Jobs

 Jobs can be pretty important to teenagers.  After all, you need to have some spending money, right?  In our family we did get an allowance starting quite young, where we were free to choose how to spend our 25 cents or a dollar, or whatever the amount was.  We were encouraged to pay tithing of 10% to the church, and to put some aside in savings.   When we started 4-H at about eight years old, Daddy gifted us a young heifer calf as a 4-H project.  When the calf became a cow, the profits from the milk produced by our cow would take the place of our allowance.   Most of the time this was a rather hefty allowance increase, but we were also expected to pay for most of our own expenses such as school clothes and supplies, in addition to whatever else we wanted or needed.   Regular chores didn't earn us extra money, but helping with hauling the hay did.   I didn't have regular babysitting jobs like some other girls in town, but there were a couple of families that did call me to babysit from time to time, so I did earn some money that way.

My first "real" job besides babysitting and hauling hay was doing some data entry work for the local telephone company one summer when they needed some extra help.  The owner of the company contacted our high school business teacher, and she recommended me and another of my FBLA friends for the job.  It only lasted a week or two until their regular billing system up and running, but I did get a taste for what it would be like to work a full time job . . . which I didn't ever have until after the youngest of my 6 children entered kindergarten.  

Did you have an allowance growing up?  What was your first job or way of earning money?