It was the summer of 1994 (I know, I am old), I was barely 16 at the time. I didn’t have a driver’s license yet as I didn’t need it. I had a bike and I was able to travel to almost anywhere in the city with it. Life was great as I probably had no worries nor any responsibilities at that time. However, I also had no money. I was not broke, I just had no money.
My First Job
During that summer, a friend of a friend of mine hooked me and two of my friends up with a summer job delivering flyers for a takeout restaurant. Our starting wage was a meager $5/hour, a bit below the legal minimum wage. Without any working experience or skills, we were offered a wage that was probably inlined with our worth. Since all of us had no money, no skills, and no jobs, we took whatever we can get.
It was fun working alongside two of my best buddies and time just flew by. Work didn’t seem like work at all. It was more of a guys’ hang out. However, after a couple of weeks, they had other plans and stopped working there. I was the only flyer delivery boy left. What seemed like an enjoyable summer job that allowed me to earn some money turned into tiring laborious work.
One day, while delivering flyers door to door, I realized that earning money was really, really hard. I had to carry about 15 pounds of flyers more than half the time. I have to climb flights and flights of stairs if the houses were built on slopes. The sun was scorching hot, I got no water with me and no breaks. It was really tiring to work for just a meager $5/hour.
My Epiphany Moment
After I finished my shift one day, I was sitting by myself and I started to have an epiphany moment. I asked myself, “What do I need to do in order not to be a flyer delivery boy for the rest of my life? How do I earn money the easy way? How do I earn more money and do less laborious work?”
The most important things that came out of my light bulb moment were my view of money and how I’d manage it in the future. It had made me realized that money will be an important aspect of my life. Earning money will not be easy no matter what you do. There is a limit to the amount of money that I can earn based on the effort of my own labour. From that day on, I kept reminding myself of the following money lessons.
Don’t Ask Your Parents For Money, Earn Your Own
As immigrants, my parent did not earn much more than me. They had stacks of bills to pay every month and four children to feed. Realizing that earning money was really hard, I stopped asking my parents to buy me anything. I started to earn my own money and try to buy everything that I needed. For my post-secondary education, my main option was to borrow money from the government instead of asking my parents to pay for my tuition.
Spend Responsibly
When money was tight, I learned how to spend responsibly. If I needed anything, I’d make sure that I have enough to buy it instead of borrowing from a credit card. Most of the stuff that I buy would have to be at reasonable discounts. Hence, paying 20% interest or any amount of interest to buy something doesn’t make any sense.
No Need To Showoff Your Money By Buying All Brand Names
When you are working part-time and only earn $5/hour, brand name items would probably never crossed your mind. In fact, I was shopping at thrift stores and bought gently used clothes at a fraction of the cost. I didn’t mind and was not ashamed of wearing second-hand items. In fact, I was actually proud of the clothes that I wore because I bought it myself.
Be Resourceful
When you have no money and the only asset that you have is your own creativity, you learn how to be very resourceful. Quite often, that was exactly what I did. Anything that I can do it myself to save money, I will make an effort to learn how to do it and get my hands dirty. Till this day, I still follow the same philosophy with anything that I do in my life.
If There Is Free Money, Take It
If earning every dollar is difficult, why would you forgo the chance to get free money? If you had the opportunity to take free money legally and you didn’t, then you are doing yourself a disservice. Hence, I never hesitate to participate in the employee share ownership plan (ESOP) at my work and the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) from the government for my kids. The Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSP) contribution is a saving vehicle that I try my best to maximize every year so I can pay the least amount of income tax.
Have Your Money Working Harder Than You
One of the most important money lessons that I had learned early on was that I need to have my money working harder for me so I don’t have to. If I can borrow money to invest, that would be what I’d do. If owning a rental property would allow me to increase my wealth, I’ll invest the money there and become a landlord. If the stock market has the potential to earn an average annual return of 10%, that would where I would invest my money too.
My Two Cents
Very often, your first real job will provide you with the experience and money lessons that will shape your view and relationship with money for the rest of your life. My first job taught me that money is an important resource and I need to learn how to save diligently, spend responsibly and invest wisely. Earning money is hard if there are easy ways to make money, take full advantage of it.
So readers, what was your first job? What money lessons did you learn from it? Did your first job have any impact on how you view and manage your money?
About Leo
My first job was delivering the Washington Post newspaper at age 12. And I’ve had steady jobs since then. For me it was vey liberating. Thankfully I was pretty good at saving. I even had a few thousand saved up by age 16 and was able to pay cash for my first car.
@Brad, A few thousands saved by the age of 16? Give yourself a big pat on the back. I didn’t have my first thousand saved until I’ve started working for a couple of years after graduating from university.
My first job was delivery papers too… common thread? Not sure how true this would be for the current generation given that so much of our info is online nowadays. I also did a lot of babysitting and was good at fixing things, so fixed things for the people whom I babysat their kids.
I too am a big believer in taking advantage of free money…one caveat is to make sure you weigh in the ‘cost’ in getting that money, whether it be the impact to needed cash flow, the amount of effort needed to get it, or the potential risk associated with it.
Since this was touched on, investing in an RRSP is a good way to get “free” money via tax refunds BUT I have learned to look at TOTAL cost. In some cases, a TFSA may be more warranted, at least first. If the expectation is that there will be more income after retirement, including the money taken out of the RRSP, then a TFSA is more tax advantageous in the long run, even though an RRSP provides the immediate satisfaction of an increased tax refund (of the opposite is true if the expected income will be lower). So always be sure to weigh all the costs.
As for impact of first jobs, I learned to be a saver early on. I learned more about that via couponing, which I was raised with, and learned to be highly responsible on how to manage a household at an early age (only child raised by single mom). It really wasn’t until my early to mid 30’s that I learned to leverage my money by reading books from Robert Kiyosaki. I wish I had learned some of that much sooner.
The other lesson I did not learn until later in life is how to guard my time better and appreciate that we all have limited capacity. I did not learn that early enough and overextended myself, which led to having to deal with the aftermath of that. So remember to consider your capacity as well.
One phrase to sum that up is to Live with Margin, meaning try to make sure you have enough reserve capacity to deal with the unexpected.
@Smayer97, I strongly believe that when a person had minimal access to money or grew up from a household with a tight budget, you will most likely appreciate the value of a dollar more. You’ll work harder and manage your money prudently.
In terms of the free money, I was fortunate enough to max my RRSP and get enough money to max my TFSA on an annual basis. Hence, I didn’t have to choose one or the other. My goal is to maximize both accounts’ contribution. If I have a tax minimization problem at retirement, I’ll be more than happy to try and solve that problem. It’s better to have more income coming in and try to minimize your tax bill than to have less money coming in.
Agreed, agreed.
I really love this Leo! One of my first jobs (I held 3 at once before) gave me the biggest depression. I was only starting to think about pivoting my life towards something better before meeting my husband – you reach that conclusion at a much earlier age than I did!
@Lily, when you work your butt off and can barely buy a McDonald’s combo after a full hour of hard work, you’ll learn pretty quick that you need to make more money in the future. On top of that, if you earned the money, you’ll be more motivated to have it work for you to make more money instead of wasting it by paying interest.
I would probably quite school if I had to work on three jobs at any point in life. Glad that you don’t have to do that anymore.
I actually just had a conversation with a friend of mine talking about how us millennials tend to value name-brand items so much more (I’m guilty too at times!). Props to adverts influencing and brainwashing us but I feel like we live in such a shallow, bleak society.
I can completely agree with so many of your takeaways. You definitely want to have your money earning money on its own – we recently just got into stocks and investing. Also, the brand names. We typically buy the store brands for most of our products, it so much more cost effective than buying the big brand names!
@Ally, brand name stuff are overrated. Glad that you started to invest in the stock market. We all need to put some of our money into the stock market to either diversify or grow our money.
My first job was to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle VHS cassettes. If the tape was defective, I put it in one box. If the tape worked just fine, it went into a different box. My father was a franchisee for Burger King at the time. The store’s promotion was to get a TMNT tape for not a ton of money. People would watch the tapes and return them to get money back. My Dad would give them their money back, but would have me check the tapes later. Was it a real job? No. But did I appreciate a couple of extra bucks in my pocket? Yes. 🙂
@Laurie, I’ve heard that people get paid to play video games way back. So if that’s a really job, I guess that you watching video is definitely a real job.
Excellent post. Made me remember my first job as a trainee journalist, with very little pay. Wish I had come across your article then.
Hello! I also did learn a lot from my first job. I had to learn how to live on much little than I lived on when I was living with my parents, and really started looking at things in a different way. It helped me understand my true necessities and priorities, what I need and don’t need. What is essential and what is a treat! 🙂
@Elly, you’re definitely right, if money was not easily accessible and you have to earn for every dollar, it makes it a lot harder to part with your money. That’s why many finance experts recommend using the cash systems to make your purchases. Psychologically, paying cash made us think twice before we hand over the money comparing just using a credit card.
Spending responsibly is really something to go by because it’s so easy to go overboard when it comes to spending anywhere be it online or in stores so to get that in check really makes it a great lesson.
If there is free money, definitely take it. This post has been a great eye opener for me. Thank you so much for such an informative post!
I think the resourceful tip is one of the most important things, outside of spending responsibility.
it is still something I am working on even now.
So thank you for this.
Excellent tips. We all work hard for our money, but those who also make their money work for them will see the real benefit of saving.
Yes, it is important to invest. Make your money work for you. And taking advantage of free money is huge!
Oh the joys of your first job. There is always something to learn! Great things here. Nice post
My first job was in television, I was a member of the audience and I do remember how little money it was paid for. When I used to get a movie part it was so much better, as that one could be paid 10 times more for just 5 minutes of shooting. And that’s how I start thinking about how can I make more money in less time.
@Joanna, great point here. It’s not how hard your work, it’s how efficiently are you using your time. Doing more work doesn’t necessarily equate to more pay. That’s why I prefer to have money work for me. I do very little work and I get pay more and more each year.
My first ‘real’ job years ago had paid vacation time but I wasn’t used to it and I never used it! Now a days you can bet I do. I agree, take advantage of those perks!
You do have to put in the time and investment if you really want to make money. I know it seems difficult at times, but it is worth it in the end if you take advantage of the talents and gifts you have. Earning your own money does help you be self reliant in the long run. And it means the work is more meaningful to get it.
Yes to all! Being resourceful helped me a lot. When I was unemployed with little money on hand, I decided to buy some food and resell it.
Great post! Your money should definitely work harder than you do. Investing is the new money maker. There are so many ways to invest safely these days. Thanks for this.
I think I learned these lessons at my second job. My first job I was spending all that I got.
Great tips! When I took my first job, I was 22. I worked for Turkish airlines domestic line. It was a wonderful experience for me.
What a wonderful post. My first job taught me how quick I could spend money! My second job was where I understood. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
You look younger than your age 😉
I earned more than $5 an hour in my first job. My first job was going around door to door asking for donations!
I can relate to your early lessons with money. For me, it was 1997 and I was earning $9 per hour. The work was hard and I did not want to waste the money. That was when I started to research how to invest. It was exciting for me to invest $500 per month. I knew that it would benefit me in the future.
@Dave, when money is hard to come by, we often become more careful with our money and try to spend it responsibly. It’s great that it also got you to start investing at an early age. I wish that I had discovered how to invest my money in my early 20’s rather than my late 20’s. That couple of years could mean an extra 10% to 20% in my retirement account when I retire.
I think having a crappy 1st job was one of the most valuable things I’ve experienced in my life. I worked in a pizza place making minimum wage and cleaning up kids poop and barf out of the play area. After doing that for a year I knew I never wanted to go back and I’d do whatever I had to in order to make it out.
@Jim, working for minimum wage at a crappy job is definitely a great motivation for most people to aim higher and achieve more in their lives. Once you’ve experienced the hardship, you’ll work harder in school to ensure that you don’t end up doing that same crappy job for the rest of your life.
You made the jump to “how do I not do this forever?” muuuuch sooner than I did. I just assumed I’d be working for a few decades.
My first job was creating how-to videos for software with an army of others that would go through every question in MS Office help files and make a video for each – then sell those videos via a CD. The late 90s were a fun time to know a little computers – it seemed like an awesome job for a high schooler!
@Adam, the different between our jobs was that my job became less and less enjoyable shortly I started. Once you don’t enjoy the job, you start to assess the money factor. If it’s not paying you well, you’ll definitely want to find something else that’s at least marginally better rather than staying at where you are.