When and did you make your very first money? What, why and how did you use it?

My first real job was working at a an auto detail shop after school and on weekends at 16. Bought a used Yamaha motorcycle.
 
Worked summers with my father raking joints @ 8 YO, Hod-carrier @ 11-15, worked at Safeway bakery 16-17, joined USAF @18.rest is history. Probably bought comic books. @16 bought a purple HenryJ.
 
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The first thing that I really got paid for was spinning cotton candy at about 16. A friend of my dad's had a food and snack trailer that he ran as a part time job on the weekends at a large Penny's Outlet Store in the Atlanta area. He took me on and trained me how to run the cotton candy machine and how to swirl up those nice big fluffy sticks that we all loved so much.
 
My Dad had a riding lawn mower and he said if I paid for the gas I could use it to mow lawns and make money. So I did and at the end of the summer I bought myself a bright, shiny 1963 Stratocaster. The guy I bought it from said he bought it new for $260 but had only played it a few times. He wasn't as interested in playing guitar as he thought. So he sold it to me for $100. When I showed it to my Dad he was impressed. And I never put a scratch on his lawnmower...

That guitar would be worth a small fortune now.
 
Aside from a little babysitting for neighbors which paid very little in San Diego when I was still in elementary school I didn't earn much money. Then in the summer between 7th and 8th grade I carried out purchases from the commissary in DC. While in 8th grade I assisted my older brother with his early morning paper route for small cut.

Later I was able to work an occasional weekend graveyard shift at the donut shop where my mother worked. The next year when she moved to waitressing at an all night restaurant called the Steak in a Sack I washed dishes in the back room occasionally on the weekends.

When we returned to San Francisco in the summer of 69, I got a job clerking at Safeway which gave me some pocket cash while finishing high school. I was eager to have my own money.
 
My very first 'money paying' job was mowing lawns. I had about half a dozen yards, 3-6 dollars per lawn.

The first three dollars would fill a 5 gallon gas can. The rest was profit.

I spent my money on baseball cards, football cards, candy, fishing hooks and sinkers, bobbers, etc.

I actually had a coffee can I kept my money in. I honestly had no idea what ever happened to it. I guess I eventually spent it.
 
We were not paid for babysitting relatives. It was just expected of you. After high school I took classes at a local college and job hunted. After a year I landed a pretty good job at a national laboratory. Two years later at 19, in 1958 I bought my first car, a light blue 1952 MG TD for $1100.
 
Babs2u said:
We were not paid for babysitting relatives. It was just expected of you. After high school I took classes at a local college and job hunted. After a year I landed a pretty good job at a national laboratory. Two years later at 19, in 1958 I bought my first car, a light blue 1952 MG TD for $1100.
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I was 21 in 1958 not 19.
 
Babs2u said:
We were not paid for babysitting relatives. It was just expected of you. After high school I took classes at a local college and job hunted. After a year I landed a pretty good job at a national laboratory. Two years later at 19, in 1958 I bought my first car, a light blue 1952 MG TD for $1100.
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WOW. Very cool car. Bought my 59 MGA for $250.00 when I was 15 1/2; then it took 6 months to restore it, with another $300.00. It was white with black top and black tonneau cover. My freedom machine!
 
pcspark said:
Like many other, my first money was made through a family member, yard work, mowing lawn, pulling weeds.
My first money made outside of immediate family was fixing a friends computer, then their dads computer, then all the years later I'm still cheerfully doing tech support today!
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I wish I'd hooked up with a relative or someone with a garden to get paid to care for. But I did flunky work for a couple of carpenter uncles. It was a workout at least.
 

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