What did do as a kid to earn money ?

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Sublime one said:
Basically a farm kid so all the usual hay bales etc. plus I was tall with broad shoulders so I lied about my age and got a job washing dishes at local dive. Played basketball into the wee hours of the morning with all the ex con dishwashers lighting up the court via car headlights. At one point one of the “old” waitresses pulled me aside and grabbed my hand looked me in the eyes and said “ Honey when you grow into these you call me” Hah, I was so young and naive I had no idea what she was even talking about! My fellow dish washers were howling! By end of summer she drug me into a walk in cooler. I figured it out!
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PS I am taking the Fith on my other sources of cash but Jimmer had a great plan all those years ago! Don’t tell me nobody else remembers the innovative flavored papers and wire inserted in the paper?
 
jimmer said:
I just remembered this one.
So I turned 16 the weekend the fair was in town.
My one friend lived right next to the fair .
So we got jobs at the fair and slept out in a tent. Lol
The carnies were something else !
It was party time at the tent !
My how fast life goes !
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Ok this just got seriously funny, we did same thing! Carnies rock!
 
Paper Boy. Delivered the city afternoon paper for years.
Cut grass.
Caddied at the country club, for the golfers.
Shoveled snow, in the wintertime. (Connecticut)
 
I stood on a corner with a sign that said, "Homeless Veteran, Anything Will Help."
Just Kidding!!!
I mowed grass, shoveled snow, delivering papers, doing whatever. When it snowed, I'd get up at 5:00 AM, do my regular customers, and then knock on doors after school for more.
BIG compliment to all of us. WE SEEM TO HAVE WORK ETHICS!!!
I am 71. When I was a kid, I had about a dozen regular lawn and snow removal customers. Most lawns were $1 and most sidewalks were 50 cents. We were very poor, so that money was used to buy my own clothes and going to movies, etc. I used to walk all around pushing my lawn mower and asking for mowing jobs. When is the last time a kid has knocked on your door and asked to mow your lawn or shovel your sidewalk??? I have been in my current house since I retired from the USAF in 1993. In all those years, I have had one kid knock on my door one time and ask if I wanted my driveway cleared of snow. He quoted a ridiculous amount, so I said no thanks. Kids nowadays do not want to work.
 
I'm in Michigan so .25 to rake a yard of leaves. Worked for my dad in his shop for $1.68/hr. Bought him out and doing better now.
 
My first job was the construction I was 14 and wanted to make some of my own money there was a gentleman that I went to church with that gave me a job as an pack mule lol my job was to carry lumber, tools, shingles etc and remove all the scrap and clean up the job site. I did alot of shoveling and the green horn stuff Noone else wanted to do. I did that for 2 summers along with mowing yards. I saved up enough money and bought my dart, a four wheeler, a Yamaha motorcycle and a Nissan truck. After I turned 16 and got my license I worked at foodlion. Then went to college and worked 2 jobs in college.
 
We put up hay for .03 per bale. Thought we were rich at end of each field. We would get 40 to 60 bucks for a weekend worth of work. We got very innovative and fired our driver, I set idle up on throttle so we would dog trot beside truck with steering wheel bungee corded down with no driver and just reach in every now and then make an adjustment. Then we spilt the payout two ways instead of three! Capitalism at a early age!
 
Man this is fun !
Atleast for me .
Thanks everyone for sharing !
 
jimmer said:
Man this is fun !
Atleast for me .
Thanks everyone for sharing !
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My Brother still lives in Elma just past Olympia and I swing out every summer to visit, I will send you a PM next summer. Might be a hoot to meet ya! I played hockey for many years out your way, lived in Graham played in Seattle and Tacoma.
 
Sublime one said:
My Brother still lives in Elma just past Olympia and I swing out every summer to visit, I will send you a PM next summer. Might be a hoot to meet ya! I played hockey for many years out your way, lived in Graham played in Seattle and Tacoma.
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Absolutely!
 
You asked,, so I use to trap rats in a small game spring trap by their leg.
I caught many in the tomato patch next to a old garage were the rats lived underneath it.....I had a fool proof bait that rats could not resist.... My grandfather gave me a nickel for every rat I caught and disposed of.
Later on I mowed lawns, delivered papers, stripped stolen cars in the woods for radiators, batteries or other parts but never made money on that venture and finally at about 16 I got a good job pumping gas which I did until after I graduated HS and went to work in the power house full time
 
So I also forgot at 16 I worked at a place called
Rax Roast Beef.
I was not there too long as the entrepreneur job I discussed earlier paid better , was more fun and had better benefits !
So a funny story about Rax.
My boss was an Asian dude named Lee.
So you got a free meal every shift you worked If you wanted it.
So I'm getting my meal and I get a shake.
He goes to put whip cream on it and I say no I don't like whip cream.
He says in an Asian accent oh so it not you eating da wheap cream !
I'm like nope !
But lol it was me not shaking it up and sucking out the the goods !
Man I'd get a headache later !.
Yep cases of flat whip cream.
 
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I didn't have an official job until I was 16, when I worked the last two summers in high school for a construction company with my dad in about 1998/99 - mainly doing all of the ***** work that no one else wanted to do. Then when I moved away to go to college, I worked in building maintenance during the school year and fought fires for the US Forest Service during the summers. I miss all of those jobs.
 
When I was young I shoveled snow out of sidewalks and driveways. At 13, I washed dishes in a restaurant, then at 15 pumped gas (for cash) at a gas station/garage. Did that until I graduated, then ran a turret lathe in a machine shop.
 
Paperboy, I still have the same route, except now I'm a paperman.
started driving the school bus to high school my second sofmore year.later i bartended my next to last senior year.
The way i figured it is, if i did two or more years in every grade, i'd be at least twice as smart as all the other's
 
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I remember sittin around the dinin room table shortly before Mama died, I was probably 18 I said if I'd been born a girl, there'd been a ***** in our family. Mama bout fell outta her chair.
 
I also was a country kid veneta Oregon, I did all the usual stuff chores help property owners with their chores but a couple of the more interesting things is I ran a trap line when I was about 13 and peeled chittom bark off trees and sold it to the hardware store by the pound,.chittom bark is from the cascara tree they dry it and they used to use it to make laxative. Then in the Summers I would go back to Nebraska and live with my uncle and drive tractor on the farms back there they never had enough help.
 
After the golf course season would end, I would buy 2cent candy from the local gas station and sell it for 10 cents.
I was also a greenhouse slave to my grandparents, they paid good but worked my *** off during the spring / summer, shoveling dirt, carrying plants, transplanting plants.

The best one was my step-son, one day my wife called me and asked where was my truck, she need it to haul a go-cart.
I was working out of town, and said its in the parking lot at work.
I also asked her, where did the kids get the money to buy a go cart, she started laughing and said....
I could not give him any crap, he would "borrow" some of his dads vhs porno tapes, copy them, and sell them at school for $10, then return the tapes to his dad and grab a few more, I guess his real dad must of had a huge collection, to not miss them.
He never got caught, but had $500 to buy a go cart.
 
I broke mortar off of bricks for a nickel a piece.
Picked raspberries & strawberries.
Grunt for my uncles excavation company
Helped my grandma on her paper route
Cleaned stables
Stacked hay.
Broke horses because the guy must have wanted me to die.
Lots of climbing trees, cutting em down, pruning.
Ran my parents metal recycling business from 12 up til I was 14, running scales, forklift operator & the till.
Lots of other stuff that I learned not getting paid which have made me money on later
I was a kid in the 80s.
 
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