I didnt make "decent money" at 18. I was a college freshman. I worked on campus jobs like bookstore and dorm security for minimum wage. I worked at Target and babysat when I was home on breaks. It wasnt intended to be decent money it was just spending money. Are you saying those jobs dont exisit anymore?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you live in a nice area, there seems to be unlimited demand for dishwashers, hosts, servers, fast food workers, grocery store workers, etc. I know it’s location dependent, but I know of so many businesses looking to fill service jobs.

This is unfortunately another aspect of the "haves vs. the have nots". My teen makes around $400/week mowing 6 yards which probably is a total of 3-4 hours per week. We live in a nice area where the lawn service companies will charge 2x or more for the same service, so while it seems nuts to me...it's saving the homeowner 50%, and they feel like they are helping out the local teenager.

Agreed. And we pay teen babysitters up to $30 per hour, and a teen could charge a similar amount for snow removal as your son charges for landscaping. We also have teens stop by with business cards and websites for things like mobile car detailing, and one wanted to clean our windows, but since they aren't insured, we thought that one was a stretch.

He made close to $2,000 during the snowcrete saga.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you live in a nice area, there seems to be unlimited demand for dishwashers, hosts, servers, fast food workers, grocery store workers, etc. I know it’s location dependent, but I know of so many businesses looking to fill service jobs.

This is unfortunately another aspect of the "haves vs. the have nots". My teen makes around $400/week mowing 6 yards which probably is a total of 3-4 hours per week. We live in a nice area where the lawn service companies will charge 2x or more for the same service, so while it seems nuts to me...it's saving the homeowner 50%, and they feel like they are helping out the local teenager.

Agreed. And we pay teen babysitters up to $30 per hour, and a teen could charge a similar amount for snow removal as your son charges for landscaping. We also have teens stop by with business cards and websites for things like mobile car detailing, and one wanted to clean our windows, but since they aren't insured, we thought that one was a stretch.

Anonymous wrote:If you live in a nice area, there seems to be unlimited demand for dishwashers, hosts, servers, fast food workers, grocery store workers, etc. I know it’s location dependent, but I know of so many businesses looking to fill service jobs.

This is unfortunately another aspect of the "haves vs. the have nots". My teen makes around $400/week mowing 6 yards which probably is a total of 3-4 hours per week. We live in a nice area where the lawn service companies will charge 2x or more for the same service, so while it seems nuts to me...it's saving the homeowner 50%, and they feel like they are helping out the local teenager.

If you live in a nice area, there seems to be unlimited demand for dishwashers, hosts, servers, fast food workers, grocery store workers, etc. I know it’s location dependent, but I know of so many businesses looking to fill service jobs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These kids can do dog walking, dog sitting, nannying, driving kids to activities, summer camp counselors, after school sport coordinators. These are things that upper middle class and upper class people pay a lot for and it’s hard to find good help. People pay $25-$35 an hour for people to walk dogs or care for kids. I’m always looking for dog sitters and pay $100 a day. The person can work another job at the same time. They just need to walk my dog twice a day and sleep over. I desperately need a driver this summer to drop off and pick kids up from summer camp. That would be 3-4 hours a day and $25 an hour. More than they would make full time at minimum wage. Kids need to be entrepreneurs these days.

Serious question- where do you find your dog walker / sitter or babysitter?
Some teens posted on our NextDoor and everyone was all crazy about how teens could be lured in by creepers and not to advertise with your age or contact information on NextDoor.
So is it all care.com and Rover?

We live in CC MD and when we moved in (pre kids) we noticed a bunch of kids in the neighborhood who were anywhere from 10-13 at the time. Fast forward 3 years later and we had a potty-trained toddler (we didn't really use babysitters until potty-trained) and we just asked the parents if their kids were available to babysit.

One 13 year old lived two doors down, so we used her a couple of times but the parents were around and literally 100 feet away if any issues. We were fine with boys babysitting (we have sons) and a couple did when the kids were like 5 and 7.

It was all pretty organic. When our boys got older, they did some babysitting to new families that came in...again, when kids were at least like 5-6.

You already posted about this, OP. I recognize your peculiar phrase of "schedule their employee" for shifts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP lists call centers has their great opportunity as an 18 year old. That wasn’t a possibility within hundreds of miles of where I grew up.

But odd to say that employers are only offering 1-2 days a week. My DS gets offered way more hours than that. Up to 40 over the summer. He’s 16.

Where does your 16 year old work?
Because I’m seeing the same thing as OP.

He works at a high end grocery store.

Anonymous wrote:These kids can do dog walking, dog sitting, nannying, driving kids to activities, summer camp counselors, after school sport coordinators. These are things that upper middle class and upper class people pay a lot for and it’s hard to find good help. People pay $25-$35 an hour for people to walk dogs or care for kids. I’m always looking for dog sitters and pay $100 a day. The person can work another job at the same time. They just need to walk my dog twice a day and sleep over. I desperately need a driver this summer to drop off and pick kids up from summer camp. That would be 3-4 hours a day and $25 an hour. More than they would make full time at minimum wage. Kids need to be entrepreneurs these days.

Serious question- where do you find your dog walker / sitter or babysitter?
Some teens posted on our NextDoor and everyone was all crazy about how teens could be lured in by creepers and not to advertise with your age or contact information on NextDoor.
So is it all care.com and Rover?

Anonymous wrote:OP lists call centers has their great opportunity as an 18 year old. That wasn’t a possibility within hundreds of miles of where I grew up.

But odd to say that employers are only offering 1-2 days a week. My DS gets offered way more hours than that. Up to 40 over the summer. He’s 16.

Where does your 16 year old work?
Because I’m seeing the same thing as OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Employers do not want to schedule their employees for more than 2 days/shifts a week. Uber, Uber eats and door dash keep the majority of the money from a transaction. After the Ebay fees and shipping costs there is very little money left to actually make any money from an Ebay sale.

Only about 1 out of 100 people who contact sellers on Facebook marketplace actually want to pay what the seller is asking.
YouTube requires millions of views in order to earn any significant money.
Online music streaming platform royalties are laughable unless you are a major music artist.

Years ago when I was a younger person, call centers were the big thing among many younger people but now almost all of those jobs have been sent overseas.

None of these things existed 30 years ago when is the period I guess "when young people were able to earn decent money", yet there are still fast food restaurants, normal restaurants, amusement parks, ice cream shops, beachside towns, lawn mowing, babysitting, etc. where tons of 18 year olds are able to work if they want.

Your Youtube and Spotify examples are really nuts. I mean, before the Internet you had to get major label backing in order to make any real money from music. There was no influencer economy at all and you had to make it as a real actor in Hollywood or Broadway...which again, still exist...in order to make any real money.

I am actually surprised by hearing about kids with just like 20,000 instagram followers at least getting free stuff from brands and making a couple of bucks.

They refuse to give significant hours to emplyees. 1 day a week is the norm now.

Not really. My 24 yo worked at an "elevated Fast food place" (not MCD, BK, CFA type) during HS and summers during college. They typically got 40-45 hours during the summers. They were such a dedicated worker that the managers were trying to convince them to drop out of college and become an assistant manager. And my kid considered it as a backup plan if they didn't find a job right upon graduating college (live at home with us, make $65K as an assistant manager and continue searching for a job that used their college degree)---kid got a "real job" that used their degree but it was tempting. Point is it's difficult to find good workers. Whenever someone woudlnt' show up to the job, they'd call my kid, knowing that we lived 10 mins away and if they were not busy they would come in and work overtime (pay was $18/hr at that point, anything over 40 was 1.5 that).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's why 18 year olds are supposed to be in college so they don't have to work menial jobs.

College isn’t an option for everyone

Not sure if you knew that

People need money to survive

Yes, they do need money but what is the average 18 year old who doesn’t or can’t attend college actually qualified to do? I ask that with all sincerity. They need a trade or skill. Many high schools create a trade path for those in these situations. You can’t expect employers to pay high wages to low skilled workers just because they need money. There needs to be an ROI.

OP lists call centers has their great opportunity as an 18 year old. That wasn’t a possibility within hundreds of miles of where I grew up.

But odd to say that employers are only offering 1-2 days a week. My DS gets offered way more hours than that. Up to 40 over the summer. He’s 16.

Anonymous wrote:That's why 18 year olds are supposed to be in college so they don't have to work menial jobs.

College isn’t an option for everyone

Not sure if you knew that

People need money to survive

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Employers do not want to schedule their employees for more than 2 days/shifts a week. Uber, Uber eats and door dash keep the majority of the money from a transaction. After the Ebay fees and shipping costs there is very little money left to actually make any money from an Ebay sale.

Only about 1 out of 100 people who contact sellers on Facebook marketplace actually want to pay what the seller is asking.
YouTube requires millions of views in order to earn any significant money.
Online music streaming platform royalties are laughable unless you are a major music artist.

Years ago when I was a younger person, call centers were the big thing among many younger people but now almost all of those jobs have been sent overseas.

None of these things existed 30 years ago when is the period I guess "when young people were able to earn decent money", yet there are still fast food restaurants, normal restaurants, amusement parks, ice cream shops, beachside towns, lawn mowing, babysitting, etc. where tons of 18 year olds are able to work if they want.

Your Youtube and Spotify examples are really nuts. I mean, before the Internet you had to get major label backing in order to make any real money from music. There was no influencer economy at all and you had to make it as a real actor in Hollywood or Broadway...which again, still exist...in order to make any real money.

I am actually surprised by hearing about kids with just like 20,000 instagram followers at least getting free stuff from brands and making a couple of bucks.

They refuse to give significant hours to emplyees. 1 day a week is the norm now.