When I have the pleasure of talking to young people (in high school or college) about money, many of them have never earned a dollar in their lives.
Some parents don’t allow their kids to work during school. These parents say they want their kids to focus on their schoolwork and extracurricular activities (if they have them). I would never tell those parents what to do, but I would tell them that they are stupid if they think a kid can’t have a part time job AND excel in the classroom and on the field. It’s never too early to start earning.
What makes a parent think sheltering a kid from the real world is the best way to prepare him for being in it one day?
When I Was a Kid
By the time I graduated high school in 2003, I had the 9th highest GPA out of over 400 students and scored in the 98th percentile on my ACT. In addition to the good grades, I had a full extracurricular activity schedule. I went to the weight room before school every day to get stronger so I could excel in sports. I was on the swimming, football, volleyball and track teams. I was pretty good too; good enough to be an All-State swimmer at least. I also did newspaper, choir, National Honor Society, and other clubs I’ve since forgotten.
The point I’m making is that I did just about anything and everything any high school kid could want to experience at school.
Oh, and did I mention that I also earned over $14,000 from part time jobs during that same time? According my old income taxes, between 2000 and 2002 I earned $14,241, and that doesn’t even count anything I made in Jan-May of 2003 before I graduated or any side jobs like babysitting or manual labor that wasn’t taxed.
Considering the fact that most of my jobs paid about $7.00 an hour, I must have worked over 2,000 hours while in high school. Some of that was in the summer, but a lot was during the school year when I was an accomplished student-athlete.
Learning from Small Mistakes
Now that I’ve proven it can be done, it’s more important to understand why working in high school was so important for me. Simply put, I was pretty horrible with money when I was in high school.
Do you want to know why I’m not in debt today? Because I made my mistakes and suffered financial consequences in high school. What I didn’t learn in high school, I learned in college. By the time I got my bachelors degree, I already had eight years of financial mistakes under my belt.
I knew the value of a dollar, and I knew what would happen if I was irresponsible with my money. I didn’t have to “flip a switch” from kid to adult when I graduated from college; I had been testing the adult waters since I was 15.
Do you know what high school guys do in the summer when they don’t have a job? They play videos games and fart. If they get a job, they’ll work, play video games, and fart. Having your kid get a job doesn’t deprive him of anything. (Sorry, but I have no idea what girls do)
People are going to make financial mistakes. Your kids (yes, I’m talking to you) are going to make financial mistakes. You can’t avoid it. If you don’t allow your kid to get a job so he can make and learn from those mistakes early in life, then you’re just pushing those mistakes further and further into the future where they have a much more crippling impact.
You’re not “robbing kids of their childhood” by encouraging them to get a job; you’re giving them the opportunity to learn responsibility and make small mistakes, so they have a better chance of avoiding the big mistakes later on in life when it truly matters. Stop doing what’s easiest for your kid, and start doing what’s best for him.
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Amen Brother!
– I had jobs since I was 14. I have been a cook at many different restaurants, worked the clock in an adult hockey league, DJ and skate guard at a roller rink, camp counselor and a gas station clerk.
– I graduated with a 3.6 GPA (many honors classes), played hockey for my high school, worked the high school musical tech crew, a few clubs, traveled to Europe on foreign exchange and I made Eagle Scout by age 18.
– Did I mention I had a credit card at 15 with my parents as co-signers? Yeah they had me put between $100-200 a month on it, mostly as another card to buy things they needed, later for gas and I used it for things I wanted when I didn’t wanna carry cash in large amounts. Since I used it like a debit card, not over extending it and my parents used it for some of their purchases, I built myself some phenomenal credit for someone almost out of college.
That’s what I’m talking about D Rock! If we had more people like you in this country, I think the last few years would’ve gone down a bit differently
My parents didn’t want me to work in high school – partly because they wanted me to focus on school, but mostly because we lived far from everything, and they would have had to get me to and from a job.
However, they are very financially conservative themselves, and managed to share a lot of those views with me.
I did work in college, and I did blow all that money on eating out, and random junk, but I still feel more responsible financially than most others my own age, whether they worked in high school or not.
I definitely agree with you that having that stage of working, where I was able to blow my money, and really realize how fast it could all disappear definitely is a good “training wheels” stage. However, I don’t think that just making your kids work in high school is the whole story – if parents think putting a shopping spree on the credit card is no big deal, etc, then I think the kid is likely to emulate their parents’ habits – whether they have work experience or not.
Parents definitely have a big impact on how kids view money, but nothing teaches better than personal experience. I’m glad your financial situation turned out well even without the high school job; that can definitely happen. I just think, in general, most kids should at least get a summer job when it doesn’t interfere with school.
I completely agree! Plus, all of those terrible years working at McDonalds/Target/the mall taught me time management too, plus incentive to finish college so I could get a better job someday.
I love that. I agree that the sooner you get a crappy job, the more motivated you’ll be to do whatever you can so you don’t have to work that job forever. It’s nice to KNOW you don’t want to work at McDonald’s while you still have time to get an education.
Yup, had a job since I was 16! It felt like I was the only one working on weekends though. Then again, I was always the one with all the money! I drove a POS Nissan Pathfinder that I bought with cash, so I ever really poured any money into my car thankfully. What I did do was spend my hard earned paychecks on paintball. Looking back, I blew a lot of money in high school but i definitely don’t have regrets. I’m a firm believer in having as much fun as possible while you;re young, but once you graduate college, it’s focus time for your Roth and 401k. There are just some things as a kid that you don’t think about, the least of which is saving for retirement.
I’m just like you, captain of my football team, worked 20+ hours in the produce department at the local grocery store, and was involved in church and other extra curricular activities. These are the things that shaped me. I’m going to encourage my kids someday to do the same.
I’m with you on all your points, except I think adults can have fun too. I’m maxing out my Roth, contributing to my 401k, and saving more, plus having a blast in my personal life. You can have it all if you work hard enough to get it!
I worked exceptionally hard throughout high school. Not only was I an honour student, but I was also in band, ran track, ran cross country, and I played a lot of field hockey. How much? I played hockey 10-12 times per week. Every week, all year long, from ages 15-18.
I also had a part-time job, where I worked maybe 8 hours each week. And it was tough. REALLY tough. Sometimes I didn’t work for weeks because I was too busy with sports and training. And I’m glad my mom let me have that job, because I learned about responsibility and earning my own money. But in reality, I think it did more harm than good for me.
What I’m trying to get at is, sometimes high school students have better things to do than get a job. Not to say that they should be discouraged from getting a job – it should always be an option. But I don’t think every high school student needs to have one.
For example, yes, I had a job, but I barely made any money. And I wish I had those hours back that I was working, because that would have meant I had more time to play sports. If I had spent more time working, perhaps I wouldn’t have gotten a full athletic scholarship to University. And really, what has more value – a part-time job in high school, or free post-secondary education for 4 years (which paid, room/board, tuition, textbooks)?
If a high school student has a talent or extra-curricular activity that could be harnessed into scholarship or bursary money to further their education, perhaps their time is better spent going down that path, instead of working a job.
Anyway, just a thought.
You are living proof that you can have a job and still have enough time to practice your sport and be good enough to get a scholarship. I think what you did was phenomenal, and I’m sure it helped shape you to be the person you are today.
I do get that some people would be overwhelmed with school and activities and work, so just work in the summer when there’s no school. Problem solved.
I didn’t work in high school, but I did do very well in school (which got me into a top 10 university), and I played 2 sports full time (meaning the school year + traveling teams), which took up a lot of my time. My dad didn’t want me to also be worrying about work and then do worse on the rest of my activities, and I can understand why parents think that as most teenagers are just learning how to manage their time. However, I do think my dad could have done a lot better of a job at teaching me personal finance, because once I got my hands on my own money in college, I most definitely spent it stupidly and now wish I had done differently. So I suppose my main point on the issue is that learning how to deal with money needs to start with your parents, even if they don’t want their kids working (which is their choice). If they aren’t going to have their kids work, they should be ready to do extra time on how to handle a budget and what earning money really means. Too many parents just ignore the issue altogether, or think that just because someone has a job that automatically makes them good with money, when neither approach is ideal. One of my friends was required in high school to take a personal finance class, I wish more schools would do the same thing.
I’m with you. Getting a job isn’t the only answer, I just think it’s the best answer. Learning it in school or from your parents can work just fine. I just know most people will learn best from living it. However, they may need someone to point out their mistakes. Some people make mistakes but don’t realize it and think they’re good. Then they are in $100,000 of debt when they finally realize they’ve been living a financial lie.
Not everyone can be as awesome as you are, Kevin!
(I’ve worked since I was 15… no “crappy” jobs though. I’ve always been an office girl.)
🙂
“What makes a parent think sheltering a kid from the real world is the best way to prepare him for being in it one day?”
I have no freakin clue. Gosh does it bug me when I see such irresponsible and ungrateful teens walking around these days with no clue how to look after themselves. Not teaching your kid how to work for things is such a disservice to them for when they are adults. It really hinders their ability to succeed later on.
I have been working since I was 14 and I don’t regret it one bit. I started to buy my own groceries at 16 and leased my first car when I got my license. I also bought my first house at 19. Working at a young age has only made me more responsible and more grateful for what I have. It has been everything to my current state of success.
You won’t get an argument from me on this one! I agree completely. Kids who work during high school get an important taste of how the real world operates. It helps teach them personal responsibility and, if they work for an employer who doesn’t pay them under the table, shows the impact that taxes have on their paychecks.
All the best,
Len
Len Penzo dot Com
I didn’t have a ‘real’ job in high school, as my parents wanted me to focus on my studies. And I think that was a good decision on their part (I also chose to not have a drivers license until i was 17 so i had no real expenses). However, I did have a pretty lucrative pet sitting business so i was able to earn spending money. Plus, my parents taught me a lot about finances all throughout my life so I never really made some of the money mistakes that other kids do once they hit college and independence.
I had a part-time job at McDonald’s in grade 12, working about 16 hours per week. Between sports 5-7 days a week and a full honours schedule, I was pretty busy. I’m glad I only worked 16 hours per week though.
When I was about 14, my parents started giving my sister and I $100 per month for allowance – $50 on the 15th and $50 on the 30th. The four of us worked out a sample budget, which is how we came up with the $100 number. I think that system was awesome and I even saved out of it, but somehow my sister never had any money leftover at the end of every month.
So I came along this because I was looking for answers on my problem which was pretty much could I handle high school wrestling and a part time job. I figure I stay at school tell 5pm and the rest of the day I’m free but I would only be able to work 3 hours a day and do homework and sleep. It seems almost impossible. And I just wanted to know because I have to pay for my insurance my mom said because my parents are divorced and my dad doesn’t want my mom having part with my car. So would I have enough for insurance and gas money and some left over
If it’s possible, I’d find a job that is within walking or bike riding distance from your house. If you buy a car, you’re going to put pretty much every dollar you make into the car after insurance and gas. If you want to actually keep some of your money, I recommend finding a job close to home.
You guys are all losers!!
Great advice! I sure wish I had saved more money for college! I grew up in a small town so there weren’t a lot of opportunities anyway, but I’m sure I could have been more aggressive about working more!
It would have made my student loan debt much more manageable, that’s for sure!
I got a job as a teenager and never went to college but my wife is a nurse so ha!