Reflections on High School Finance
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): TeenFinance (A Mentee’s Publication)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2015
I went to high school in Canada, straight north of the US, on soil near various First Nations reserves. Marked, living remnants of enormous missteps in the Canadian historical record. I research in some psychology labs, and work and study in a university with stints here and there, among other work. The talk about finance always seems to come up.
I remember times in high school. When I look back, it’s interesting to think of the unknowing value of experiences thought of as trivial at the time, along with the experiences that turned out trivial even when originally thought about direly. That’s learning and growing. It’s a time of exploration. Which means, a time of reasonable possibilities – good and bad. That’s life. It ebbs and flows in happiness and satisfaction. As my friend Rick Rosner said, “High school’s an abridged version of real life, and its abridgement adds clarity, and that clarity is comforting.”
I now recognize some financial lessons probably best learned at an earlier time. And they’re nothing obscure, complex, or even difficult to comprehend. But then again, I simply didn’t know at the time that these were the lessons I most needed in the future. It’s easy to mistake simply not knowing something for wilful ignorance. A simple matter of lack gave sufficient grounds for not developing some life skills. I did not have much knowledge in knowing my personal funds inside and out.
My lack of funds even arose during some part-time work in construction, where I was given decent pay. Which brings to mind a truism; money helps with life’s happiness, but to a point.[1],[2] Especially in high school, I knew some friends who depleted a vast quantity of available resources to pursue some lavish event or purchase some extravagant “in” accessory. I don’t know.
It’s an odd phenomena. None of this appealed to me, but in reflection on high school finances, a place of better balance could have been struck between friends and myself. But as hinted, I was an odd teenager. At any rate, this brings me to the real question besides reflections. What seems like a decent approach to finances in high school – simple, everyday stuff? Or delving beneath what I can see on the surface and thinking about money in a whole new way?
When I look back at mistakes made and lessons learned from them, the core idea of money management doesn’t mean simply having a lot of money, and then if you don’t have enough then touch luck. Rather an attempt at looking realistically at the things of need, others of want, and the balance between use of personal time and earning of coin. One can earn lots of money, but lose time. You can spend your time pursuing non-monetary endeavours, but not have money to do the things you want at the end of the day.
Some basic skills – financial literacy skills, in other words, are needed. If I had at least one scintilla of advice for those with an open ear about finances in high school, it’d be to look at the opportunity costs between something of immediate want and another thing of distant need and proportioning those out dependent upon the money available to them at the time. And then tying this into one’s job, expected income from it, and the best uses of the money from that job. A rational consideration of the needs, wants, and everything in between.
[1] [PresidentialConf] (2013, June 23). Prof. Dan Gilbert — The Science of Happiness: What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwQFSc9mHyA.
[2] See Quoidbach1, J., Dunn, E.W., Petrides, K.V., & Mikolajczak, M. (2009, November 17). Money Giveth, Money Taketh Away: The Dual Effect of Wealth on Happiness. Retrieved from http://dunn.psych.ubc.ca/files/2010/12/Money_giveth_money_taketh_away_-_Sept25.pdf.
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