The first jobs I ever had: Lawnmowing, and I had it for years

This is a job that was probably quite common for boys or even some girls back when I was a pre-teen. There was a lot of money to be made by something that almost anyone outside of the city has to do but sometimes just can't be fussed to do so.

This was the job of a mower of lawns and I started small and eventually got a lot bigger, with the help of my parents of course.

It started with a simple push mower that my father bought for me when I told him I was interested in doing this for pocket money. It wasn't a fancy machine but it didn't need to be.

src

It was a craftsman push mower with a Briggs and Straton engine, which my father told me was the most important part and that this company made good engines. I took him at his word but he was right, I still look for that company name when I buy something with small engine on it because you know you can trust it.

Back when I got it this machine was around $100, today it is $300 so that sounds about right.

I hand made some little cards that had my phone number on it and my rates and I would customize them for each yard in the neighborhood. The price structure was just based on how big the yard looked and on the initial run my Dad helped me to decide what that amount should be. It was something like $10 for a small to medium yard and $20 for a larger one. The really huge yards would take you all day with a small machine like this one, so I didn't even take it on.

It would take me an hour or two to do a yard and then I would get paid in cash. I supplied my own fuel and didn't bag any of the grass because my machine wasn't capable of doing that, and to get $10-$20 after a couple of hours of work was HUGE money to a 9 year old kid in the 80's.

This also gave my dad an opportunity to explain to me the importance of calculating my own costs when looking at my cash money and realizing that some of that was actually spend during the job on fuel, and that "wear and tear" needed to be accounted for as well. He encouraged me to put away at least 20% from my proceeds for unexpected problems with the mower in the future, and he also took 20% back to himself to repay for buying me the mower. As a life lesson as well, quite possibly one of the most important life lessons he charged me interest on the loan for the mower and I had to give him back $120 on the $100 loan.

He also tipped the mower over and showed me where grease was important and taught me how to sharpen the blade. He showed me the importance of always keeping the oil topped up as well. These were all very simple, but very important lessons that I am very happy I learned.

As the business grew, I started to really want to tackle the really lucrative large yards, but to do that you would need a riding mower, and those were expensive.

After one I ended up buying a cheaper but effective Craftsman riding mower. Probably their lowest end model.

src

Because my father encouraged, but never forced me, I had $400 saved up in the lawnmowing rainy-day fund and I only needed to borrow an additional $300 from him to make this purchase.

Now with my rider, and pulling the pushmower and weed-whacker behind me, I was able to take on the big yards where the richer folks who lived there would pay 30-50 dollars per time. It was also at this point that I came to know that the richer a person is, the more discerning they are going to be about what constitutes a job well done. Although I was pretty meticulous in my quality, the rich folks would always seem to find something that they wanted done a bit better. I never resisted and always kept doing what they asked until the job was done to their satisfaction.

I was also able to do the smaller yards that were my existing customers a lot more quickly and this was very nice.

I lived in an area with 4 seasons though so there was no work in this field outside of 6 months of the year or so. In the winter I would do other jobs but I was always working.

I look back on that job with a sense of pride. I was basically a small business owner and while I was doing it I became a bit of an expert at lawnmower maintenance. I knew more than most of the adults did thanks to my dad's tutelage and I am forever grateful for that.

one of the most important aspects of this life lesson wasn't just about needing to work and literally get your hands dirty and break a sweat to make some cash, but also the importance of utilizing credit as little as possible in life. "The banks will always screw you over if you let them" my Dad would say, and this is something that I learned the easy way through being taught it on a very low level by a caring parent.

I know a lot of people that are up to their knees in debt including one of my high school buddies that I keep in touch with who owns 3 cars even though there are only 2 drivers in his family, has every new gadget and electronic, but can't afford to go to have some wings and beers with me when I come to town.

I learned from my Pops that this is the idiots way to live and I always avoided it. I have zero debt and I am very proud of that. By the way, he gave me the "interest" back that he charged me. It was never about money to him, it was about teaching his son something vitally important.