I used to walk around the store with my parents constantly begging for something. I remember the sight of all the bright bags of chips and candy that I asked my mom to buy for me. I cannot remember a time where I didn’t beg for something at the store. I had no real knowledge about the value of money.

When I was about twelve years old, my dad always rejected my begging and told me with a frustrated face “you can waste all the money you want when you have a job. I listened to him when he said that, but I never really heard the message he was trying to get across to me. Since I wanted so many things and my parents were not going to buy them for me, I decided I was going to get a job as soon as I was old enough. But before I could legally get a job, I babysat to make some money. I remember the feeling of getting new money in my pocket, then throwing it out within the next week.

A few years later, I was a freshman in high school and did not know where to look for a job. I went to school one spring day and saw people handing out flyers in the cafeteria. I wasn’t interested at first because I thought I was fine making money by babysitting, but once someone approached me, I changed my mind. I shoved it in my backpack and when I got home I looked. It said at the top “Looking for a summer job? Be a lifeguard!” I started to think about the money I could make, so I applied. A few minutes after my application was submitted, I got an email from AMS pools. Inside the email  was an invite to a meeting the following night. I went to the meeting and learned all about the training.

A few months later, I went through the training process, and I could finally start the job and earn some money. The more money I made, the less I wanted to spend. Instead of wasting my money on useless things, I started saving up. As the work and the pay increased, so did my responsibility with money. I finally came to the realization that money meant so much more to me because I was the one working for it. Because I value my money, I now have 3,300 dollars in my bank account, and I limit myself to what I buy. My life has permanently been impacted because I know the value of money.