Start with change
Twenty dollars in ones and quarters means the first customer with a ten is not a problem. Ten ones, and the rest in quarters, in a tin with the lid off. If the price is a round dollar, you will barely touch the quarters, which is the point of a round price.
One box, one job
A shoebox or a tin for the money. Nothing else goes in it. Not the marker, not the phone, not the cookie. Bills flat in one spot, coins in another. A muffin tin with a slot for each coin is the fancy version and costs nothing.
Making change, counting up
The trick is to count up from the price to what they handed you, not to subtract. A cup is $2, they hand you a five: “two” (the cup), “three, four, five” as you hand over three ones. No subtraction, no mistakes, and the customer watches it happen. Practice it at the kitchen table the night before with play money or the real tin.
Keep a tally
A mark on a card for every cup, in groups of five. At the end you know exactly what you sold, which tells you what to make next time and whether the money in the tin is right. The tally board out front (“cups sold today: 37”) is the same card where customers can see it.
Count it together
- Count the tinBills first, then coins. Write the total down.
- Take out the change you started withThe twenty dollars goes back where it came from.
- Take out what the batch costLemons, sugar, cups, ice. The Starter Kit tells you the number.
- What is left is profitThat is the kid’s. The next question is what to do with it, and that is a whole other guide.
New to running a stand? The Starter Kit shows how to start a lemonade stand, and the lemonade stand permit rules in Oklahoma are one short read.