For those who can remember, what was your remuneration for the first job you ever worked?

  I started out by going around my neighborhood mowing lawns in the summer and shoveling snow off of sidewalks and driveways in the winter.  My marketing strategy in the summertime was that I would go to the houses with the most unruly lawns and make a sales pitch to cut the grass for $5. My only costs were refilling the lawnmower’s fuel tank.

  Hardly anyone passed up the opportunity to get that job done by someone else. My primary target demographic was elderly people or anyone else who might have difficulties doing the job on their own, and I quickly developed regular customers.

  Then in the wintertime, I’d return to those houses first to offer shoveling snow for them for $5. I’d also look for other houses, creating even more customers for both the winter and the summer.

  In an atmosphere of poor inner-city kids sitting around with little to do and few resources, I used my own initiative to get something started for myself instead of waiting for someone to come up with something for me, or getting into trouble. I liked my mini-entrepreneurship venture.

  I can’t remember how old I was when I started this venture, but it was before I was of legal age to work at a job where you file a W2, get a regular paycheck, and have taxes withdrawn, etc., so I might have been 10 or 12 years old. Neither can I remember how many years I did it, but it was replaced by a paper route job that I began next.
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