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When Gail Haynes?s daughters were seven and nine, she bought them each a rabbit?and ended up with a litter. The girls, Ashley and Caitlyn, sold the babies to friends and then decided to start a business. Ten years later, Ashley still runs Bunnyville, breeding and selling purebred rabbits. She?s also branched out into selling cages and supplies, and even wrote a book on how to care for rabbits.
?The girls had percentages of their money they could spend in various ways, as well as save and plan for larger purchases. They had that freedom and wanted to keep growing that ability,? says Haynes, who lives in Campbellville, Ont. A single mom who faced financial hardships because she?d never developed good money habits, Haynes vowed that she would teach her daughters about money management. But it can be tough to learn these lessons when you can?t legally get a job. Minimum age requirements differ in each province, but generally, employers are not allowed to hire children under 12. Chloe Johnson was nine when she started wanting all the same electronic gadgets her friends had, and her parents told her she would have to earn money to buy them herself. The Red Deer, Alta., family decided Chloe would take over the job of sorting all of their bottles bound for the recycling depot. Now 11, Chloe is still in charge of this task. Her parents drive her to the store, but she has to do all the work?and gets to keep the cash. Chloe?s grandparents, who spend half the year i...