I thought that it would be fun to list all of minimum wage (or near-minimum wage) jobs that I worked as a teenager and a young adult. I’ll list these in order, and then have a comment at the end.
14 — Field Laborer on a Blueberry Picker
15 — Mowed Lawns and Babysat Local Kids
15 — Scorekeeper For Recreation Department
16 — Salesclerk at J.C.Penney
17 — Pharmacist’s Assistant
18 — Furniture Delivery Assistant
19 — Janitor
19 — Math Tutor
20 — Computer-Lab Assistant At College
20 — Wal-Mart Distribution Center Stocker
21 — Fast Food (For 10 Weeks One Summer)
These were the jobs that I had before I began my real “career”. I made minimum wage working all of these jobs, except for the Wal-Mart job, where I made about $1.00 above minimum wage.
I’ve been working for the last 18 years. The longest I’ve gone without a job during that time is about 2 weeks. In other words, I’m a pretty hard working dude. Guess what? For the first 16 years of my working life, I managed to save exactly ZERO dollars. In fact, after 16 years of working, I was nearly 12,000 dollars in debt. I turned my personal finances around when I realized that I was working, and working, and working, and I had NOTHING to show for it. Now, in less than 2 years, I’ve managed to get out of debt, save some money, and turn my financial life around. Trust me, if I can make a change for the better, you can too! Stop buying things you don’t need, get on a budget, get out of debt, and take control of your finances. It feels awesome to be “in control”.