kindling or strawberry plants and organise delivery.
Louise says the kids are learning about what they can achieve by working hard and “it’s the reality when you choose to have four kids”.
