The Bottom Line

After adding a fourth goal to our list of goals for Shafer…Power! earlier this evening – Earn Some Spare Change – I broke into an income statement to see if I could still pull one together.  After all, if part of the entrepreneurial journey is learning about money – and how to make it – we might as well keep track of the bottom line, right?

As I completed the first income statement, I realized it’s probably too complicated for the kids, so I made one for them as well.  On their spreadsheet (2012/Kids) I decided to simplify the numbers for them and I also color coded it.  I’m not sure multiple income statements will stick, however, as I’m trying to oversimplify things for everyone’s sake.  Trying to keep two separate income statements will probably end up being too cumbersome and will most likely go away.  Let’s see what the kids think.

As you review the numbers, you will see we got Shafer…Power! off the ground in April, 2012.  We had a pretty good thrift sale and I decided to match our earnings so we have some money in the pot to play with.  I also secured the shaferpower.com domain name as I prefer it over a WordPress domain (i.e. wordpress.shafer.com).  The kids’ earnings were far less since they only received money for some books and toys they sold.

I’ll try to update these on a monthly basis going forward which will force us to think of ways to generate new revenue.  We already talked about hosting a neighborhood coffee stand and the kids were very excited about it.

Do you have any ideas for small projects the kids can do to earn money?

Update (5/26/12): The numbers below are a YTD snapshot for Shafer…Power!  They will change monthly when I update the google document where I track our financials.  Also, the kids spreadsheet shows income only as our focus today is on generating revenue as opposed to actual profits.  Trust me, some day that will change!

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