Desi is a finance and fitness blogger originally from the Mitten state, now transplanted in the south. She spends her free time at the gym, travelling, and lusting over Pinterest style. Find her at her blog, A Northern Girl.
Like a lot of people at age 18 – I was stupid. I was mostly stupid about money and boys. And while I wish I could continue to support my stubborn 18-year-old mindset of “this is how I think, this is how things are, and this is how things will always be,” I’m old enough now to know how wrong I was – but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to shake myself and teach some lessons to mini-me.
Go to community college for two years to knock out the basics and do really well. High grades mean scholarships on transferring to a four-year school, and community college means lower tuition. Plus, at 18, you don’t have any idea what you want to do anyway. Take some time and figure it out.
If you do know what you want to do – listen to yourself and not your family. This might be pretty specific to my situation, but I ended up wasting three years at a university when I listened to my grandparents who said I would never find a job in the field I wanted to go into. Eventually I transferred back to the school I’d wanted to attend all along and have been successful.
Get a job. Especially if you’re on a four-year university, look for something on-campus. It’s super convenient, and just because you aren’t eligible for work study does not mean you aren’t eligible or qualified for these positions. Working in the cafeteria isn’t glamourous, but neither is being in a pile of student loan debt until you’re 30 because you had “pride.” Actually, that’s even worse – the debt will follow you, but you won’t be seeing many of your college peers after graduation.
Coupon. You might feel stupid and silly doing it, but I promise you, it will be worth it. You’ll save so much money on getting things for free that you’ll probably become the belle of your dorm, giving away shampoo and shower gel and razors. Plus, if you’re going to stockpile, college is the best time for it – in our dorms we had so much storage space. (I realize this might not be true at every college, but go with it.) Take the money you save and stash it away or become familiar with your student loan providers and send some of it their way.
Embrace the campus gym. You’re paying for it whether you know it or not, and in the real world you’ll have to pay a lot more to get the perks of a gym membership.
Volunteer. This might seem counter-intuitive, but the more you are able to volunteer and build your resume and portfolio, the more money you’ll be able to negotiate for after graduation.
So what does this mean for the 26-year-old version?
It means I’m cleaning up after Baby Me, because this is what I actually did:
I went off to a state university, priding myself on choosing the school with “the state’s lowest tuition!” The worst part is that it showed in the education I received there, and I’m embarrassed now that I am paying off such high student loans for something so… bad.
Instead of listening to my heart and going to a school I could commute to from my parent’s house for a sort of niche degree, I listened to my family who said “oh, you’ll never find a job at that.” After three years of trying to suppress my desire, I finally caved and transferred into the program anyway. I hate that I let nay-sayers get to me, but guess what? I turned an internship into a job before graduation, and used that to springboard into the position I have now, which I love.
Eventually, I did have jobs throughout college. None paid much (the one that did I quit after a few months because it interfered with my.. ahem.. “lifestyle”) and I was stupid with the money I did earn. Even as I got older, realized what my student loans were probably like, and started reading pf blogs, I’d take my paychecks to the bar or mall, thinking “well how much will $100 REALLY make a difference anyway?” WRONG.
Couponing in college? I eventually caught on to it my last few semesters and gosh, it would have been great to have in college. Instead, I spent $10 on fancy smelling body wash that you could never smell after the shower anyway, paid full price for toilet paper – and I shudder to think of the hundreds of dollars I wasted on hair products.
As I’ve discovered lately – I still need to take my own advice! What would you tell your fresh-out-of-high-school self to save heartache? Is it still relevant to your post-grad life?
I would tell myself to learn to cook healthy, and don’t eat out. I would have saved so much money, and not gained weight throughout college. Weight that is hard to lose as you get older.
I don’t think a state school is terrible. My state school has extremely high rankings and concentrates on research.
I was so hard core, I didn’t have any fun classes despite the fact my tuition was paid for by my scholarship. I wished instead of taking other challenging classes, I would have taken a fun class every semester like photography or dance.
Now what just a minute, I LOVE black hair — and I’m older than 18! Other than that, yeah, good advice for the former version of you 🙂
I guess everyone finds their own way in dealing with finances in life. I would say it’s not a bad idea though to listen to someone with experience and who you trust, like parents or your older friends (who have all their ducks in a row) as well as research everything you do that will make a big impact on your life, like college education. That can help a lot to achieve your financial and other goals in life!
I would tell myself that I should have worked until I knew what I wanted to do. I spent three years “finding myself” while spending thousands in tuition and living expenses. Not cool.
I would tell myself to learn to cook healthy, and don’t eat out. I would have saved so much money, and not gained weight throughout college. Weight that is hard to lose as you get older.
I don’t think a state school is terrible. My state school has extremely high rankings and concentrates on research.
I was so hard core, I didn’t have any fun classes despite the fact my tuition was paid for by my scholarship. I wished instead of taking other challenging classes, I would have taken a fun class every semester like photography or dance.
Now what just a minute, I LOVE black hair — and I’m older than 18! Other than that, yeah, good advice for the former version of you 🙂
I guess everyone finds their own way in dealing with finances in life. I would say it’s not a bad idea though to listen to someone with experience and who you trust, like parents or your older friends (who have all their ducks in a row) as well as research everything you do that will make a big impact on your life, like college education. That can help a lot to achieve your financial and other goals in life!
I would tell myself that I should have worked until I knew what I wanted to do. I spent three years “finding myself” while spending thousands in tuition and living expenses. Not cool.