your first ever wage packet - How much was it?

[forcebwithu]

Just looked up my earnings record on the US Soc Sec site. My first year of reported earnings was 1973 when I was 17. Earned a grand total of $714 working three months on summer break from school for the city at their tree nursery. Great job. Loved working outside caring for the trees and mowing grass on city owned properties.

As an side, I see my highest earning year was at age 48.

[Painter]

Did a paper delivery round from age 14 for something like £8 a week. At age17 i was "promoted" to working in the station paper kiosk for 90 minutes a day 6 mornings a week before school. Wages were £12 a week, of which £7 went on petrol for the week...

[Scottie]

My paper round earned me 18 shillings a week with an extra shilling if I 

collected all the money.Had one women who always let me down,so 

one Sunday morning woke her up with enough change so I could 

change whatever she said she had.Got my extra shilling.She cancelled

papers then so never had the problem again.

[KhunDon]

At 13 did a Sunday morning paper round with papers loaded onto a small cart. 5 shillings for the morning. 

At 14-16 I was up too my knees in freezing mud helping a guy in the winter, cutting water reeds for 1 shilling a bundle. I could earn £5 on a Saturday and £5 on a Sunday tax free. 🤗

At 16 when I left school, I worked for a jobbing builder 7am-6pm Monday to Friday for £4.10 shillings a week. £2 went to mum, the rest went on wine, women and song. 🤪

Then various other jobs for several years. 
Finished up the last 15 years working for a multi national conglomerate with a fecking huge salary and able to retire at 47 years of age with a great pension plan. 

I was attending an open day six months before I retired at one of the several large companies I was responsible for and met an old school teacher of mine who thought I’d end up in a dead end job and wasn’t afraid to tell the whole class that. He was a c**t of the first order.

He was extremely surprised that I’d made good, as he’d always said at school I’d come to no good. I took great delight in telling him how much I was paid and just how big my pension would be and that unlike him, I wouldn’t have to work till I was 65, after which I smiled and walked away laughing. 

Life can be strange. 😉
 

 

Edited March 11 by KhunDon

[Golfingboy]

About $30 CAD a week as a paperboy for le Journal de Montreal from age 13–16, 1989-92

My highest indulgence was a pair of Air Jordans for about $150, lot of $ back then….

Edited March 11 by Golfingboy

[Britboy]

I did paper rounds and a summer holiday stint at the local co-op factory but my first full time job was in 1971 as an apprentice compositor at one of the large printing firms in my local area (10 mile train journey each way every day).

The weekly pay was £7.53. That number has stuck in my head all these years.

Out of that I was made to give my mum £2 ffs for my "keep".

The other mandatory deduction, straight from my gross weekly pay, which really pissed me off, was 25p to the union (National Graphical Association). 

[coxyhog]

Late 60's still at school had a morning paper round,a Saturday job in a tailors shop & for a while an evening paper round as well.

Left school in 1970 & joined the RAF & although I joined as an adult entrant I was paid junior money until I was 17 1/2,which was £4.50pw.

Most of that went on beer & I was paid on Thursday & always skint by Sunday.

Until the IRA f***d everything up I used to hitchhike in uniform which was a free way to get to my parents house at weekends.

When I reached 17 1/2 I also passed out as an airframe mechanic & so got promoted.

My first adult pay packet was £18 & I remember thinking "What am I going to do with all this money".

It probably went on beer.

[Jambo]

My first proper paid job was a morning paper round for the princely sum of £3.50 a week but as I delivered to an extremely posh part of Hampstead, North London I made more than a years wages in Christmas tips.

The owner of the paper/sweet shop which was in Highgate Village loved bowling. So at age 15, in the School holidays, he put me in sole charge of the shop from 9 to 3 twice a week and paid me £3.00 a day. I loved it as it not only gave me access to all the top shelf magazines but the pick of all the bars of chocolate for my ex gratia lunch. Given I had nobody to give me a break for lunch I felt that was the least I could reasonably expect.

At age 18, having passed all my exams, I commenced full time employment at Sun Life assurance society at a branch overlooking Nelson's column, and thus Trafalgar Square, as a junior clerk.

My salary was initially £550 per annum and part of my duties was to make the tea for the whole branch both morning and afternoon but I only had to wash up in the morning.

All the salesmen met together in the branch every Friday morning after which the Sales Manager took all of them to a local Pub. As one of my additional duties was to manually produce all their quotations for potential sales they took me to the pub with them and refused to allow me to buy a drink. I quite often returned pissed which would explain why the stamp book never, ever, balanced on a Friday.

Three years later my salary had risen to £800 pa which enabled me to buy my first house being a new 3 bedroom semi costing £4,100. Sun Life would lend staff a maximum of 5 times their salary for house purchase and I couldn't afford the additional £250 for a garage.

Happy days.