Hope 2021 will be a better year. As a kid under 12, how did you make money for stuff your parents couldn’t afford?

Talk about your new shoes, new car, or UFO's!
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olds442jetaway
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Hope 2021 will be a better year. As a kid under 12, how did you make money for stuff your parents couldn’t afford?

Post by olds442jetaway »

Picked strawberries for 5 cents a basket, shoveled snow for the neighbors, scaled baseball cards, played marbles, made Christmas Wreaths, mowed lawns, fixed up trashed bicycles and sold them, caught nightcrawlers at night or dug sandworms and sold them to fisherman who were low on bait. Probably a few more, but that’s what comes to mind. All of the above would be from age 8-11. Finally saved enough to buy my English 3 speed bicycle. 39.95. A lot of money back then.

onemoretry
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Post by onemoretry »

Had a paper route, and delivered newspapers.

billryan
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Post by billryan »

I would do some odd jobs for neighbors- watering their flowers when they went away for a few days, cutting lawns, so on. One year, my neighbor offered me $5 to paint a fence. As I usually got about $1 a day ,this was a jackpot. Especially since he paid me in advance. I'm starting two friends to Royal Crown Colas( 12 cents each as opposed to the White Rock that ran a dime each) when one of them says he would have done it for $3. A light went off and I hired him. $3 when the job was done.
Although both of my parents had large families, we really only saw my Mom's side and they spoiled us. My favorite Aunt came by about once a week, and would bring a bag of goodies- comics and baseball cards, a matchbox car or whatever was by the cash register.
My first real job was going into ninth grade I got the job of answering phones in the church rectory. I worked three nights and made $11 a week. I banked $8 a week , and $3 a week spending money undoubtedly helped my popularity as few of my friends had jobs.
In HS I was too busy with sports to have a regular job during the school year, but one summer I worked at Shea Stadium. I got lucky because that season, the Mets and Yankees played there so there was a lot of work. I didn't really save for things, I just saved. If I wanted something, my parents would usually buy it and tell me I had to do extra chores to work it off.

To quote a great English writer- "I think 21 is going to be a good year"

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

I also had a TV guide route, but I had just turned 12 then. Back then, TV Guide was 15 cents. I got a few cents for each one delivered. Tips were good. One or two neighbors gave ne a quarter instead of 15 cents and many of the others, 20 cents. I also picked up a few side jobs from those neighbors and because of that route that went about a mile in various directions, I met my first girlfriend. We remained lifelong friends, and she ran the class reunions. Sadly, she passed last year. She started smoking in high school and never stopped.

billryan
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Post by billryan »

My Sophomore year in HS, a friend was working in a pretty fancy Italian restaurant as a dishwasher when he called me one Sunday afternoon. One of the busboys had called in sick and the owner offered him the job but only if he got a replacement to wash dishes. I jumped on the chance as I always liked money.
It was horrible work- scrubbing pots and pans, and the kitchen was really hot. The only nice thing was the cook fed me really well. I started in the late afternoon and didn't get out of there until well after midnite. Went in a few days later and was shocked by how little I got paid. I think it was around $1.65 an hour, but they took out taxes and FICA and deducted $1 for my meal as well as not paying me for my thirty-minute break. Where I was thinking I'd made $20, I ended up with about $11. I couldn't believe anyone would work all day for $11. They called me a few times to see if I was available for a shift here and there, but I never was and they soon stopped calling.
I never heard of a tv guide route, I'm pretty sure they didn't have them in Queens. In my neighborhood, they had the Daily News which was in the morning, and the Long Island Press in the afternoon, so two kids out of a few hundred worked paperboy routes.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

Yeah, the TV guide was really easy to transport in the bike baskets. Back then in the late 1950’s, there were lots of stay at home moms. They were thrilled to get the guide to check out the latest Soap Operas. My mom was a stay at home mom and watched As The World Turns more years than I can count while doing housework. Black and white TV of course. I also got a few rare coins doing the route and some Indian head pennies sometimes. The best was a 1909s penny, no vdb, and a 1926s Buffalo nickel. One more a 1922 penny. All good ones. The 1916d Mercury Dime was in really poor condition unfortunately.

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