You do realize you can do both, no? Here’s what I did:
2-year degree at the same time as high school graduation - took classes as the local community college instead of the high school
finish 4-years college without debt in an in-demand field
saved for and bought a house by 26 - I didn’t make a ton of money, but we were able to meet the average household income most of those years (we lived very frugally until our first was born)
When I was working as a teen, my parents pushed me to save half of my money, and I was probably closer to 75% (after donating to my church). Here’s my rough income history as a teen:
14 - ~$20/week in summers
15 - $5/hr, 10-20 hours/week (landscaping) + $10-20/week mowing lawns and some random odd jobs (helped a neighbor rip out a tree stump) - made >$1k that summer; Xbox + TV cost $500-ish
16-18 - $8/hr, ~2 hours/school day, 6-8 hours/day in summer break, $20/week mowing lawns, and $10/week cleaning an office; I spent very little, mostly just gas and a few video games; most went to my college fund
I tracked my own hours and reported them to get paid. In fact, I taught myself to write in PHP to automate tracking my hours (built a crappy web app), and I took a Java class and taught myself C# to get that $8/hr job. All of that was done on my own, my parents didn’t push me at all, they just saw my hobbies and hooked me up with a family friend.
From 16-18, I was at the local college, which meant harder classes, but fewer classes, so I only had ~3 hours of class time each day. I studied hard, so I usually got my homework finished before my friends got done with school. In the fall, I would play Varsity tennis at the high school, and work just before (I would do homework in the evening those days).
By the time I went to college, I had a few thousand saved, which was enough to get me through my first year of college without working. From my second year on, I had:
$8.50/hr (like $1 over minimum) - custodian - 1 semester
$10.50/hr - IT tech support for the university - 1.5 years
$13/hr (got married this year) - programming internship - rest of college; I got a salary offer from that job after finishing school making ~$60k (forget exactly how much)
My wife worked waiting tables until our first kid, which also helped. After a few years, we had saved enough for a down payment on a house (~$50k), and I had impeccable credit history (about 7 years of on-time payments).
The only help I got from my parents was:
a crappy car - worth ~$1500
tuition paid - so equivalent to free college
help getting my first credit card (they cosigned)
If I didn’t work as a kid, I wouldn’t have developed marketable skills, work ethic, or budgeting skills. So I’m going to be doing that for my kids if possible.
You do realize you can do both, no? Here’s what I did:
When I was working as a teen, my parents pushed me to save half of my money, and I was probably closer to 75% (after donating to my church). Here’s my rough income history as a teen:
I tracked my own hours and reported them to get paid. In fact, I taught myself to write in PHP to automate tracking my hours (built a crappy web app), and I took a Java class and taught myself C# to get that $8/hr job. All of that was done on my own, my parents didn’t push me at all, they just saw my hobbies and hooked me up with a family friend.
From 16-18, I was at the local college, which meant harder classes, but fewer classes, so I only had ~3 hours of class time each day. I studied hard, so I usually got my homework finished before my friends got done with school. In the fall, I would play Varsity tennis at the high school, and work just before (I would do homework in the evening those days).
By the time I went to college, I had a few thousand saved, which was enough to get me through my first year of college without working. From my second year on, I had:
My wife worked waiting tables until our first kid, which also helped. After a few years, we had saved enough for a down payment on a house (~$50k), and I had impeccable credit history (about 7 years of on-time payments).
The only help I got from my parents was:
If I didn’t work as a kid, I wouldn’t have developed marketable skills, work ethic, or budgeting skills. So I’m going to be doing that for my kids if possible.
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