I was wandering: What kind of jobs did Shire-folk have? and especially Bilbo, what job did he have before he earned himself enough shinies for the rest of his life?

And what kind of money did hobbits use?

(yeah I kinda only read The Hobbit, parts of Silmarillion, The Two Towers, and I'm mear the end in The Return of the King.... I didn't read The Fellowship because it wasn't in the library and hasn't returned last time I checked)

I think Bilbo was an absentee landlord who raked in a share of his farmers' crops plus he also probably had an interest in Sanyman's mill and the local brewery and distillery, and maybe he owned all the houses on Bagshot Row too. He may also have dabbled in grain futures, pork bellies, and hog butts. In other words; he didn't have to do physical work, just a couple hours each week keeping his books up to date.

In other words he was independently wealthy. Of course none of the above is per canon, its merely my supposition/speculatiom.

Thanks for the info, and for money they just used gold I guess or maybe trading to

Among the excluded passages which were only published in The Peoples of Middle-earth is a brief but fascinating section detailing the names of money used in Gondor. The tharni, we are told, was a silver coin, the fourth part of a castar. The tharni may thus have been equivalent to the silver pennies of Eriador. It seems silver coins is a bit of a standard.

It's the 12th and last book in the History of Middle-earth series.

Nah, he was a vegatable seller selling his garden's produce to passer-by. Gandalf was a regular customer...

True but he liked to give a hand when harvest time came as true english gentlemen farmers....

The Shire was a good place to live even for the poorer hobbits as everyone seemed to be able to eat their fill, drink beer at the inns and raise families. What more could one desire?

I'd desire more than the life of an eloi. They never looked beyond the borders of their confinement, or even wondered what lied there, safe a few that were regarded as odd fellows.

They didn't realize that they were basically living in a bubble. If not for the Rangers, they'd all be enslaved/obliterated by the unlight in a jiffy.

Stagnation is detrimental for any species. Without imagination, curiosity and creativity one simply goes down in the entropical maelstrom of the universe. This would've happened to the Hobbits also, if not for the return of four heroes to wake them up.

I could never have managed to live the life of a Hobbit, for me the world is a global village, what brings hurt and harm to one concerns me, never mind millions out there. But Tolkien spoke of the simplicity of life that Samwise and Rosie and their offspring evoked, in otherwards eating and drinking and raising family, of community. And yes they truly did live in a bubble, I would have been one of the Dunedain I am sure.
But someone has to live simply and do the time honored things common to all creatures. There is a scripture that I love that talks about how scribes are the ones who carefully write all things down and are full of wisdom and intelligence and leave for posterity wonder and knowledge, etc. But then follows the words that says that there are besides the common folk who raise the chickens and milk the cows, who work the land and get up and go to bed and live very simple lives. It ends by saying it is upon these such that the whole fabric of the world hangs, or something like that. So we need both to make life interesting. And every now and then snippets of one existence infiltrates into the consciousness of another and then the Bilbo's of this world and the Frodos and Pippens and Merrys do astounding things that shake up the world. LIfe is very simple and very complex.