At what age did you start working/saving?

[KFC911]

Some other threads made me curious....

I think I was probably 13....mowing lawns for elderly neighbors for $. Of course I'd been "working" for a while by then, no allowance.
I'll be forever grateful to my parents for that

[widgeon13]

Freshman in HS, worked on a farm. Whatever was necessary.

[sugarwood]

First job age 14.
Started saving then.

High school jobs spanned:
Busboy.
Car Wash.
Food Delivery Boy.
Cashier
Laborer.

Then I went off to college and I've never really "worked" like that ever since.

[wdfifteen]

I grew up on a farm, so I was working from the age of 8 or so, but not getting paid. Dad sold the farm when I was 12, and the following spring I was bailing hay for local farmers. I opened my first savings account at 16 or 17. I've never been unemployed, except for the couple of years after I quit my career. I was working 80 hrs a week but my business wasn't making much money - I described myself as self-unemployed.

[LakeCleElum]

Mowing lawns and weeding gardens for $0.50/hr at age 11......Paper route 7 days a week at 12, better paper route at 13, but had to get up at 0330 hrs....Age 15, started working 7 days a week in a gas station. 3 hrs after school, 6 hrs on Saturday, 8 on Sunday.....My mother made me save 1/2 of everything I earned.......I was soon saving more like 80%.

College: worked 30 hrs a week 1st 2 years and 40 hours a week the 2nd 2 years.......Paid for college and put 75% down on a house by graduation time.......After age 26, only have had a mortgage six months while waiting for one house to sell and then pay off the new one.

[rwest]

Paper route starting at 12; at one point in HS I had three jobs- saved money like crazy and bought my first Porsche, a '73 914 for $2950 at 16. Pretty much had to buy everything for myself except food and some clothes.

Once I started working full time and discovering credit, it all went downhill, buying more than I could afford, now back full circle, everything paid for- no debt, bunch of money going into deferred compensation each month and a bit of money in the bank.

Unfortunately I've worked much harder than smarter!

[fastfredracing]

12/13 ish, started to mow lawns, and do other odd jobs

[Seahawk]

Growing up on a ranch I started real work when I was 8 or so. We got an allowance but had a weekly chores list and weekend tasks. The horses came first. My parents would track our punch list during the week in a ledger and then pay us our allowance on Sunday's - they would hold back 25% which they put into a savings account for each of us.

I earned my first paying job when I was 14. I umpired Little League games in the 10-12 year old Minor and Major leagues.

I made $5.00 a game during the week, $7.00 on the week ends. That was huge money in those days, 1971. I was also playing in the Senior Major League, 13-15. I was going to be playing HS ball the next year.

We had a 1958 El Camino I put my bike in and drove on the private dirt roads (about two miles) to the paved road. I'd park the El Camino at Bob's house and ride my bike to the game or get a ride.

When I got my drivers license I started umping three games on Saturday (when possible) and has many games during the week I could once the HS baseball season ended - I was also playing in a summer league that was called "Big League" for 16 to 19 year old guys. My varsity HS coach was the coach. Umpiring was a much better gig than what my Dad had in store for me.

I bought my first car for $156.00 dollars - a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle. I could not have been happier.

Everybody I knew worked summer jobs.

In college I was a white water rafter in the summer and worked as a waiter/bar tender during the school year. I honestly took a pay cut when I was commissioned as an Ensign in the Navy.

[flatbutt]

Junior lifeguard at the city pool at 14. Factory stock boy at 16. All of my savings went into my college education. I couldn't start saving again until I paid off my divorce expenses many,many years later.

[recycled sixtie]

My first job was delivering mail at Xmas by bicycle in the UK when I was 15. Next job was working on a farm in France near Dijon for 3 months in the Summer when I was 16.
The next summer I was a guide in the Chateau de Montaigne near Bordeaux.

I did not start saving until my second marriage at the age of 38.

[peppy]

Started working at 13 in the family business.

Started saving after I got married at 37.

[KNS]

I saved what little I could with part time jobs but I really started saving in my twenties.

I spent a couple of summers flying in Alaska where I was able to sock away some (not a huge amount) and just kept adding on to it. I had two accounts: one for a future down payment on a house and one for retirement. Kept driving old, crappy cars all the while and being frugal.

Paid off the house at 40 years old and my wife and have a healthy retirement so far.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I started washing dishes the summer between 10th and 11th grade. We moved that summer and I got a new job doing dishes at the nicest French restaurant in town at the beginning of junior year. The other fellow quit soon after and I began to work full time while going to school. Spring of junior year they moved me to prep cook, that summer I was trained and then moved to garde manger, the cold food chef. Worked full 40 hour weeks junior and senior year of high school. It was fantastic.

There were a lot of reasons for this. Principally, I had to pay for college and Brandeis wasn't cheap. Second to that, the car addiction set in when I was 15 and had my first taste of what my money would buy. I would comb the newspaper for cars in the $500 range. Then $1000, then... Bought a 64 1/2 Mustang to restore by the time I was old enough to drive. That car didn't pan out, the engine turned out to be junk, still sold it for double what I paid, but a string of cars followed including 240Zs (many) a Fiat 850 spyder, and a 63 VW Double Cab Pick-up.

Sold all the cars to help pay for college and got the family Chevy station wagon.

[sc_rufctr]

At 13 I was mowing lawns and painting houses on weekends. Also jobs like cleaning cars and garages or tidying up a back yard.
I got paid in ca$h mostly (not a lot) but sometimes I was given fruits, vegetables and other stuff.

Looking back it was fun because it was better than sitting around doing nothing.

[gchappel]

Paper route at 10, local paper.
2 years later it was the biggest route the paper had. About 120 papers piled on my bike in baskets everywhere. Finally needed two trips.
Collecting was the worst- I still remember the one customer- 1963 to a 10yr old. Do you have change for $100? I did the next month.
I got my sister, who was about 9 at the time, to help deliver one end of the route. Paper found out a girl was delivering papers. Unheard of at the time. Paper did a big article on this new female skill set.
It was a different time.
Did that until I was 16 and got a "real job."
I was lucky, my parents paid for college. But I had to provided my own spending money. I saved enough to last 4 years. Worked electronic repair and as a lifeguard all my summers through college and medical school.
I sure do not see any 10yr olds around here actually working. My newspapers are delivered by an adult driving and randomly throwing my paper whereever it may land.

Gary

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Paper routes when I was 11, started a p/t job at a restaurant when I was 14 and worked some kind of job either part of full time continuously all the way through Junior High, HS, college and graduate school until 2009 when I was "involuntarily unemployed" for about a year. I'm still recovering from that one (another couple of years before a bunch of defaults that resulted drop off my credit report) but largely have bounced back pretty well otherwise. Had a good amount saved - it all got wiped out in 2009-10 - all of it. I've rebuilt about 80% of what I had since. Hasn't been easy though.

[carreradpt]

Never got an allowance. Cut grass during the summers as a kid, then delivering papers. I had 2 sometimes 3 routes, the Wash Post was the biggie and an evening paper. Had to get up at 4 every morning for 2+ years to deliver the Post but I made tons with that route. Then progressed to fast food, Hot Shoppes Jr, and then a gas station. Never not had a job. Never really saved until I enlisted in the USAF. My pay check went into savings and I lived on my Per Diem.

[carreradpt]

I'm at post number 911. Cool.

The previous one, whoops.

[vash]

started working at 14. i was janitor at our church.

saving? oh boy..maybe 29 i started my 401k and putting aside.

on the bright side, i got obsessed with it and put aside a lot.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by vash

started working at 14. i was janitor at our church.

saving? oh boy..maybe 29 i started my 401k and putting aside.
....

When I was 13, my dad used to kid me about putting more in my savngs account than I earned....so I've always been able to save....problem was I could spend it too !
New Jeep CJ5 at seventeen and a new Supra Turbo ten years later....wiped out my nest egg both times and also had car loans to boot. Young and stupid....why yes I was! Started over at 29 and never looked back....

I figure that 401k I cashed out at 29 to pay off the Supra....didn't seem like mch at the time ...maybe 14k...would easily be 250K today....did mention I was young and STUPID...