In reply to STM317 :
I'm of the opinion that everyone ought to have multiple sources of income. I don't much care for the term "side hustle", but that's the popular parlance nowadays. People talk about not having all their eggs in one basket, usually referring to their retirement/ investments, but what about the money that's actually coming in every month? You lose your job- bang, no more money coming in. Having something you do in addition to your primary occupation to bring in some cash every month helps mitigate that disaster- particularly if its something that's scalable now that you have more 'free' time (from not working the 40+ hours/ week). Plus its something the kids can learn and develop as a skill. My dad learned leather work from his dad- he never put it to use to earn money, but he had it nonetheless. What he did do was take his accounting skills from his "regular" job and turn a few bucks every year doing peoples' taxes. We also used to grow evergreens on some land we had, prune them, and sell Christmas trees every year. My dad told me a few years back that the Christmas tree money paid for our Christmas presents every year. And my brother and I used to help tend the stand (front of our house) so in essence we were working for our presents every year (I might have tried to sell a few more trees had I known that then!)
When I got older I worked for a garden center as a teenager, and they happened to sell Christmas trees. My dad had gotten out of doing it by then, so I used to go down to the garden center at Christmas and sell them there. I was one of their best salesmen, and they called me back every year to come sell trees.
Life skill: I can peddle dead evergreens to middle-class Americans who hallucinate about sugarplums dancing in their heads.