By: Revanche

My first real job and paycheck

August 10, 2015

I remember talking my parents into letting me get a summer job. They didn’t want particularly want me to work during high school, they made enough at the time to cover my basic needs, so it seemed fair to say that school was my first job and that I should focus on that.

The specifics of that persuasion are lost to the mists of foggy memory but ultimately they led to an exception to the rule: work summers. It’s not that I was too smart or too good to work, hah not even close, they just worked hard to provide for us and it meant a lot to them to be able to spare us from working during our teen years.

As an Honors student, I always had summer assignments but it still left me plenty of time to work a part time gig, whether it was paid or volunteer, so off I went to the Want ads.

Yeah, how old am I that I went to find my first jobs in the newspaper? And you remember the PennySaver? That thing is still around. I spent a lot of time sprawled on the floor, fingers all over in newsprint, circling and marking up the papers.

Those part time gigs barely count for professional experience but I earned about $500 summer of sophomore year and $800 summer of junior year. Every penny was (piggy)banked after taking out cash to pay for First Dog’s vaccines and vet visits. Seriously, folks, tell your kids they’re responsible for any pets in the house? Mean it. My parents did. Once I was old enough to earn income, the vet bills came out of my pocket. That, more than anything, taught me that pets are a responsibility, not just convenient mobile toy friends. A shame that I knew absolutely nothing about investing back then.

If I’m recalling correctly, that cash then paid for all my senior year expenses like a yearbook, tickets and a discount dress for prom. Again, not withdrawing from the Bank of Parents for my “fun” things meant that no money was wasted on foolish things like a class ring. Just the few things I thought were worth it.

Looking back now, even the yearbook was a waste of money. Who looks at those things after you graduate, anyway? Who remembers those random thirty people that signed it? And did anyone really keep in touch because of those three little letters “KIT”?

My first real paycheck, at a real not-just-for-the-summer job, was exciting stuff. Real money for real work – real satisfaction!

I wasn’t even 18 though, so after opening the envelope and petting the check, all I could do was stuff it in my piggy bank until I could open my own bank account. I wasn’t about to pay to get that baby cashed, and symbolically it was important that it go into my own account now that I was a real adult, so it was deposited about 7 weeks later into my very own, brand-spankin-new Washington Mutual, no fees ever, checking account. (Ah, the good ole days, before bank bailouts and subprime mortgage folly!) The first things that check paid for were a fundraiser roll of gift wrap which I still have, and a credit card bill for my college tuition.

The world still seemed bright back then, with 5% interest rates on savings accounts and great credit card bonuses though I hadn’t yet discovered churning.

Do you remember your first job(s) and paycheck(s)?

Note: There was something magical about the first month of this job – nothing had gone terribly wrong at home yet. These first checks were really for me and my expenses.

19 Responses to “My first real job and paycheck”

  1. While I don’t specifically remember my first paycheck, I do remember very vividly my first job. I was a cashier in a pet store, but since people were allowed to bring in their pets we also had to do clean-up duty sometimes! It wasn’t always fun but it was a great learning experience and exposed me to a very different kind of life from the one I was raised it.
    Ali @ Anything You Want recently posted…Trip Recap: A Week in the Cote D’Azur and ProvenceMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Working retail is often a special hell but add pets to it and it sort of seems better. Except for those totally irresponsible owners who don’t clean up after their own, of course.

  2. SP says:

    I don’t remember the paycheck, but my first real job was a grocery store clerk. Mostly summers, but also sometimes during the school year during non-sports seasons. I paid mostly for my own incidentals – clothes, fun stuff, etc.
    SP recently posted…Summer Money UpdateMy Profile

  3. evilbatwitch says:

    My first job was either as: A waitress at Denny’s, or at a family run deli, or at Wendy’s. I was 18 and pregnant, living with a boyfriend. I cashed my checks at Safeway, and somehow didn’t have any money. At one time I was working all three simultaneously, right up to the time I was 7 months along, (and 19) and moved back in with my mom. Then I didn’t have a paying job for some 8 years. wow. Though i did manage to not live with my mom for those years:D

  4. I worked for a hair salon when I was 14 & 15. Very restricted hours, given my age, but it was still nice to make something.

    I don’t remember specifically getting my first check at that job, but I do remember the checks from the movie theater I worked at junior and senior year (and the summer in between my first and second year of college). Other than the annoyances of FICA, it was pretty cool.

    My mom opened an account for me when I was young, but it was in trust. So I would go with her to the bank to deposit the check, but I couldn’t sign out any money on my own. Turned out to be a good thing, really.

    It was never a question that I would get a job. Heck, my mom tried to convince me to get some work in when I came back from college for Christmas break. Uh, no thanks.

    I had after school stuff and AP classes, so I worked one weekday afternoon to evening shift, then full shifts Saturday and Sunday during the school year. Summers were 40 hours a week.
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    • Revanche says:

      Now that was a cool move on your mom’s part putting your checks in trust when you were that young. I don’t know if I’d do the same for LB but I love the idea that the money could actually still be waiting for hir later to be spent on real needs. (or wants. I guess)

  5. NZ Muse says:

    Can’t remember my 1st paycheck specifically but it would’ve gone into savings. I had a paper run but my first real job where I WENT to work was at a cafe on weekends. And then I got hooked on earning and saving and got a 2nd job!
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  6. jestjack says:

    AAAAHHH…..5% passbook accounts…I remember them fondly….When I tell my kids about these accounts…they look at me like I’m talking about unicorns being real…..

  7. Shelley says:

    Thanks for your visit and especially for your comment. I don’t get many of those these days and I miss the ‘conversation’. My first job was an 8 to 4 waitress job at a small private airport in OKC. It was me and the cook. He cooked and washed dishes. I worked the cash register, cleaned tables tables, took orders to the kitchen and food to the tables. It was madness, as the main customers were employees on their 15 minute AM or PM breaks and their 30 minute lunch periods. It wasn’t just my first ever job (well, besides babysitting or ironing for a friend’s mother), there was no way I could do it well; I needed to be two more people. My money went for clothes, gas in the old car my parents bought me and probably at the pool hall. It was the summer between my high school graduation and my first semester at college; I was 16. I understood the idea of savings, but I’d gone to summer school the previous two summers to graduate early and I felt I’d just been let out of prison, so I didn’t even consider restraining myself. I made $1.60 an hour, so I’m thinking it probably wouldn’t have made a great deal of difference.

    I’m about to go into town to chat with Halifax bank about how they can change the terms on my 5-year-ISA (individual savings account, tax free in Britain) and turn it into a different account and lower the interest rate. There was probably a fine print clause in the terms and conditions, but of course they didn’t mention it wasn’t really a 5-year-ISA, but a 5-year-or-when-we-change-our-minds-ISA. Banks and bankers…their just deserts are overdue.

    • Revanche says:

      You’re very welcome!

      I can’t imagine how you must have been running trying to serve people on just 15-minute breaks! That’s unreasonable!

      Wait, you want to lower the interest rate? I’m not sure I follow. But I do agree about bankers. 🙂

  8. Sense says:

    I love these kinds of questions!

    Fake first job: Phone answer-er and bookkeeper for my dad’s business. Doing payroll was fun! Got paid WAY TOO MUCH because my dad made up for not being around by throwing money at us for everything: A’s and B’s, allowance, odd yard and housework jobs, business jobs.

    REAL first job: sold sunglasses for waldenbooks (?? is still confusing to me) at a mall kiosk, summer before college, to earn money for textbooks and any extras, as was the deal with my parents. Counted down the seconds of all my shifts, avoided eye contact with gross guys. Was horribly boring and motivated me even more to get my university degree: so I could NOT have to do that forever! Yep, I still have that paycheck stub…from waldenbooks. Weird.

    • Revanche says:

      Ahh I didn’t count working for my parents since they didn’t pay me but that’s also a valuable experience.

      Waldenbooks sold sunglasses? Now that’s something I didn’t recall. Such good motivation to get yourself on track to doing something different, isn’t it?

  9. My first job was babysitting, starting at age 11 (when I was barely older than some of my charges). I made 75 cents to $1 an hour.

    When I was 13 a local woman hired me and a friend to pick tomatoes in her three greenhouses. Explosively hot and unpleasant work (and we had to ride our bikes there and back, about two miles each way I think) but we were thrilled to be earning some real money: $1.35 an hour. But since she paid us in cash, that wasn’t a real paycheck.

    The first check-check would have been at 17, when I got a job at a bakery. It wasn’t much money but it was something. The issue was transportation: I lived in a rural area with zero public transit and I didn’t own a car. The bakery job was 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Saturday and 4 to 10 p.m. Sunday. My dad would let me use his car to get there, or he’d drop me off and pick me back up.

    The serious money (for that time, anyway) came in after I graduated from high school and went to work at a glass factory. Depending on the shift, I earned $4.06 to $4.36 an hour — and there was a lot of overtime. Never did get used to the shift-work sleeping, especially since I worked so many double shifts. In two months I earned $1,800 after taxes. This job, too, was very hot and physically taxing (standing on concrete floors packing glass for up to 16 hours a day). On the other hand, it was an object lessons as to what I did *not* want to do for a living.
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    • Revanche says:

      Oh babysitting – a vital and underrated job! What an interesting history of early-life jobs, thanks for sharing 🙂

  10. I detailed my first job experience on The Billfold a while back. The paycheck was underwhelming, as most first paycheck’s susceptible to taxes are.
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  11. Is TA-ing a “real” job? Prob’ly no more than adjunct teaching…but it was the first job I had that paid a real paycheck from a real institution. I used to read French to a blind student (she was also a French major), but she paid with a personal check and nothing was ever said to or by the IRS…

    First real job was for a very unpleasant man whose bad behavior finally led me to drop the office keys in the middle of the floor and walk out, leaving the door locked behind me. I had to file a complaint with the state dept. of labor to get him to fork over the back pay he owed.

    Hence: back to graduate school. 😉

    • Revanche says:

      You worked for pay? RULED: REAL JOB. Totally. A lot of us worked fairly early, I see. 🙂

      Early jobs, I am seeing, are key to motivating us to go do something about not working crap jobs forever! Thank goodness for early hard lessons, eh? Also: what a jerk that boss was!

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