Whilst some teens are lucky enough to have their holidays financed by their parents, others will be relying solely on any income that they make form summer jobs. This can be quite a positive thing as it will give them the opportunity to become financially independent from their parents and to learn budgeting, which is an essential life skill. Here are some tips on how teens can budget in their holidays when they have a summer job.
The first important tip is to be aware of what your income will be. You will need to know the minimum number of hours that you will be working and the amount that you will be paid per hour. Multiply the number of hours with the hourly pay to give you a figure of what your minimum income will be. In many summer jobs it is possible to work additional hours, but it is safest to only account for the definite, agreed, minimum hours in the case of budgeting. Consider any additional hours worked and earnings made as an added bonus that you can save or treat yourself with.
Now that you know what you will be earning, you can give yourself a daily or weekly spending budget. Simply divide your total earnings by the number of days or the number of weeks in the holidays and this will give you spending allowance for each day or each week.
However, it is likely that some days you will spend little or nothing whilst on other days or weeks you may have a special event or a date planned with friends. Therefore it may be wise to account for this when budgeting. Draw up a diary of any dates, events or evenings out which you know that you will definitely be attending. Approximate the amount of money that you will need on each occasion. For example, if you are going out to the cinema with friends you will need to know how much transport will cost you, what the price of the tickets is and if it is likely that you will be buying snacks and drinks whilst you are there. When you have a total then you will be aware of what you need on that specific day and will be able to budget accordingly. This may mean allocating more money for that day and less money for the other days of the week.
When you have completed a rough budget of what your income is going to be and what you expect your expenditure to be, you may find that there is a discrepancy between the two figures. If you are earning more than you are likely to spend then you have a choice of sending more or saving the money. If, however, it is likely that you will be spending more than you are earning, then you need to think about how you can either earn additional money or consider making cutbacks on your expenditure.