by Hope
It is official, Princess has begun looking for a part time job. Volleyball season is over. She has decided that she does not want to commit the time to travel ball. And cheerleading is just a couple of afternoons a week.
She is ready to take the next step and start earning her own money. She will be applying at the two local fast food places we know will hire 15 year olds. (Most of them won’t hire until 16 here.) We are both excited for this next adventure and step in her life.
We have agreed that she can do what she wants with the money she makes until the end of the year. Meaning, I won’t step in and designate a percentage that must be saved or a budget. This will allow her to buy Christmas presents, go out with friends and hopefully save without my watchful eye.
After the New Year, we will sit down together and come up with some savings goals and a budget. I think this is a very balanced way for her to get started…
- We will see how much she earns just working one or two days a week, most likely at minimum wage.
- Gives her control and a chance to really see how working and making your own money feels without constraint for a few months.
Halloween Festivities
On a side note, Halloween is right around the corner. We will be going to my Grandmother’s house to pass out candy and eat pizza with our extended family. This is all the candy she has collected so far this year (I haven’t contributed any yet.)
This is 3 large boxes full. And it won’t even last an hour on Halloween night, the traffic is so heavy on her street that night. The city police block off the street and it is filled with literally hundreds of kids and their families.
This is probably normal for more rural areas where there aren’t as many neighborhoods. But I’ve never seen anything like it. Our first year coming for Halloween was 2011 when the twins were first placed with us.
2011 Halloween – just 3 weeks after the then 12 year old twins were placed with us as foster kids.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
I think working part time while in school is good, I wish I had done this when I was her age. I also think though she is going to have to keep working to help pay for a car that she can’t even afford :/ i hope that she gets a good job and can balance it all!
I would have her put half away from day one, she has car payments to save for and needs a buffer for the times she can’t work as much. My kids rule was have of ALL earned money got put away. Birthday, Christmas money etc was theirs to do whatever they wanted by any earned money had half put in savings immediately. Just a set rule. Babysitting is the most lucrative thing for kids to do I our area. My kids made $15-20 an hour before they could even drive. And it is very flexible. She should also offer tutoring, that should pay at least $25 per hour.
I think that you have this backwards!!
She needs to learn to save “from the get-go.”
She already may have formed bad spending habits long before the first of the year . . .
Agree. She won’t miss what she never had if you start with a budget to begin with. It will be harder to give up if she gets used to a certain amount. If she starts with a budget to begin with, anything over that would be like a bonus (and positive to her toward budgeting), versus switching it after where it feel like she is giving up money (and negative to her toward budgeting).
I would watch really carefully, full time school, with many college level courses, and extracurriculars is a lot, especially with working added on top of it. Princess may be better served looking for a job at a hotel, dry cleaners etc, where she can study while manning a desk…..there are many jobs like this! Also, she may make vastly more just by offering babysitting services, especially if she gets cpr and first aid certified while also having the option to study after kids are in bed!.
If she gets a job, she should have a plan for the money from day 1. It’s easy to fritter it away without a budget, and harder to stick to a budget after you are used to spending however you want.
I agree with Amy that work+dual enrollment classes+sports is a lot to put on her plate, but I guess she does have to pay for that brand new car….