my cupcake is better than your cupcake ....

cupcake war corkboard
When my daughter was younger her school would have a bake sale every month.

Every month.

(every grade took a week so there was a steady supply of junk being fed to our children on Friday afternoons)

I am not a baker. I am not even an almost baker.

(although I do have a very nice kitchen mixer gathering dust on my counter)

Also this baking took a lot of time.

There were a couple mothers in charge of this stuff (the mothers who were always in charge of this kind of stuff) and maybe they did like to bake. I will never know. I do know that for the rest of us, by the time our kids were in 3rd grade and we had been doing this every month since they were in kindergarten we were kind of baked (and not in a good way) out.

I knew there had to be a better way to make the $100 a month we made from these sales. One month I decided to just take matters into my own hands.

(this was most likely right after the 'alleged' food poisoning incident I alluded to in a post a couple years back which some people in town still haven't forgotten - let it go Mrs. H - but which most importantly cannot be held against me in a court of law)

Anyhoo, I had the idea to sell letters from Santa to the parents to raise money instead. I made my suggestion to the "couple mothers in charge of this stuff" and the conversation went something like -

me - "you know maybe we could do something other than bake sales once in a while - give the moms a break and throw some new energy into this raising money thing"

I showed them the order form and Santa letter I had come up with. "I'll just donate the stamps, paper and envelopes", I said.

(I must have been pretty desperate to get back into people's good graces)

supermoms - "well, we don't know Carol"
me - "Cat ... my name is Cat"
supermoms - " oh rrighttt ... well, I guess if you really want to do it - anything for the kids right!"

(and yes, in my memory they really did talk in unison like that)

So, long story short - we sold over 100 letters at $3 a piece. I was very pleased with my little feat and already thinking ahead to letters from the Easter Bunny (and whether it would be illegal or just slightly unethical to do letters from Superheroes) when I opened my daughter's bookbag to find the dreaded monthly reminder:

Please circle and return to school with your child by Monday.
I will bake:
 36 cookies
24 cupcakes
1 cake

What?! Hadn't we just raised enough money to put this whole baking thing to bed for a couple months?! I dialed the supermoms.

"yes, Carol, that letter was a great idea, it did very well - we will put that money to good use, but the bake sales - well, they get everyone involved and everyone really loves them"

(everyone but the bakers I was thinking)

I circled 36 cookies.

(and yes, I do see that getting everyone involved - sometimes has its advantages - and I will admit I was looking forward to the high fives I would no doubt be getting from the other non-supermoms when they heard they would not have to do any baking for 3 months, I did have the implied - but never proven remember - poisoning incident to atone for after all, but I still think this more is more thing is how we all make ourselves totally nuts)

Now, this story popped into my head last night because hubs and I had made a change in something for his business that is netting us an extra $250 a month. $250 a month that he was starting to make plans for at the same time I was thinking "great, now since X is working, let's stop doing Y".

Time is the most precious thing we've got, folks.

This is a battle that unlike the cupcake war I am determined to win.

I hope you are having a beautiful day wherever you are - we finally have some sunshine here! xo all

4 comments

DancingMooney said...

Ha! This makes me laugh because, just as soon as we refinanced the house and I was thinking, cool, our outgoing expenses are now less than before... we went along and got hubby a new truck (it was time to trade the Jeep in, no way around it) but the payments on his new truck are higher than the Jeep, so the money we saved on the mortgage monthly, is now going out to the truck payment instead. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that our auto insurance has gone up too. Oy!

Catherine Ivins said...

I know that always happens- what is that? With our $250 - he is charging for something he didn't before and this is kind of an estimate, but I want him to leave earlier on Saturdays in the summer so said this will make up for that, but he wants to see more as more ... I'm ok to break even and get more time out of it at the moment ...

DancingMooney said...

More time, that's what I'm trying to see with this truck we got. I mean, hubby has always been a truck guy and he drove that little jeep around all these years so we could save money and get things in order, but the real reason we NEED a truck is so he can tow his boat... Hopefully that means we'll actually find the time to get that thing in the water this year, or else! LOL :D

Catherine Ivins said...

being able to tow a boat is the best reason ever to get a new truck! yes, get that thing in the water! xo