Complete newbie, but people come up and ask how much I charge for a shoot?

I went out this afternoon and sat with my camera in the local park for an hour trying to get a feel for how the exposure triangle works. I was suprised at how many people took an interest in what I was doing.

A young girl came up saying she wanted photos of her baby, an elderly lady wanted pictures of her beloved pets, and a chap who owns a jewellers wanted to know how much I charged to shoot close-ups for his catalogue and website...

I was honest and said I was still new to photography. For the baby and the pets, I said as long as they didn't mind potentially bad pictures, I would do it free of charge and we swapped details. Seems like a good deal - I get free subjects to shoot, they get free pictures. The jeweller guy, however, was rather annoyed at me when I told him I had no experience, that my work would probably not be good enough for what he would want. I think he thought I was lying! It's a shame because I would have loved to have handled all these diamond rings

Out of all the times I have been out, this is the first that anyone had approached me and suddenly three come along at once. Maybe it is because I look more comfortable using the camera than I did when my first couple of sessions?

Is this normal??

I never had any interest in making money, I just want to have fun, but now I realise that in future a small income might help fund my camera bag. I also know I'd feel guilty taking money off people particularly young mums and old ladies.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation and if so, how did you go about it?