Your teenage years is a time to learn and a time to fail. Honestly it will be rough in many ways and in others it will be great, but the good thing is as all things do it will end. This will be a time to learn the value of money and hard work.
A little about my Middle School and High School years. From 13-15 my sources of income came from babysitting and mowing lawns. I did not contribute much to my savings. At 15 I started working at a fast food restaurant making minimum wage $5.15 ~$400 every weeks. At 15 I could only work a few hours a day and one weekend day. This brought in good money for someone who had no expenses. I opened a checking account and had my paychecks direct deposited. I had no saving goals except seeing my account get bigger. Parents and I bought a car when I was 14 $3500. My dad drove it until I was 16. I paid for roughly half of the car before I started to drive it.
A little about my Middle School and High School years. From 13-15 my sources of income came from babysitting and mowing lawns. I did not contribute much to my savings. At 15 I started working at a fast food restaurant making minimum wage $5.15 ~$400 every weeks. At 15 I could only work a few hours a day and one weekend day. This brought in good money for someone who had no expenses. I opened a checking account and had my paychecks direct deposited. I had no saving goals except seeing my account get bigger. Parents and I bought a car when I was 14 $3500. My dad drove it until I was 16. I paid for roughly half of the car before I started to drive it.
Here is a good place to tell you a little about myself or more who I was around this age. I am an engineer and have been interested in computers my entire life. Grew up middle class in the Mid-West. I don't spend money unless I can help it, but when I do I like to buy the best I can afford. I was a big gamer PlayStation and PC Games around this time. Diablo, War Craft II, Diablo 1&2, Star Craft, Lara Croft, Final Fantasy, etc. I wasn't someone who partied. I choose to build computers and play games. I also played sports outside of school and hung out with friends. Normal nerdy mid-school/High School stuff.
At 16 I quit my fast food job and took a warehouse job. Advice: What I should have done was look for internships sophomore - senior year of high school. I took the warehouse job because it paid $8.50 plus $0.50 bonus if you came into work on time. Easy money. I would go almost full time in the summer and earned overtime on the weekends. I quit this job going into my Senior year mostly because I saw what I didn't want to be in life and second I got hurt playing baseball and they wouldn't let me lift the 200lb boxes with a cast. Working in Fast Food or in a Warehouse really teaches you what life it like for people who don't graduate high school, don't go to college, or have made some poor life choices along the way. In both cases at my previous jobs I was the best worker they had and at 15/16 my friend and I were running the fast food place. At the warehouse job I was twice as productive as everyone else. So much so when I hurt myself my manger wanted me to work without the cast on. When I didn't he just put me on a leave of absent wanting me to comeback. I did for a couple of months before I quit.
The smart advice here would be to invest your money, but at this age learning to save in a saving account was great. During my junior year a friend was investing and I though wow that is cool I should do that, but I had no clue about anything. My Dad always listened to financial radio stations, but for the most part they talked about the latest hot stocks and these things called Spiders. Advice: What I should have done; At 18 took the money I saved in my savings account at this time it was 5,000-8,000 and open an account with Vanguard and put it in a low cost Mutual Fund tracking the S&P 500 index.
The smart advice here would be to invest your money, but at this age learning to save in a saving account was great. During my junior year a friend was investing and I though wow that is cool I should do that, but I had no clue about anything. My Dad always listened to financial radio stations, but for the most part they talked about the latest hot stocks and these things called Spiders. Advice: What I should have done; At 18 took the money I saved in my savings account at this time it was 5,000-8,000 and open an account with Vanguard and put it in a low cost Mutual Fund tracking the S&P 500 index.
My senior year and what was next after school was all the buzz around the lockers. In my family and in my high school; the talk wasn't about are you going to college, but which one. College was just something you did and the hard part was trying to decide on where and what to study. I looked at multiple schools and I choose one close to home for two reasons. One I liked the program a little better then others, and second the job market was much better in the bigger city that wasn't just a college town.
If I had to sit myself down during this time I love to tell myself to study harder and apply for scholarship etc.. The thing is I remember exactly who I was at this point and it wouldn't work. What I would tell myself is to not work during the school year their is going to be plenty of time to work. Continue to play sports and look for an internship with a related company out of state or another interest in the summer. Use the summers to build your talent stack not just work because you think it is something you should do.
Good luck.
If I had to sit myself down during this time I love to tell myself to study harder and apply for scholarship etc.. The thing is I remember exactly who I was at this point and it wouldn't work. What I would tell myself is to not work during the school year their is going to be plenty of time to work. Continue to play sports and look for an internship with a related company out of state or another interest in the summer. Use the summers to build your talent stack not just work because you think it is something you should do.
Good luck.
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