18 and distressed about money
My first part-time job, and other harsh lessons of adolescence.
Finding a part-time job as a 15 year-old is an important first lesson in personal finance, if you know what to do with it.
The race to retail
As a teenager, a part-time job is in high demand. Financial freedom! Life experience! Something to do on the weekends! The tiring rounds of Westfield stores, leisure centres and supermarkets with resumes in hand, asking ‘am I able to speak to the manager?’ like a broken record is a common first experience of getting out of the cushy teenage comfort zone (oh, how I miss you) and into the ‘real world’. The continuous ‘sorry, we’re not hiring at the moment’ spiel and unpaid trial periods allow young people to build their resilience in the race to employment, even if it is through soul-crushing rejection or low-key slavery.
Once you land the job, however, it gets a bit trickier. When you have little knowledge about how money works, years in a part-time job can leave you with nothing to show for all that hard work you have put in every shift.
Like many, I was keen to find a job from early on in my teenage years. Coming from a family with six kids, asking for 20 dollars from my parents to see a movie with friends or shop for some new threads was not an easy task. I was desperate for the chance to one day make my own money so never again would I have to feel the wave of guilt that came crashing over me as my Dad disgruntledly grabbed his wallet and pulled out cash time and time again, always ending our conversation with ‘I want to see change’.
Over forty unsuccessful resumes handed out and one dodgy trial shift later, at 15 one of my best friends offered me a job at her work — a café at the local shopping mall. After a rocky start — with comments such as ‘why don’t you ever smile’ and ‘stop saying sorry!’ being the typical criticisms of my new work colleagues — I was being rostered on for three shifts a week and finally earning my own money (however little that may have been on $7.80 an hour). ‘This is great!’ I thought. ‘I can buy what I want, when I want, and don’t have to answer to anyone!’ and I did exactly that. Conserving some of that hard-earned money every week (believe me, it was hard-earned) was never on my to-do list, and I can pin that down to just not knowing enough about the value of money.
Out of control
In high school, learning about money was never a priority in the classroom. In junior years, the only form of education we received about budgeting and saving was from an external one-day program in Year 10 that most of us quickly omitted from our brains as soon as we left the school gates. I decided not to study mathematics in senior high school. The opportunity to learn basic ideas such as compound interest or personal tax was suddenly not available to me. I was excited for each week’s pay to appear in my bank account so I could go out with friends, not because I was really saving for anything. By the end of high school — three years after being first employed — I had accrued minimal savings. ‘Who cares! I’ll be able to work more when I’m at university! I’ll save heaps!’ I thought. I never would have believed that these poor habits would continue into my first year as a university student.
My first semester of university was hard. The assignments were plentiful; the 3 to 4 hour daily travel time was exhausting; and the pressure to work due to having more ‘free time’ was just the icing on the cake. At work, the business was seeing heavy days. My retirement account was no longer being contributed to; I was earning well under minimum wage, and I was barely able to save due to my new travel and textbook costs. I had no idea what a ‘PAYG summary’ even stood for let alone what to do with it when I received it each year. I was an 18 year-old stressed about money, which is not something you want to feel at such an early and important age. I decided to defer university after my first semester to work full time at the café, hoping I could put away a good amount and finally feel secure.
Back to basics
This new concept of ‘saving’ was tough. Receiving a substantially larger income after working 42 hours a week was something I had to slowly become accustomed to, and there were weekly online shopping splurges that left me with remorse as soon as I clicked that ‘Checkout’ button. It was time for a serious overhaul of my failing plans, and so I decided to go back to basics — I bought myself a money tin. Every week I committed to manually slipping 50 dollars in the tin, resisting that undying urge to grab the can opener. A few successful months went by, and I decided on buying an Apple MacBook with my savings. I finally opened the tin to see my progress — more than enough. It was this childhood style of saving money that allowed me to see the importance of my hard work — by seeing a result at the end.
Two years on, and I feel as if I’m getting there. I’ve weaved in and out of saving schemes — from the classic ‘save half, spend half’ and very basic budgeting to reverting back to the trusty money tin — but I have set myself some goals and constantly endeavour to control my impulse to buy anything and everything (it’s a long process) in the hope of never feeling financially out of control again.
Lessons learned
As discovered through reminiscing on my part-time employment escapade, my one wish is that I had realised the value of earning money for my work completed as a teenager. If someone had taken the time to teach young people finance during my time in this crucial stage of development, I could have something to show for my first three years at my part-time job. In saying this, I am excited that there are now more opportunities for children and teenagers to become more financially literate and new technologies are aiding this process. Recently, I have added one more occupation to my plate by becoming an employee at the startup app company Pennybox. We are taking the initiative to equip kids with the tools to develop — in a fun and social way — into responsible teenagers and prosperous adults of the future. That is something worth investing my time into.
Did you have a similar experience as a student? Do you think the school curriculum is letting our generation down? Let us know in the comments!
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