17 Baled hay for a neighboring farm in fall harvested potatoes for the same farm driving a truck with no brakes if you pumped the clutch enough times it mite actuallly shift and graded same potatoes in a dark damp storage building that winter buck fifty an hour plus chores on my Dads farm Felt like a king most guys my age done the same so nothing out of the ordinary getting handed a check Yah great till Dad said if thats what you want to do your whole life You are all set

14 haying all summer

what are we calling a real paycheck

as in the first one anyone thought to take out taxes on ?

that would be 14 I was working construction um I mean for the "farm" I also took a gig that fall at a lumber yard stacking all the lumber in the racks , this was before everything was moved onto pallet racking by a fork truck.
they would get pre winter shipments of lumber and hire a few of us in high school to put it all away.

about 11-12 I was working yard work jobs for widows at church , the job they always had that I hated but it paid. raking all the gravel for the drive way out of the yard every spring.
I hated it but it paid

First w2 job buss boy and washing dishes at 15 or 16. Started mowing for my grandfather and his neighbors about 9 and draging brush for my uncle's tree business about the same time.

15 if i recall correct. On a harvest crew for a month. 1200 bucks.

I was 14 working on a farm.

Not a paycheck, but I remember the first paying job I did. Going on 55 years ago. At the time Great uncle Eddie was a land Barron. He had four different 80 acre farms over about a six mile area. Each farm had a chunk of pasture. And we moved cows from one pasture to the other throughout the summer. My two brothers and I were the walkers, my Dad, Eddies son, and my Grandpa and Eddie would go in front and sit in pickups in the driveways. And we would start the cattle drive, out of one pasture down the gravel roads onto the next pasture. There where fences around here back then, this would not be possible in this area today. When all the cows and calves were in the new pasture it was time for lunch.

There was no OSHA back then !! So the cattle drivers either sat on the tailgates, or got into the beds of the pickups and went to Eddie's house for lunch. Aunt Elsa would have a steel cooler with beer and bottles of pop in them. And each of the herders got their "own" bottle of pop....... NO sharing, unbelievable! Then Eddie would tell her "Well better pay the men." And she would give each of us a SILVER DOLLAR! they were huge could barely make a fist around them with a ten year old fist. Sounded like you dropped a hammer if you dropped them on the floor. And on Saturday go to town day them silver dollars would get you enough candy for a sugar coma from the "Candy Kitchen". G.

Worked at the neighbor's farm milking cows when i was about 13, 1.25 an hour. Back in 1995 I still hunted on the couple's farm, he asked me if I wanted to buy the 30 acres I hunted on. I said I would ask my wife, she said if I could get a passing perc test we could buy it. I knew the knoll along the river was all sand so it tested fine there, paid $1000 an acre. The land programs and rent paid for it over the years and still pay more than the taxes. That paycheck when it sells someday will be my best one, it was annexed into the city 15 years ago, but I still kill deer on it every year. I like the land more than the thought of money for it.

Shoveling snow, selling worms,crawlers minnows/gold fish scrapped copper, trapped rats, delivered newspapers
At 14,boughtnew Remington 700 Ruger 10/22
Two Leopold scopes Mec Jr
Taped the ruger for 1" rings, glass bedded the 700
Cleaned up construction sites, scavenged at the local dump
Picked rocks, hoed beans, picked melons and corn,Baby sat a few problem boys, bought all my own hockey gear

…. Passed my first 5g weld test at 2 years old

… got hired on the pipeline one month later

I was driving tractor at one and a half. Dad wouldn't let me at one...said nobody in diapers could sit on the tractor seat.

I was flying fighter aircraft before I was born.

Well not sure anyone has said trapping, but I am not sure on whether we are going for the "tax aspect". Cashed my first "paychchecks" from a non family member when I was 12 from the furbuyer. Cashed my first paychecks from a "job" rouging beans when I was 13 or 14.

12. Worked at a Christmas tree farm. Started out at $1.20 an hour. Worked 8 hours both Saturday and Sunday and my check was $19 and some change.

13……busboy at pinestone resort