Don’t Let greed be your top priority
The day you get your first paycheck will, no doubt, be exciting. You worked your butt off and now you get to see the fruits of your labor. I agree, it is a good feeling.
Let’s say you worked about 15 hours and after taxes on minimum wage you made about $80. Wow, if you could make that in 15 hours, in 20 hours you could make over $100, and in 30 you could make $160! That sounds really good to you. From no money to $160 is a big difference for a teenager and it may be tempting to shoot for that extra cash. Trust me and take my advice, don’t.
Most of your life your only responsibility was to go to school, work hard, and get good grades. You may have had some free time, which you now have decided to fill with a job. That’s fine, but if you spend more time working than the amount of free time you previously had, you will be starting to eat away at your study time and your grades will be affected.
Now, if you never spent more than a couple hours a week studying and you think you can handle working 30 hours a week on top of school, still don’t. The more you work, the more tired out you will be and you won’t be able to focus and concentrate in school.
As soon as your grades start falling, you also start losing chances for scholarships and opportunities for getting into good colleges. Also, you start developing bad habits that will only cause bad grades in college and a near worthless degree, or worse, you’ll quit school altogether so that you can make big bucks at Wal-mart. Trust me; they’re not so big when you also have to pay for rent, insurance, gas, utilities, food, etc.
For my first semester in college I was working almost 30 hours a week and going to school full time. It wasn’t because I needed the money, I just had the opportunity and I really liked the money. It seemed great for a while until I got my final grades back. I didn’t do horribly, but not nearly as well as I wish I had did. I learned my lesson and cut back the next semester.
Even aside from school, working too much can affect other areas of your life. If you’re always working all the time, you’re not going to have any time for yourself. You’ll still want to have time to spend with your friends and family and some alone time for yourself.
Who knows, 15 hours may even be too much for you. In this case, cut back. Only work what you can handle. The money you make now is very small compared to what you could be making in the future. Don’t blow it. School should always be your top priority. You have the rest of your life to work.
