If the U.S. economy is running into trouble, you can’t blame our family. This summer, the cup of entrepreneurialism hath been running over to such a degree that cash is now absolutely sluicing around the household.

I keep coming across little piles of coins, and wadded up dollar bills stuffed into small handbags, and damp, folded-up currency stuck to the insides of the washing machine. There’s money jingling in sundress pockets and cargo-pant pockets and coin purses and in the bottom of the bag we use to carry towels to the swimming pool. The place, as I say, is awash in legal tender — and none of it is mine. It all belongs to our children, four out of five of whom have discovered during this recession-teetering summer how to turn spare time into hard cash.