I had skipped over this enlightening thread, as I didn't think it applied to me (what
do you do?) Enlightening because many of my guesses were far off the mark.
Anyway...
Highschool days, worked all summer as a lifeguard.
College... Scholarship, but full time work in fraternity house... dishes, pots and pans for all four years for all 52 of my "brothers"... also polished the brass collection for my history prof... 3 hours a week for 4 years. Could also say that my swim training of 3 hours a day, (year round) was a part of the "job" as it allowed a slight preference in a school where athletics was not important. Didn't hurt them to share the national spotlight though... and didn't hurt my ego. USA All America Team for 7 years. First in nation one year.
After College, before service, Waterfront Director at YMCA camp Lake Cobbeseconte, Maine,
then off to Fort Benning as a 2nd Lt. US Army.
After Army, Management Training for Sears, and 6 years as manager in 7 different catalog stores ending in Martha's Vineyard, and Falmouth Ma...
Recruited by Montgomery Ward to be a District Manager... 6 years, Regional Sales promotion Manager 8 years, then National Sales Promotion Manager, and finally in charge of a secret mission to close down the Catalog Field Division, a four year project.
Then my own business... Computer Signs... at the very beginning of the new technology, in 1986. Three years of working and planning to expand to a franchise (FastSigns was a few weeks ahead of me), and cancer led to the decision to not leave DW with the business loans... and to retire at age 53.
Wish I could say I made a lot of money, but not so...@ today's dollar, maybe $110/yr, but the real dollars, much less. DW for the most part was a SAHM, with four sons. Later years, she was an activities director at a local nursing home. We saved enough to marginally retire in a campground, and snowbird(ed) to Florida for 6 months a year from 1989 to 2004, when we bought our current home here in Central Il, in a mixed CCRC community... (all phases... regular homes, apartments, assisted living, nursing home, and Alzheimer's unit.
This is an old story for the regulars here on ER... but for newer members, a journal of a low budget retirement here... (Now 25+ years)...
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/sharing-23-years-of-frugal-retirement-62251.html