[Jarred Santos]

Hustling For Pocket Money​

Facebook/Australia Looking At Times Past

This blast from the past shows two little boys in December of 1960 collecting bottles in sugar bags for pocket money. Judging by their shadows, it appears this photograph was taken at noon — you have to appreciate their hustle. Aside from bottles that would fetch a couple of cents, I’ve also been told that newspapers were also a great pocket money side-hustle back in the day!

Personally, when I was a little boy, my Dad had me earn extra change for lollies by picking out his white hair back when most of his hair was still raven black. Every now and then, I’d also hear of mowing lawns as something kids still do, which is pretty neat (Ha!), if you ask me.

How about you? Did you also collect bottles, deliver newspapers or mow lawns when you were young? What other jobs did you do to earn extra money as a kid? Tell us here!

 

[Baz1960]

Yes, bottles, newspapers, mowing lawns, weeding, white washing fences. I've just worked out why I'm so tired in retirement lol

 

[Pipeliner]

I delivered newspapers, but that was in the UK where there were around 8 daily newspapers and you had to remember which one each house had. None of this throwing it over the fence, each paper had to be folded and pushed through the letterbox slit in the front door. There were no papers on Christmas Day, can’t remember if we got any other days off. Rain, hail, snow, those papers had to be delivered, then home for breakfast and off to school.

 

[Vernia Bullivangt]

We used to go camping at Nelson, New Zealand every Christmas holidays (from Christchurch). We had a small boat and motor and would go water-skiing when the tides were right. But between tides we would be at the camping ground where there were LOTS of people drinking beer etc every night and they would pile up their bottles beside their tents. My brother and I (me between the years of 10 and 12, and my brother 3 years younger) would get Dad's trolley which he had for storing the outboard motor when we weren't skiing, and Dad nailed a big sack onto the trolley. We would wheel the trolley around the camp and fill it up with bottles and then Dad would load all the bottles into the boot of our big Hudson car (had a huge boot) and took us off to the brewery. We would get 2pence each for the beer bottles and 6pence for large lemonade bottles (not so many of them though). The only bad thing about this is that we generally wandered around the camp with bare feet but we needed to walk on the roadway to be able to push the trolley. In the hot sun, the tar on the road would melt and we would get it stuck between our toes .. which meant we had webbed feet for the whole of the holidays. It was impossible to get that tar off - we tried everything.

 

[Pam Wyhoon]

I was r

Yes, bottles, newspapers, mowing lawns, weeding, white washing fences. I've just worked out why I'm so tired in retirement l

 

[Pam Wyhoon]

Hustling For Pocket Money​

View attachment 17378

Facebook/Australia Looking At Times Past

This blast from the past shows two little boys in December of 1960 collecting bottles in sugar bags for pocket money. Judging by their shadows, it appears this photograph was taken at noon — you have to appreciate their hustle. Aside from bottles that would fetch a couple of cents, I’ve also been told that newspapers were also a great pocket money side-hustle back in the day!

Personally, when I was a little boy, my Dad had me earn extra change for lollies by picking out his white hair back when most of his hair was still raven black. Every now and then, I’d also hear of mowing lawns as something kids still do, which is pretty neat (Ha!), if you ask me.

How about you? Did you also collect bottles, deliver newspapers or mow lawns when you were young? What other jobs did you do to earn extra money as a kid? Tell us here!

I was raised in Victoria,at small town in Bena 3946..My sister x I saver our parents news papers;the weekly times,local rag x the Sun. We had to pull any staples out,put the papers flat x then roll them into one big roll,tie them with string. Then we could sell them to our local butcher who used them to wrap everyones meat in. We would be so thrilled at what Shillings x pence we received

 

[Elva]

As a 13yo in 1953 I was the first female in Paddington, Sydney to sell newspapers on the street and in the pubs until my stepfather saw me calling "papers, papers!" in our local. After that I made 'quality but cheap' lemon tarts and other sweets for my convent school mates until my beautiful nuns redirected the venture to our charity arm of the school. Eventually I did run a very successful seafood wholesale/retail partnership for almost 20 years. Still like selling

 

[Squizzy1]

Doing the rounds at the Drive-in was popular too for bottles and ice-cream sticks. Reminded me of how we would return bottles to the deli, then go round the back and bring them back in again for another refund. I used to caddy at the Royal Adelaide as a 12-14yr old for 10/- a round, which was good money in the early 60s.

 

[Wandiwa]

We used to go camping at Nelson, New Zealand every Christmas holidays (from Christchurch). We had a small boat and motor and would go water-skiing when the tides were right. But between tides we would be at the camping ground where there were LOTS of people drinking beer etc every night and they would pile up their bottles beside their tents. My brother and I (me between the years of 10 and 12, and my brother 3 years younger) would get Dad's trolley which he had for storing the outboard motor when we weren't skiing, and Dad nailed a big sack onto the trolley. We would wheel the trolley around the camp and fill it up with bottles and then Dad would load all the bottles into the boot of our big Hudson car (had a huge boot) and took us off to the brewery. We would get 2pence each for the beer bottles and 6pence for large lemonade bottles (not so many of them though). The only bad thing about this is that we generally wandered around the camp with bare feet but we needed to walk on the roadway to be able to push the trolley. In the hot sun, the tar on the road would melt and we would get it stuck between our toes .. which meant we had webbed feet for the whole of the holidays. It was impossible to get that tar off - we tried everything.

In hindsight maybe the first sack of bottles should have been spent on cheap thongs.

 

[Macarj]

I used to baby sit little kids when I 10 to 13 years old while their parents went to the Pub it was a great earner because if they won on the pokies they gave me extra

 

[mylittletibbies]

When. I was about 12 or 13, my mum had a corner shop and I remember the kids coming in with their bottles.
They would want to buy lollies, these were kept in jars and a lot of them were 4 for a penny. They would always want one from each jar, so I spent a lot of time unscrewing lids and rescrewing them.
On Friday evenings, on my way to our church club, I would drop off the rent money for my mum and the landlord always gave me 2 shillings to spend.
I loved Fridays.
A funny story about our church club, it was called Rays, as we were supposed to be little rays of sunshine.
At school my friend sent me a note in class asking "are you going to Rays tonight". The note was intercepted by our teacher, and this was reported to our parents as it was thought we were arranging to go to some boys place, which would have been very frowned on for 12 year olds in those days. We thought this was hysterical.

 

[Jarred Santos]

What lovely stories, everyone! Thank you for sharing

We used to go camping at Nelson, New Zealand every Christmas holidays (from Christchurch). We had a small boat and motor and would go water-skiing when the tides were right. But between tides we would be at the camping ground where there were LOTS of people drinking beer etc every night and they would pile up their bottles beside their tents. My brother and I (me between the years of 10 and 12, and my brother 3 years younger) would get Dad's trolley which he had for storing the outboard motor when we weren't skiing, and Dad nailed a big sack onto the trolley. We would wheel the trolley around the camp and fill it up with bottles and then Dad would load all the bottles into the boot of our big Hudson car (had a huge boot) and took us off to the brewery. We would get 2pence each for the beer bottles and 6pence for large lemonade bottles (not so many of them though). The only bad thing about this is that we generally wandered around the camp with bare feet but we needed to walk on the roadway to be able to push the trolley. In the hot sun, the tar on the road would melt and we would get it stuck between our toes .. which meant we had webbed feet for the whole of the holidays. It was impossible to get that tar off - we tried everything.

What a vivid memory... I can imagine the heat of the road under the sun!

When. I was about 12 or 13, my mum had a corner shop and I remember the kids coming in with their bottles.
They would want to buy lollies, these were kept in jars and a lot of them were 4 for a penny. They would always want one from each jar, so I spent a lot of time unscrewing lids and rescrewing them.
On Friday evenings, on my way to our church club, I would drop off the rent money for my mum and the landlord always gave me 2 shillings to spend.
I loved Fridays.
A funny story about our church club, it was called Rays, as we were supposed to be little rays of sunshine.
At school my friend sent me a note in class asking "are you going to Rays tonight". The note was intercepted by our teacher, and this was reported to our parents as it was thought we were arranging to go to some boys place, which would have been very frowned on for 12 year olds in those days. We thought this was hysterical.

But did you go to Rays that night, @mylittletibbies? Haha you have me curious!