#MoneyMakingJourney #FinancialSuccess #Entrepreneurship
Hey guys! 👋 I’m curious about your experiences when it comes to making money. How old were you when you started trying to make some cash?
Here are a couple of questions to get the discussion going:
– When did you start trying to make money?
– Were there any specific strategies or tips that helped you succeed?
I’m thinking of writing an article on this topic for my newsletter on picklerooms.com. It would be awesome to include your insights and stories! Let’s help each other out and share our journey to financial success. 💰
Can’t wait to hear your stories! Let’s inspire each other to reach our money-making goals. 🚀
I did YouTube when I was 14 (not necessarily to make money though).
Got my first paycheck when I was 15 for $3,400.
When I was 12/13 I started fixing my friends iPods and computers/jailbreaking iPods and that turned into a somewhat steady income of like $500 a month for about a year (small town ran out of people)
As a civil engineer, It took me quite a few jobs and different experiences to really start honing in on this. And I ways always “making money” as an employee, but I wasn’t making money in the sense it really means, like getting out there and brining in/preforming projects that we wouldn’t have otherwise had without me and making the projects profitable, etc.
Civil engineering is a very complex field in terms of making money. It’s not so simple as buy low, sell high. Unforseen issues come up, planning conditions change and you can’t get the rezoning you needed through the county, so you have to annex to get the city to rezoning you, etc. it’s a complex game and when you’re working with clients that aren’t familiar with the process, it can be tough to explain that there’s a lot out there that no amount of experience can predict. Therefore, amendments need to be made to the contract or I can bill on a time and materials basis, etc.
It took me probably 10 years to be comfortable with this.
Also when projects stall. Like sometimes invoices go unpaid so you move to other projects, applications get submitted and you’re waiting on reviews, etc. so that priject that will take you 2 weeks to design is really taking 8 months to get approved for a development order, various permits, etc.
Being comfortable having the conversations that scope has changed and more money is needed took a little big time to get used to- 10 years to really be comfortable that those changes happen, 6montha of forcing myself to deliver that news to actually get decent at it and be happy with it.
Also sometimes the developer just gets priced out. You could do a full design and as construction costs come together they realize they’re way out of their league financially. But again you can’t get construction costs until a design is done.
Civil engineering/Construction/Development is a tough field. Im my case is took a decade to be comfortable making money with it. I know others who go their whole career not wanting to go that route. Their mentality is just “I want to design and run calcs, let others deal with the management and money issues” and that’s ok too. But they never actually make money in the real sense. They just collect their paycheck and go home
When I was 13 I’d go out on recycling days and get everybody’s aluminum cans. I’d take them to the recycling center and make some $$. Had to stop when somebody called cops on me😂
8-9. I started a Christmas tree pick up biz at $5 a tree. Selling point was that we would take the trees to be recycled vs going in the landfill. I also did lots of dog walking and bagged yard trash.
7 – selling/trading yugioh cards
8 – my friend didn’t have a GameCube and I did. I offered for him to “rent” my second memory card so he could have his own saves when he came over to play. Regulators (his mom) stepped in and shut down my business. Did not help that I gutted him in pricing.
9 – selling/trading game boy games; market was a monopoly with GameStop (formerly EB Games in Canada) undercutting you by 98% every time. Forced to close down early.
13 – came to school early when no teachers were around and met up with a friend, we went to buy pixie sticks (basically little straws filled with flavored sugar, not sure if they still exist) at the local convenience store for 5 cents a pop and sold them for a dollar each to other kids. Best profit margin i ever had, but I became power hungry and started handing out pixie sticks for favours and regulators (teachers) caught word
15 – graphic design for local small print shop
18 – copywriting for local businesses
22 – various consulting/marketing projects
23 – sold a couple crypto tutorials
25 – consulting/marketing/web design/translation/voice acting projects
A few years ahead now and working full time in sales while running 2 tiny small businesses in CRM design and implementation and fractional sales; exploring potentially an AI automation business or streaming since I like talking to people and I can’t do that while staring at excel sheets or crm settings.
15 years old, was reselling stuff, 12 years later and I am back to square one.
Multiple mistakes (learning opportunities) later back to trying it again. The fact that I changed 4 countries of living didn’t help too.
It took my father 15 years and 20 ventures until he hit a gold mind and made his money. I am not waiting to inherit, going my own path in different country.
Best day to start was yesterday, second best is today.
You win some and you lose some 🙂
Since I was 16. I’m 32 now and feel like it’s all paid off
8 or 9 was in the Cubs doing bob a job week, washing a car, owner asked if I could come back the following week, rest is history still self employed at 60
I started around 10/11 years old. Went around picking weeds for 50c to $1 back in 99/2000
10
Age 14, mowing lawns. I used to pull the lawnmower behind me on my bike.
When I was 16, I recycled used bouquet papers and made paper flowers to sell. Not much but that bought me soda per day lol
14
Oh, all replies are so young. I was 22 when graduated from university and found my first job
In 8th grade/freshman year of high school, I started to resell Supreme and streetwear.
I was really into streetwear at the time, and while I barely profited off the Supreme I resold, the thrill and excitement of creating my own platform to resell was enticing. It allowed me to make money in high school without having to take time away to work a job in a physical place, and I loved it. I eventually switched to reselling shoes which had much higher profit margins, and I did it all throughout high school and it allowed me to stay afloat until college ahah
It definitely took trial and error to discover what sold and what didn’t… it wasn’t until after a few months that I was consistently buying low and selling high and discovered the wonders of botting, but I also got scammed multiple times just from being a dumb kid who didn’t know what too good to be true meant. No matter if you make money or not, everything is a learning experience and is part of the path to success. Try everything you can, and if it doesnt work or doesn’t pan out, you know you tried it. Sometimes experience can be just as valuable, if not more, than the money itself
15, I had my aunt’s Netflix account which was allowing use of 6 people but it wasn’t fully used. So I used to sell it to my friends for small price, here in India it wasn’t affordable for everyone. I had to invest zero capital and managed to gain 600-700 per month for over a period of 4 months. All came to hault cause of COVID 😭
7 or 8. I used to do extra chores at home for some pocket money, and used the family vacuum cleaner to vacuum our neighbors couches and rugs too.
My interest in making money online started when I was a teenager. When I was 15, I made my first $ from some video games I was playing at the time.
Started at 13 , started making money around 27.
10 years ago I totaled my car, was on the brink of eviction and forced to move from CA back to FL to live with my parents. Today, I make six-figures a month working from home and being a present wife/mother. My journey proves you don’t need a degree, 9-5 job or traditional path to achieve success and freedom for your family.
With resilience, creativity and my proven systems, you can build the lifestyle you want too! And as for my plans in 2024…. you’ll just have to stick around and find out!
2008 – Dropped out of college
2009 – Moved to California with 300$
2010-2013 – Bartending, modeling, freelancing
2014 – Totaled my car, almost got evicted, and moved back to Florida to live with my parents
2015 – 19 – In and out of 9-5 work while freelancing
2019 – Went full-time with my media-buying biz
2020 – Hit 10k/month consistently
2021 – Got married/pregnant and scaled my business
2022 – Got married/Pregnant and scaled my business
2023 – Launched my course. Scaled to multiple six figures per month. Retired my husband
2024 – ???
I had a paper route at 12 and did the landscaping at a put-put golf course + mowed neighborhood lawns, snow removal at 13.
My first real job was McDonald’s at 14. By 16 I was a large small-fish drug dealer.
I remember the first time I tried trading, it was at the school yard, about 6 years old, I had a blastoise card, and some older kid convinced me to trade it for his bellsprout. I understood I got finessed, and started crying, getting scammed probably 100’s of times in videogames & trades as a young kid taught me to not trust a single person in the money making world.
I always loved trading, in videogames, the thing I would spend the most time on was trading, and trading to make profits. Once I made enough profits, I would give back to randoms because it made me feel good.
Years later I started my company, 1 1/2 years ago, it took about half a year to get sales, and a year to make enough to pay my expenses & remaining capital for growth.
I was like 7-8 when i started selling hamsters to the local pet stores. Paid for their food, supplies and some extra for myself.
about 11 or 12…my mom did work from home, putting letters in envelopes for mail shots,,,I started to help and got like 50p per hour, I realised if I worked after school I could earn enough to buy stuff at the weekends?
I was 18 when I start making a money\.
About 8 years old. I was in Haiti.
If you were around in the early 2000, you know Nokia phone could have custom ringtones based on certain key input that would sound like popular songs. My cousin worked at a “cybercafe” and I used to go online and print out the keys input and charged people based on how popular and how many keys I would have to input. I had a price for a 3 sec , 5 sec and 9 sec( Popular part only) so you definitely wanted the 9 seconds option.
Fast forward now, I am taking my 9 years of SEO experience and the stellar results I’ve brought companies all over NYC and launching my own Digital marketing agency. I Know I can do it because if I could somehow found a way to make money as a kid in one of the poorest country in the world. I can certainly make it here.
I started at maybe 13 years old, started with affiliation (with forum at the time) and I’d pick up things from all over the place that I’d sell at garage sales, i made maybe 100€a month, that was huge for me haha
Lemonade stands at maybe 6 years old. Paper routes on-and-off when I was 9-13. Selling snacks out of my locker at school at 12-13.
Just realized I never lost money doing anything. Always tried out ideas that had no major downside. Fits with my personality.
Current business cost nothing more than cheap webhosting to get going. $300k+/yr profit now, so there are many more expenses now, but still ~88% margin.
14, helped w/ fam business during summer in HS. I also tutored during summer.
Started cleaning houses/ mowing lawns @ 12 years old. My neighborhood and neighbors were absolutely awesome
Like 25 when I actually started trying
When I was 13 my mom told me that if I wanted different clothes I’d have to get my own money, so I started mowing lawns and doing gopher work.
I was probably 7. I majorly underestimated the price of homes, and I wanted to flip houses to make money (mind you, I probably had $100 bucks in my piggy bank). So I would see these for sale signs in front of beautiful homes and I would call the realtors and ask them how much the houses would cost. Surprisingly, only one realtor ever asked me how old I am, and when I told him the truth, he tried convincing me that I don’t want the house because it’s haunted. 🤷♀️
I’m now a revenue growth strategist with almost 15 years of experience helping startups make money. Worked for an investment firm for a little bit, and now I’m building a software that helps eCommerce companies make more money using augmented intelligence.
I was 16. I was in 11th garde and i made few commission arts for people i knew.
Love the picklerooms idea!
My first experience was selling watermelons when I was 10. I wrote about it here:
[https://philhignight.com/posts/i_failed_to_build_a_functional_business/](https://philhignight.com/posts/i_failed_to_build_a_functional_business/)
Sold cakes when I was a teenager, then did some yard care and odd jobs, had the entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. Tried to start a “bank” for my older sister when I was like 9 or 10… she knew better than to trust me. Started supporting myself with my own income from landscaping at like 22, started my business at 24.
When I was 12, I set out to earn money for a new PS console. I started with a snack stand, which initially struggled… but gained popularity among neighborhood kids. My breakthrough came when I discovered and sold my dad’s music cassette collection, finally earning the money I needed. That summer taught me persistence, creativity, and the joy of achieving a goal thru hard work.
13 paper round for big 11/15 $$$$’s a week
I did teach students in my area, when I was 16. I have around 10 students who came to my house for coaching. I really like to teach and learn forward. Later on I get a skill in “graphic designing”, Now I am doing freelancing and wanted to start up my setup and teach design to students who are willing!
I took my first job with hours at 13 but used to sell random shit before that
I was about 10 or 11 when I started buying cases of pop and lugging them in a cooler over to a nearby baseball diamond. I’d sell them for 50 cents and the case cost me $6 so I would make a princely $6 per case. I usually sold out.
This was in the early to mid 80s. I can’t remember why I stopped doing it because it seemed like an easy way to get some cash at that age.
I did websites started when I was 15. That was in the 90s, still in tech and have owned a company for the last 15 or so years.