What Did You Do To Earn Money As a Kid

I don't remember doing much of anything as a small kid to earn money. I have a bad memory though. I'm sure I did something! As a young teen, I started babysitting. I babysat for about four different families. I made fairly good money at that. I started working at a fast food restaurant when I was fourteen. I ended up working there for three years. I think when I started, minimum wage was something like $2.15 per hour! We've come a long way since then.

This post make me to think my childhood. Well, when I was kid I usally earn from scrap. I used to collect scrap like alluminum waste, old newspaper, cardboard sheet, glass bottle etc.. My moms is provide me with money when I help her etc... I usually spend for buying games and sweets

I babysat and had a paper route. I had a lemonade stand once, but we sold Kool-Aid. Our mom wouldn't let us go farther than the front yard, so we didn't get a lot of business.

I had a paper route for a short while and I did a lot of babysitting. I baby sat from the age of 12-17 until I got my first real job. Well, McDonald's.

I worked on a farm. Of course I got all the dirtiest jobs. Covered in sh*t, smelling terrible, but oh how great it was to have money in your wallet!

I remember the days when I had a lemonade stand. One time me and my friend had one in front of our house. At the end of the day I had made four dollars and I thought I was rich. I don't see many lemonade stands anymore though. I would also babysit and mow peoples lawns.

When I was a kid me and my sister had what we called a little wooden billy cart, and we lived near a couple of vacant blocks of land where I guess people would go to have refreshments and just leave the bottoles so we used to go collect the bottles and take them to what we used to call the bottlo, not sure kids would do that these days.

I think most of us tried having a lemonade stand and I think most of us didn't really make any money doing it. I just saw a young girl a couple doors down from me having a lemonade stand outside but she wasn't around for me to get a glass. She was charging 50 cents, I thought that was a bit high but I was still willing to pay it. But she didn't show up and I didn't want to wait around too long, I was tired and just got home from work. I delivered the newspaper for a couple years. That took about two hours a day and I earned pretty good, pretty good back then, I'm talking about 44 years ago, when I was 10. If I remember correctly I was making about $30 a week. Then when I turned 12 I was allowed to babysit and I babysat a lot for my mom's girlfriends. There were two sisters that loved to go to bingo and I would babysit for both of them at one of their houses just down the block from where I lived. I would get paid double because I was sitting for both of them. I loved it now that I think about it. Then when I turned 15 I worked in a retail clothing store that was high end and I got to buy my clothes for cheap and I got to wear nice clothes every day that I was working. That was pretty good too.

Wow does this ever take me back a LONG way! My parents belonged to this food club thing where we'd have frozen food delivered to fill our freezer every six months. The cool thing about that was that, even though the delivery guy always put the food in the freezer, he'd leave the boxes. I turned those boxes into all kinds of things, including a train. Now, being the industrious child that I was, I decided to make some money on my wonderful choo-choo and charged my friends a penny a ride. Believe it or not, they'd pay! Oh, it wasn't just sitting in a box going nowhere, I was the engineer and I'd take them all over the place, in their minds, anyway. I always had quite an adventure planned with each "trip". Sadly, once my mother caught on to my business endeavour, she put a halt to it and made me give the money back. At 11 I built my own snowball stand. I made the flavoring myself. Well, with my mother's help, I did. Okay, so she made the flavorings. I got free spoons from our friendly neighborhood Good Humor man and my mother and a neighbor helped me get the ice, the ice shaver, the makings for the flavors, etc. I have no idea how much my snowball business cost them but I made $4.00 that first summer and I definitely felt rich. (The snowballs were sold for 3 cents, 5 cents and 10 cents so I sold quite a lot of snowballs!)

I babysat. Didn't really know much about their care but had the motherly instinct so that helped. I also had some understanding parents who overlooked and were nice enough to direct me when I needed it. I can remember watching the moon shuttle while the little one slept. It was a good gig.

When I was a kid, I use to man my aunt's sari-sari store. I make money from that. If I remember it right, she gives me 5 at the end of the day. I also pick some sampaloc and calamansi from our backyard and sold it. At home, I used to make paper bags and sold it to my auntie to use it in lieu of plastics. (Wow, I just realized, I'm already an environmentalist at a young age.)

The youngest I could remember is when I tried to sell seeds for the American Seed Company. There was a bicycle that I wanted and some other things like telescopes. A year or two later, I sold a small magazine door to door. Some people would buy the magazine. The bag was very heavy. But there were some adults who would say, "I'll pay you next week." So I'd give them the magazine. And when I came next week, they weren't home. I wasn't a good entrpreneur because the money I did make was spent on candy. So mostly, my grandmother paid the money for what I sold. We sent those not sold back to the company.

Nowadays, you can't even have a lemonade stand, the government wants you to have a $400 permit just to set up one. Little kiddies don't even make that much selling lemonade.

I used to watch cartoons and tv shows where th ekids made lemon stands in order to earn some cash for themselves. I always liked the idea but never tried it myself. It looked fun though. Anyway what I ddi to earn money was, I am a really good knitter, if I should say so myself Anyway I knitted scarves and mufflers and sold them to my aunts and relatives and their friends. And since i was a kid, they'd buy it from me and sometimes not take the changes too Too bad one isn't a kid forever hehe!!

I can remember doing Lemonade stands, even did a Carnival one time, and remember being around 10 and going and selling May day baskets. Problem was we were picking flowers out of people's flower gardens and selling them in baskets, etc. we had made. We actually were doing pretty good with this until someone got mad because we got caught picking flowers from her Flower garden without asking, and even called out parents letting them know what we were doing.

I remember that with my friends, I used to go around people's houses asking if they needed any jobs doing, like cleaning the car or some gardening. At one time, we were cleaning windows. People wouldn't give a great deal of money, but I think I learned a lot about how money didn't come too easily. _Derek

I helped my grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side with daily household chores. My grandfather rewarded me with one or two coins. When I helped my grandmother on my father's side I didn't get any reward in money. I had a verbal 'thank you' from my grandmother.

I lived on a farm so my dad always gave us an allowance for helping do chores and with haying. Twice a year my brothers and I along with a dozen or so neighborhood kids helped a local chicken farmer catch pullets to load on trucks. I also did baby sitting and collected pop bottles to return for a 2 cent deposit.

wow ,you are all so great. getting money as a kid. i dont have any idea to earn money when i was a kid. of course poeple who are here as well. it's serious

Generally, we cannot forget our sweet memories of our childhood. I am happy to read childhood feelings. At the same time, your message remember my childhood.