15 year olds and paper rounds....

[Sparklingbrook]

Does anyone have a Ds who just comes home from school and gets on with it? It's once a week, the local paper. He moans and groans about doing it for longer than it takes to actually do it.

I've often wondered about busking AToTK - does he just go into the High Street and start, or has he sought permission (if so, how?)

I don't think DS1 would be a good busker. I have heard him sing.

Don't forget Christmas tips - DS1 got about £40 last year after putting cheapie Christmas cards through everyone's door

My son only delivers 11-14 papers a day and got about £30 last Christmas. A couple of them gave him money at Easter to buy an egg. After two years a few of them still ask how his sister is.

BackforGood -- he assures me he has 'checked the council website, and buskers are encouraged' but have to move on after no more than an hour or if requested by the shop-owners.

Yes, he just rolls up and starts singing. Presumably after a while they pay him to go away...

Thanks AToTK - not for any of my dc, but my I think my niece should give it a try.

Ds, nearly 14, does a weekend paper round and gets £8.40 for both days. He has his own money for once and doesn't constantly owe me next month's pocket money.

He has done it for six weeks now and pretty much gets on with it. We do tend to check he's up but he has been every day apart from one when he overslept and DH ended up taking him round in the car.

Including the travel to/from the newsagent (2 miles) he is done within 1.5hrs each day.

I think it's a great start to the lesson of earning money. He still gets the same pocket money and so benefits from theoney which is enough for a cinema ticket at the weekend.

Glad this thread appeared in the Discussions of the Day panel as DD is trying to get a paper round (weekly free paper).

Sparkling Can I just ask how many papers your DS delivers for the £7-8 please as I'm trying to gauge how much the round for our road is likely to be?

He has a round of 173 papers. This involves our own road and a few others which is lovely-no car trips.
The basic money is £6/7 ish but it's the leaflets that top the money up, so if he gets four different leaflets it's nearer £8 maybe sometimes £9 depending on the leaflets.

He got a sheet at the start stating how much he would get and how long it was meant to take him.

My DS had a paper round once, he only did it for a week. Then gave it up.

He does work hard now though, so his work ethic did improve.

I think DS1 has been tempted many times usual but he has to give 2 week's notice.

In the week he had his paper round, I had to do it for him one night because he had band practice

Thanks Sparkling.

So is the basic amount worked out on number of papers or time it would take?

It's just that our road doesn't have that many houses but would be slower than, say, a road of terraces/semis as it's an awkward layout, difficult access to some houses etc.

I have had a look at the 'Fair estimate Agreement' that he was given at the start Norbert and it says his round is established at '101 minutes'.
Some of the roads have long drives/steep steps etc but that is not taken into account AFAIK.

Then there is an 'average total time for leaflets' ranging from 21 minutes for 2 to 104 minutes for 10. Not sure about that as the leaflets just get inserted into the papers by me DS prior to starting.

I can't remember the last time he did the round without huge amounts of faffing/coming home for no reason etc but fairly sure if he did do it all in one go it wouldn't take that long.

His friend's round incorporates a sheltered housing place. He gets to just leave all those papers in Reception.

IME, they do take into account (as much as is practical) how long they estimate the round to take - and the initial paperwork asks you to let them know if it's very different from their estimate.
At one point, ds and dd both had rounds with the same paper, and their 'time' wasn't directly proportional to the number of papers - they had somehow managed to take into account the fact that dd's round had a whole row of terraces where the front doors were a couple of steps from the pavement, but ds's all had decent length driveways.
I presumed someone must have walked the rounds first most likely to check they weren't overpaying them.

My dd had a sheltered housing place but took them round to all the individual front doors.