We lived in Montana when I was a kid. It snowed a lot there. When it snowed my next door neighbor, my younger sister, my little bro and I went out shoveling snow off walks so we could buy a little food. The last part is an exaggeration, our parents took good care of us, we just shoveled walks because we could make a lot of money doing it and we were apparently greedy little capitalists.

So when it snowed, we picked up our snow shovels and out we went. We went to a house where the walks had not been shoveled and quickly half-shoveled a narrow path to the front door. I sent my little bro to knock on the door and tell the home owner that we would like to shovel their walks and they could pay us whatever they wanted when we were done. They always said go ahead and do it. Better than doing it themselves. So we worked hard and cleaned the walks up nice.

Then my little bro went to the door to collect. We sent the little kid up there without a coat, looking cold, tired and hungry. Well, not quite that bad but he was little, cute and quite irresistible. The rest of us grouped behind him with expectant looks. The grateful homeowner nearly always paid us very well. If they didn't, we didn't hesitate to ask for more. We'd shame them into paying up if we had to.

We didn't make enough to retire at the age of 10 but we made so much money it surprised our parents. We used pretty much the same blueprint for other money making schemes when there was no snow to shovel. We mowed lawns and sold all sorts of stuff door to door.

I wish we'd had a snowblower and craigslist, we could have made even a lot more with less work.