First time making money?

What was the first time in your life you made some money?

I remember mine well. I was around 14/15 years old, I wanted to start selling Crocs (the shoes) on eBay. I got in touch with a supplier in China, agreed a price, and a few weeks later a big box of Crocs arrived. Next I had to open an eBay account. For that I needed a bank account, but I was too young to get one. So I had to get my Mother to co-sign at the bank to open an account

Looking back at it now it was first time I made some money, and the first time I felt some financial freedom to actually buy whatever I wanted. It was a great feeling

I would love to read stories of other peoples experiances on here.

 

One of the First times I made serious money was when I downloaded a guide off the internet in the mid 90's as a teen maybe around 14.
the guide showed me how to make fireworks from products that could be bought from a local farm co-op lol.
Then I made a bunch and sold them to the idiots at school. made a killing until my old man put a stop to it after catching me frantically running out of my bedroom with a flaming spark shooting pot of chemicals. ahaha.
good times

 

Smart! And halarious at the same time lol

 

I used to fish a lot as a kid & would sell fresh salmon to a local restaurant.

 

Really nice, how old were you?

 

Ive always been a hands on person, from 12-13 years old I used to mow the lawn on our family home dad would in turn give me some pocket money, $10 a week usually on a Friday arvo.

I hungered for more $ so I went around the neighborhood and asked if I could ''mow your lawn for 10 bucks''pretty much immediately I had 2-3 gigs every second weekend, this grew to 4-6 every Saturday morning, I kept this up till I was 15 or so.

Great little pocket money earner I loved it.

Timmy

 

I was doing paper rounds since a kid but my taste for expensive goods has always outpaced my funds. I have to work hard to save and it’s not easy nor does it ever feel like I’m cash-rich even during times that I am. But I do enjoy nice things to the fullest and I’m happy that I probably will never get bored in life

 

I love quality too, they way I can afford it more often is considering second hand goods.

Timmy

 

Mine was back in 70's when we finished a year in high school. The Bursar of the school asked if any students wanted to make some money doing some jobs like returns of text books and other general help for some small money. Was great, did a few days work and I picked up $35 or so. Couldn't believe it how rich I felt.

 

haha mate so true. I’ve just got sold selling all my stuff for the move back to Aus and those sob’s got some eye watering deals out of me ! FB marketplace will keep me busy next month

 

I made my first money when i was around 13 if i remember that right. I was distributing some brochures on the markets and was paid pretty good cash at that time.

 

Fruit picking. A real eye opener. Nothing like spending eight hours hunched over in a field picking strawberries for pocket change. Never got the strawberry stains out of my jeans either so I think I ended up losing on the deal financially but I got a lot more value from the education it gave me.

When picking fruit I would pick the ripe strawberries from the plant and then move on to the next plant to pick the ripe ones from them etc. Apparently I was doing it wrong. If you want to make money you strip the entire plant, whether they are ripe or not. You just put the unripe ones on the bottom of the punnet and cover them with a layer of ripe ones.

I was just using one punnet at a time but if you put two punnets inside each other you get credited for the weight of the second punnet as well as the berries.

You get your card clipped for every punnet you hand in, the clip is meant to change every day to stop people buying their own clipper and adding their own clips. But it doesn't and they do.

There are no toilets in the middle of a field. And nowhere to wash your hands. And you don't wear gloves when handling the berries, and they don't get washed before the punnets are wrapped.

Everyone in the field was working as a manager in a high paying job before they decided to destress and get back to a more natural lifestyle, apparently.

After that experience I decided to get a professional job and never employ anyone to do anything for me because there wasn't a person in that field who wasn't robbing the farmer blind. On the other hand, most of them were immigrants or transients, and the immigrants were being housed by the farmers who also fed them and usually at the end of the season the workers would owe more in rent and food bills than they made picking fruit. They deserved each other!

 

While in high school in the early seventies went to the Gloucester Park trots with my best mate, who later in life became a professional gambler for quite a few years. He picked the quinella we both backed it . Picked up $70 each. After a great night ended up arriving home with half.

 

I picked up some oddjobs when I was a teenager, but nothing ongoing or substantial.

Wasn't until I started working for an auntie who ran an indoor play centre did I have some regular income in my younger days.

Deep frying chicken nuggets and chips for kids of fatties who bring their kids in to play on indoor play equipment and eat rubbish food

Also remember in my younger days my old man bought me and my brother a modified Xbox (1st generation) to play non-original games on. Didn't take me long to figure out how to modify them myself, so ended up buying and modding Xboxes myself to sell to friends and on eBay etc.

I bought myself Gundam BB plastic model kits (google Gundam BB if you're not sure what they are )

I was also a good kid and bought my nan a nice little teapot set or something like that with my first pay

 

Washing dishes at my parents restaurant at the age of 12.
Since I had $ I then started hussling.
Found a importer and was buying pens & pencils, pencil cases and started selling them at school.
Until 1 day one of my class mates realised his dad was the actual importer and undercut me.

 

As a kid I worked like a dog for my father but only got room and board for that! First real job was at Magic Mountain as a ride attendant during holidays....so boring! Next holidays got a job at Cades County...much better views for a young fella. The pay was secondary at the time.

 

My dad uncle and gpa were all brick and stone masons so i spent every summer helping them since i was young.
I mixed mortar, carried bricks and built scaffolding and bought my first car from that money. I even continued working with my dad here and there when i needed money through my 20s.
I got paid fairly and it was hard work but the most fun was getting yelled at all day.
It was good times looking back but they could be bastards sometimes and there were times i wanted to throw the shovel at them and tell them to do it themselves.
I knew better than to do that!

 

First job out of school.
A local panel beater gave me a 2 week trial period.
On the last day, I was in the toilet and the foreman decided it would be funny to throw a bucket of water at me.
Wasn't so funny when I came out swinging at him

 

Cleared snow from driveways of neighbor's homes, $35/week per regular driveway.

Bought a ride-on snow plow for cheap at $400. The maintenance department at a stadium used it for their parking lot, they sold it cheap as they were getting a larger plow.
Looked a lot like this:


Contracted with 20 houses per week, $700/week gross during the winter.

Getting up at 04:00 every morning and had be done by 08:30, averaging 12-15 minutes per driveway.

After fuel, a second breakfast every morning and a few maintenance supplies it was around $600/week.

Sold the plow and the client list to a 'partnership' of three local kids for $700 when I left town for the military academy.