This week, I thought of a little project that the family could work on for our home based catering business. We needed a new stove rack really badly. Our current stove rack was meant for regular family home cooked meals. As our customer base grew to more 50, we somehow managed to still cook on this, despite growing from family-sized 12 inch woks to business-sized 25 inch woks!
"Necessity is the mother of invention" they say.
For me, "High price makes you do it yourself"!
Checking out the prices for stainless steel cook racks, most of them ranged from RM800 upwards and they were all the wrong size for our kitchen. Since I'm a Do-It-Yourself guy, I decided I'd build my own. Then I thought that it would be a nice project that my kids could also get involved with.
To cut a long story short, after 5 days (about 1 hour each evening), 2 broken drill bits (cheap brand), daily grumbling match between my kids and an accidental hammer whack on my thumb, we completed our shiny new aluminium-top stove rack. I opted for quality lumber so that the rack would last us a long time. Total cost came up to RM120.
Our finished work - a shiny new aluminium top stove rack
The final touch was to add our signature to our new stove rack. We turned the rack upside down and instead of just writing our names on the underside of the top, we each drew a picture.
Artists at work
Sam drew his favorite thing - a car. Sara, our resident artist and creative messy maker painted our house. Mum painted a rainbow heart. And Papa? Well it started off as an abstract triple 8 (the chinese word for 8 sounds like "luck") but Sam and Sara says it looks like a crazy blob made up of colorful molecules.
I'd say we completed our little family and home business project with flying colors! Saved a lot of money and got the whole family working together... but the most important thing was teaching my kids that they're never to young to contribute to the family's business (income).
2 of my most-est favorite people in the whole wide universe, Sara & Sam
After the project, we treated ourselves to a trip to McDonald's for ice cream. Okay, so now the total cost of the project came up to RM130.47. Now you know how I scrooge my way to make a profit 
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hmm, great to hear that business is expanding and you are having some helping hands.. congrats! love those drawings. you seem creative as well getting the kids to participate.
You should know too Jen... business has its ups and downs. Hopefully ours have more ups than downs..
heh. heh. Yeah, those helping hands are super wonderful kids. Sara seems to have inherited our artistic abilities. Sam got the creative literary genes. Works out quite well.
And you know what? If you have a couple of kids yourself, then you don't have to look for part-timers to help you with packaging your eBay.stuff. Have to wait a couple of years though....
yes, i was having that thought about kids packing stuff for me.. wahaha, but my mom is helping me though now. Thank god. and i can ask her opinion when I needed it. Well, did save me more time.
Heh... my kids tell me I wrap stuff (even presents) like a six year old.
Nobody packs stuff as neatly as moms... you at least belanja her char-kuey-teow now and then I hope