The neighborhood bake sale is a right of passage for kids across the globe.

But what happens when one kid puts in all the work, and the parent of the other tries to take what isn’t theirs?

In this story from Reddit, it’s a good thing the author kept the receipts.

Literally.

You want to make things fair? I’ll show you fair.

A couple of weeks ago my kids and their neighbors decided to have a bake sale.

We live in a tourist area with high foot traffic, and the kids make a killing.

Sounds like a prime location to make some real money for these kids!

I tell the kids I ought to charge them for the labor (I said I’d help bake) and ingredients so they learn the concept of net gains, but instead I’ll donate to their cause, and just to bring me back the money I lent them to make change.

I love seeing the kids be entrepreneurial, work so hard, and get so excited at their success.

The kids are making money, they seem happy, it’s a win so far.After a couple of hours, the neighbor’s son decides he’s bored and wants to go home, so he tells my kid, “when you’re done, come by and deliver half the money.”

Mine says, “hey, that’s not fair, if you’re leaving we should split the money now.”

Mind you, the bulk of their sales was my baking.

Neighbor kid gets super angry, but mine sticks to their guns, they split the money and the kid leaves in a huff.

Mine comes in a few hours later, having lugged home all the gear and cleaned up, annoyed that the neighbor kid got annoyed at them.

Time for the adults to get involved and ruin everything!

Then I get a knock on the door.

It’s the neighbor’s mom, with the kid, who is still pouting. Mom’s holding a receipt.

Mom explains that they purchased a bunch of stuff for the bake sale, it cost a lot of money, and it’s not fair that my kid is making money off their stuff, and that they should be compensated for what they purchased.

The receipt lists a bunch of items I immediately see they didn’t use (like 2 boxes of cereal, when they used 1, napkins that I’d ended up providing), but whatever.

And never mind that her son went home early and left mine to clean up.

And never mind that I’d been churning out batches of cookies all morning.

Be careful what you wished for mom, because the author kept the receipts, too.

I’m irked they’ve taken what was a fun, cheerful day of kids making money hand over fist, and shown up at my door making me engage in a super awkward conversation because they assume their kid can’t be wrong.

So I say, “of course!” and fetch my receipts.

Here. We. Go.

I sit down and (in front of them, and out loud) calculate the cost of lemonade, and cups used.

I calculate the cost of flour, sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla and butter per batch of cookies, multiplied by the number of batches made.

I toss in the baking soda for free (so generous). I even subtract the value of leftover cookies.

Did I mention I made a lot of cookies? The neighbor kid has to fork over $23.

They got pretty quiet all of a sudden.

I thanked the lady for making sure things were fair, and offered her a plate of cookies to take home.

She declined.

She came to the door expecting a profit, and left $23 lighter.

But hey, at least they got a plate of cookies for their trouble!

Let’s see what the commenters on Reddit have to say about this one.

Top comment says that everyone learned something on this day.

Others praised this parent for raising an independent child who isn’t afraid to stand up for themselves.

Many thought the business was a great idea, with one commenter saying they could have taken things a step further.

Some shared stories of their own successful summer business endeavors.

One comment said that the experience might have opened a whole new career path for this kid!

A couple commenters mentioned that though they acted immaturely in the beginning, even the boy who went home early might have learned a valuable lesson by the end.

And one commenter was that boy, back in the day.

The lesson here?

If you’re going to keep the receipts, make sure you do your accounting correctly!

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.