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Have I got a job for you.
As a boy I was into tropical fish. I had several tanks, I raised fish and tried to sell them – anything to make money. At one point I had eight large tanks of fish.
At 13 I wangled my way into a job after school and Saturday at a pet store for $5.00 a week and the occasional free fish.
After all these years I finally learned the money in tropical fish is not in the fish, but in taking care of them. So, if you are looking for a post-retirement gig or just a part-time job, I have the job for you.
Yesterday I was in a doctor’s waiting room fascinated with a 55 gallon tank of fish. While there, a guy arrives and starts cleaning the tank. We chatted – about fish – and I finally asked what it cost for the tank maintenance service. I visit here every two weeks or so he said. This cleaning will be $350. I silently gulped. I have been lobbying Connie to have a tank of fish with no luck, but I thought if I had it maintained I could make a deal. But $350 a pop? I don’t think so.
Further discussion revealed his fee was $150 the first hour plus $2.00 a minute thereafter – more for a salt water tank. My mind drifted to those fish tanks I cleaned for $5.00 a week, admittedly in 1956, still only $59.16 in 2025. Back then it was about equal to $0.30 an hour- not as good as my next summer job in the town library at $0.75 an hour- the minimum wage was $1.00 in 1960.
As I said, (almost) anything to make money. I worked in the base library the first time I was in the army too.
One of the reasons I spent nine years in school at night to get degrees was that I couldn’t afford to stop. For several years my VA education benefits exceeded the tuition cost because the VA benefits were based on family size so each child brought more tax-free income.
Today two of our sons work part-time jobs to make ends meet. One started a home improvement business-he is quite good at it, last week a customer gave him a $1,000 tip. He also collects scrap metal which can be lucrative, especially discarded copper pipes and wires, not what you might expect for someone with a masters degree, but I must have set some type of example.
The other son gets up very early to drive a school bus for needed income. He sells real estate by day – no sales, no pay.
You do what you have to do, not for luxuries, but for present and future necessities.
What triggered this post was an article that claimed to list what is necessary to live a good life. The travel item of $6,000 a year for a family caught my eye and made me think of how many people set their priorities.
Whether it be cleaning up after fish, pleasing demanding homeowners or shuttling loud schoolchildren, you do what is necessary to meet your financial needs and goals. That’s the way I see it anyway.
I cleaned the tanks in my dad’s shrimp lab at Florida Atlantic University. He told me he had a species of shrimp named after him, Thor dobkini. Unfortunately an overzealous exterminator spelled the end of the shrimp lab.
As a young High School student, I too cleaned office aquariums. I had 15 of my own tanks where I raised tropical fish and also mice (for pets and snake food) and sold to a local pet shop. I cleaned my Dentist’s tank several times, and always wondered what the high pitched sound of the dental handpiece was. I never had a cavity so I had not experienced it being used. My fascination with Dentistry continued, and I was accepted into Dental School after 3 years of pre-Dental classes (mostly Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Math). I practiced 41 great years and have been retired 7 years. It all started with the aquariums and fish!
From fish scales to dental scaling, seems like a logical career progression to me.
Did I miss something? I don’t see one of the ladies who regularly comment do so on this one, wedding issues and all. 😎
Since this about fish, I’ll take the bait. I think you should get the fish tank— and find someone whom you can train to clean it. I’m sure there are many people looking for part time work who are willing to do it for much less than $350 an hour. Since you know how to do it, you could teach the person and supervise for next next few months. By the time you leave for the Cape, your trainee will be more than ready to take care of the tank. Watching fish is a great way to reduce stress. We have a dog; pets are good!
As for weddings, my parents paid for a very nice, but not over the top one for my husband and me. I suspect my mother was more into it than I was! We, in turn, paid for our daughter’s. Again— nice, but no where near $200 a head.
One critical element that seems missed from most personal finance advice is that, for at least some of your life, you need to work really hard. That might mean overtime, weekends, nights, the difficult task that no-one else wants.
The trouble is that advice like “work really hard” isn’t very glamourous and won’t get you many likes.
I often hear the claim that you must work extremely hard to get ahead. Maybe that’s true for some people, but I’ve always believed in choosing a career you enjoy, analyzing which paths pay well, specializing, and working smart rather than simply working more.
As a teenager, my favorite job, the best-paying one for my skills, was delivering flowers. I earned about $50 per hour while working only around 6 hours per week (4 on weekends and 2 during the week). That job alone paid for my college education.
I graduated with two majors, computer science and economics/finance from a top university, completing both in just three years.
After graduation, I worked in IT until I retired. My wife and I agreed early on that we wouldn’t work more than 42–43 hours per week unless there was a genuine emergency. For the same reason, we decided not to own a business. We wanted a healthy work–life balance and to be fully involved in our kids’ school life and activities.
We immigrated to this country with just $5,000 when I was in my mid-30s. I never received stock options or profit-sharing, and my salary was average for an IT developer working in mainframe, not in Silicon Valley where they paid much more. I only received two bonuses, each around $2,000. We began saving through a 401(k) when I was 38.
From 01/2000 to 01/2010, the S&P 500 lost money, but I earned over 9.5% annually during that same period.
Thanks to disciplined investing and living within our means, I retired at age 61, just 23 years after starting my career. BTW, since I started retirement, I more than doubled our portfolio using only bond funds.
I give the same advice to anyone who’s interested. For example, a friend of my kids loves cars, so I suggested he specialize in Mercedes and work at a Mercedes dealership, not Toyota, Honda, or GM, because that’s where the higher pay and specialization opportunities are.
I’m glad you had your life together from a young age. I’m interested in the time frame and bond funds you used to double your portfolio balance; it’s an excellent result and certainly something rarely achieved.
I don’t think that I have ever known a financially successful person who did not work hard for most, if not all, of their working years. Success without hard work is very hard, if not impossible, to achieve.
I worked hard throughout my career, and both of our daughters criticized me for being a so-called “workaholic.” I did what my job required and achieved some degree of financial success. It was just part of the deal in my chosen profession. Now both my daughters work really hard in their careers and additional part-time jobs, but I am too polite to suggest that they may be on their way to becoming “workaholics,” too.
You are sure right about all of that.
What knocked me for a loop was that the two sideline jobs I had I enjoyed more than my full-time job.
My wife Suzie worked three jobs in the lead-up to our wedding; we had to fund the whole thing ourselves. I guess she was motivated knowing she was getting me as a husband! 😂
I can’t claim to have had more than one job, but in the years after founding my company, working 100-plus hours per week wasn’t unusual. It’s just what you did to earn a living for your family. Work becomes your world if that’s what’s needed at the time.
We paid for our wedding too (1968), while I was in the army. My parents gave us a $25 US Savings that cost $12.50. Connie made all the arrangements by herself. I got home two days before. Ten days later I left her to get back to the army post. They were tough times.
Flash forward 20+ years and we paid for four weddings and four college degrees.
Yeah, weddings have definitely changed. One of my daughters is flying home from London early next year to start looking at venues. I’m soon going to have a front-row seat for the whole spectacle. At least I should get a few good yarns out of the 18 months of organizing ahead of us.
Mark, I went through the wedding process with my only daughter culminating in a wonderful wedding in March. At times I was going bat$hit crazy over the cost of some of the arrangements (my wife and I paid for our wedding, as did my brother), but a good friend said don’t worry about it, you have just one daughter, just have fun. Well, the wedding turned out fantastic, perfect weather, the food was amazing (all the guests raved), the venue much better than I thought, and we had a great time on the dance floor. Truly a spectacular day and evening I’ll never forget. Worth every penny. My recommendation is take a few deep breaths, buckle up, and it’ll all turn out great in the end. 🙂
I’ll maybe put the Steve Martin movie “Father of the Bride” on continuous replay as my motivational north star, lol.
The only thing I truly remember from our wedding and our daughters is that it was pouring rain on both days. The day after our wedding there was a blizzard, we were stranded at the airport and missed two days of our honeymoon. When we got back I returned to the army and didn’t see my new wife for six months.
Weddings in the US, especially in the Northeast are out of control. What is sometimes spent is ridiculous. $200 or more per guest and often hundreds of people.
We went to a wedding a few years ago and had to go to Florida. The couple was divorced six months later.
seems like the money spent on the wedding could be better used by the couple for a down payment.
Preaching to the choir. I gently suggested a small, intimate wedding and a nice chunk of money towards a house deposit… daughters sure can give you a cutting look when they want to, lol.
Oh boy, I had just gotten past a divorce and was in the most financially difficult time of my life when my oldest was getting married. I could only afford $10K, and that was borrowed money. My daughter felt bad about taking it. I told her $10K didn’t even buy a decent used car, which made her feel a bit better about it. I also suggested they could do a tiny wedding and use the money towards a house if they liked. They did consider it, but ultimately decided on a nice wedding.
Weddings and money would make a good rant…but not from me. 🤔 I’m just glad I didn’t have to mention a part-time job retrieving shopping carts.
I’m sure I will turn the wedding into a rant or two… oops I meant post or two 😬
LOL, me too, Dick
https://behavioralscientist.org/why-dont-people-return-their-shopping-carts-a-somewhat-scientific-investigation/
Look at this article that turned up in my inbox this morning.
I knew a fella who refused to deposit fast food wrappers in the trash. He said it was eliminating a job at the restaurant.
I guess there’s a strange logic somewhere in that reasoning.
It just seems like common courtesy to me, plus I don’t like people to have to clean up after me.
We have a maid once per month for a deep cleaning. She says that I have the cleanest toilet she’s ever seen.
Some people hire a cleaning service/person to motivate themselves to at least straighten up beforehand and I see nothing wrong with that. I haven’t done it – very small house, easy to clean – but might at some future time. I always try to leave the hotel room in good order. On a recent group tour, another traveler was surprised that we got maid service after our first night and said “I hope I didn’t leave too much of my stuff lying around.” Thoughtful.
Only on HD could we go from cleaning a fish tank, to weddings to picking up hamburger wrappers to cleaning toilets. I’m glad someone is making money out of this. 🤣 And imagine only few people have joined in the discussion.
I loved your story about cleaning fish tanks and working in the library. Being a library “page” (shelving books) was my first legal job after babysitting. Both led to the same jobs while in college. I think every family has its work/life priorities. Doug and I never had second jobs, but he devoted hours every week to the Boy Scouts his whole life. Our family trips were usually exchanges with our timeshare or to visit relatives. We never had a second home or boat. We both enjoyed school so we spent some time and money getting advanced degrees which didn’t lead to higher paying jobs but greatly enriched us in other ways. BTW, today would have been his 75th birthday. I’m grateful that I found HD in his inbox five years ago. 😊
Very nice comment.
Oh I agree. Definitely clear your wrappers, especially in a fast food joint.
Ah vindication. Cool article. Kind of sounds like the same rationales people use for political discourse these days.
😂
Like your son, the real estate salesman, I took a second job selling two-way radios to make ends meet during my short and unsuccessful stint as a registered financial representative. Then when I started my tax prep business, I worked part time driving an 18 wheeler for several years.
It takes determination, a strong work ethic, and a fair amount of luck to get to the finish line.
Yes it does. Some of the complaining I hear these days, some claims things are rigged, unfair or opportunity is blocked by the wealthy really upset me.
I just read about two 20 something’s who developed an app to assist AI programmers. They sold it and instantly became billionaires – good for them I say.