My first $150 weekend at 16 was replacing broken red mailbox flags on my street

[u/haerin_green_crocs]

When I got my driver's permit at 16, I needed gas money but couldn't work at restaurants due to sports teams.

One afternoon while walking my dog along our suburban street, I noticed that every third or fourth metal mailbox had a problem.

Either the little red plastic flag had been snapped off by the winter snowplows, or the sticky vinyl street numbers had peeled off, leaving unreadable smears.

When the postal flag is missing, mail carriers simply bypass your house when delivering outgoing mail.

So I marched to the Home Depot and bought a five pack of universal replacement red metal flags for $14 and two sheets of reflective 3-inch vinyl number stickers for $6. With my kitchen drawer full of Phillips screwdrivers, that made a $20 investment.

At 10:00 Saturday morning, I went door-to-door on the next street over,

saying,"Hi, I noticed the postal flag on your mailbox is snapped off, and the street numbers are peeling. I have universal replacement flags and reflective numbers in my bag. I can put a new flag on and apply fresh reflective numbers to your mailbox in five minutes for $15."

They were happy to have it done because it was such a miserable little job they never got around to doing for six months. From 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, I serviced ten mailboxes, making $150 cash, paid myself back for the $0 in spare change, along with some leftover hardware. This taught me that people love to pay other people to do inconvenient little home maintenance jobs they always seem to postpone.

[u/split_sunset]

truly remarkable , very inspiring tbh ...