Anyone ever have a paper route?

CaptainBoogerBuns

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I delivered the Lexington Leader (yea, the Afternoon edition) by bike. Hitting the storm door of a customer always gives you that incentive to “book it”.
 
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MegaBlue05

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Sort of. I worked for a small weekly newspaper that came out on Wednesday nights.

For extra cash to supplement my comically low pay, I used to deliver papers to local businesses for their newsstands. Got paid $60 cash for about 2 hours of work, mostly spent driving from business to business.
 
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CaptainBoogerBuns

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Delivered the courier journal on my bike for about a year. ****** job for a 13-14 year old. Rain, snow, 7 days a week it didn’t matter. Worst part was going door to door to collect the bill payments. People not answering the door used to piss me off
I had about 85 customers in this apt complex. The good news, it was an apartment complex so I could do it in 25 mins max. The bad news….it was an apartment complex
 
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Tskware

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Jan 26, 2003
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Covered it for a neighbor kid for about a month when I was in middle school, damn near got eaten by one of the meanest dogs I ever met on the route one day, scared the living "ish" out of me, was glad to see the neighbors back in town after their long vacation. They never asked me to do it again, and I would have said "hell no"

PS: Should have added this was back in the early 70s, before leash laws went into effect, probably not as much danger as getting bitten these days . . . . although with electric fences, who knows.
 
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CaptainBoogerBuns

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TWO DOLLARS
 

Elbridge

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Yes and two large dogs would torment me every single day. It was way before leash laws and I had already been bitten by a dog a few years earlier.
 
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We had a family route for about 7 years (late 80s/early 90s). Helped to pay high school tuition for my sisters and me. My wonderful friends knew about the route and had a few occasions where they were out late and decided to hide and scare the crap out of me at 4:30am. 😱 Let’s just say I had trouble going back to bed those mornings, due to my heart still racing like crazy.
 

ukalum1988

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I delivered the Evansville Courier for four years from 1976-1980 (10-14 years of age) in my neighborhood. Had about 60 customers,

Had some help from my dad delivering to a few out laying customers; took me an hour to run my route before school. My parents (usually my mom) would help on Sunday with the big thick papers.

I made about $25 a week which was good money for a kid my age. Taught me a lot about responsibility.
 

CaptainBoogerBuns

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Delivered the courier journal on my bike for about a year. ****** job for a 13-14 year old. Rain, snow, 7 days a week it didn’t matter. Worst part was going door to door to collect the bill payments. People not answering the door used to piss me off
I delivered the Courier Journal on Centre Pkwy in Lexington. Had some crazy woman throw a newspaper at me.
 

TortElvisII

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I was listening to a podcast about serial killers (Believe it or not) and one of the guests (Michael Butterfield) was talking about how in the late '70s there were all these child murders in Phoenix, and that ended his newspaper route. He said that boys on bicycles were replaced by adults in vans delivering newspapers. So, late 1970s or so.
 

ukalum1988

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Dec 21, 2014
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I was listening to a podcast about serial killers (Believe it or not) and one of the guests (Michael Butterfield) was talking about how in the late '70s there were all these child murders in Phoenix, and that ended his newspaper route. He said that boys on bicycles were replaced by adults in vans delivering newspapers. So, late 1970s or so.
I was replaced by an adult driving a car after I quit my route.
 
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BBBLazing

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Dec 30, 2009
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My kids had two routes. I delivered the morning papers for them until they were 12. I helped them on Sunday until my oldest turned 16. He earned enough money to pay his private school tuition for his Senior year, and we canceled the routes. We paid for 5 kids to go to private schools K-12 with paper routes.
 

blubo

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Oct 14, 2014
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I had a route of 85 customers when i was a kid. i must’ve had every deadbeat in town on it. worked my *** off and was never able to collect enough money to pay my bill. i was finally able to unload it after about seven months.
 

Catfan in Tn.

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Mar 10, 2005
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Had 3 last being the Henderson Gleaner. County route with around 300 customers on weekdays and 400 on Sunday. Good money. Remember putting brake pads on car every 2 to 3 weeks.
 
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