Ahh, the 16th birthday. To most, this milestone marks a huge step in gaining a bit of much-anticipated freedom: the driver’s license. While certain state laws that regulate the dispensing of driver’s permits and licenses have changed since I reveled in my 16 candled-cake, most high school students I know still wait, often with breath baited, for that coveted birthday.
My 16th birthday included a permit that had nothing to do with the operation of a motor vehicle. Deeming 16 to be too young and immature an age for driving, my parents allowed only permits of the working sort until our 17th birthdays. So on my 16th birthday, I visited my high school’s administrative office and filed the paperwork to obtain my worker’s permit. I subsequently got in my mother’s car and was driven to my new job (already confirmed prior to my birthday). I was the proud owner of a minimum wage-paying position at Wendy’s, and I picked up my uniform shirts to be ready for work the very next day.
Aside from my strawberry-picking adventures on the farm, this was the only other job I’d ever held that yielded a real paycheck. Of course, now that I was legally able to maintain both a paying job AND a savings account, I promptly had my savings switched into my very own account. I no longer relied on my mother to cash and deposit my checks, and I loved the freedom I felt when going into the bank to cash them myself.
I worked this job up until the summer before college. I would go to school, go to cross country or track practice, then be picked up by one of my parents and taken straight to work for the evening and/or closing shift. I worked as many weekends as I could as well. And what did I do with the money I was bringing home? I banked it. I banked it for a trip to France during my junior year. I banked it for my first car. I eventually banked it to off-set college tuition costs.
I set (and reached) a myriad of financial goals that most kids my age could only dream of (or have their parents pay for). I was responsible & hard-working, and I had the savings account balance, car, and life experiences to prove it. That is, until that fateful summer before my first year of college. Little did I know that my work-save-work-save formula was about to be shaken up in a major, life-changing way…..
This post is part of my Confessions of a PF Blogger series. Other posts include:
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: The Series
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: No Happy Meal for You
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: $0.25 per Quart
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: 16 Candles
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: $5,500 in Cash
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: A Slow Slide into Credit Card Debt Hell
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: $1 to My Name
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: Homeless
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: Powerless
- Confessions of a PF Blogger: A Second Chance