Picture this: you wake up and remember the package you recently ordered arrived last night, so you decide to wear your new outfit today. Now dressed for school in a $100 outfit, you realize you have a bit of extra time this morning, so you decide to go to Starbucks. $10.00 on a coffee and a pastry is a lot, but it is Friday, so you can justify it. At lunch, you notice there’s a bake sale. You decide to purchase a cookie and an energy drink, even though you already had coffee today. But it’s for a good cause, right? After school, you head to your friend’s house, where they show you their recent purchase after seeing a video online. The video—along with their product pitch—sounds very convincing, so you decide to buy it. Your friends decide to go out to dinner before a school sporting event. You order a meal and pay a generous tip with your debit card. Once at the game, you purchase your ticket at the door. When that is finished, some of your friends go out for dessert, and you tag along too, because why not? But wait, your card declines at the ice cream shop. That’s weird, didn’t you just get paid a few days ago? You check your account balance and—oops—it’s at zero. Maybe that clothing order was a little more expensive than you expected. Your friend offers to pay for your ice cream this time, but what about the next?
This is just one scenario that describes a financially active day in the life of a high schooler. Tapping a card or sending online cash through an app makes it easier than ever for teenagers to be thrown into the financial world. This has its advantages and disadvantages, seeing as high school is a time of growth and development for teens. In this time of their lives, many experience the independence and initial responsibility of having a job.
According to a survey of 48 Brighton High School students, 33.3% of them are employed. Out of the students surveyed, 62.5% earn less than $15 an hour, and 31% earn less than minimum wage. With school, extracurriculars and jobs to balance, most students only have time for part-time work. According to a College Board FAQ, most students work between 15 and 20 hours a week. Using the average hours worked and the average pay from the survey results of $14.87, the average working student probably makes around $800 a month.
That is a consequential amount of money for students to determine how best to use. Frequent purchases that students make monthly include gas, coffee, energy drinks, clothes, fast food and snacks, sports equipment and entertainment—and of course, much of what they buy is influenced by their friends or what they see online.
High school students are under a lot of pressure. The burden of financial responsibility is just another item to add to the lengthy list of lessons for teens to learn. However, learning to balance school, work and keeping track of one’s expenses is one of the most important life skills for students to learn while still young. Knowing how to best allocate money and being able to distinguish between a need and a want will be a practice all teenagers will use for the rest of their lives. This means that it is critical for high schoolers to understand the degree of importance of allocating and saving their money now.
Because high school serves as a time of change and growth for students, they can also be vulnerable to the wrong influences. High schoolers surround themselves in a very connected environment, where they are under the influence of almost anyone who can put almost anything online. 82.2% of students at BHS believe that they are at least sometimes influenced by the things they see online. And almost always, the promotions they see are for wants instead of needs.
Ms. Kelsey Quackenbush, the Personal Finance teacher at BHS, said that it is difficult for students to make smart financial decisions because they find it “hard to distinguish between a want and a need as a teenager.”
According to Quackenbush, this is because oftentimes for teenagers their “needs are provided for by adults in [their] life. And so a lot of [their] money is disposable income to spend on wants.”
It is acceptable for students to spend money on what they want even if it might not be necessary right now. However, a mentality of spending all money on wants does not promote learning experiences in the future. When it comes to spending money on wants versus needs, Quackenbush proposes a simple yet tough question: “Where do you draw the line?”
A product that is popular on a platform like TikTok can often be seen in the possession of younger people like high schoolers, including in the halls of BHS. Sure, it’s acceptable to buy a trending product every so often. Maybe all a student’s friends have tried it, and they don’t want to feel left out; maybe it’s a new book in a series they’ve started reading, or the vinyl records have started trending again, and they want the newest album by their favorite artist. But what about when they see multiple videos about a new reusable water bottle with the most upgraded features? Water is technically a need, so it’s easy to justify buying it. Then the next month, another “better” bottle made its way onto the market. Suddenly, students have a water bottle for every day of the week that’s supposed to be “reusable.” When it comes to a surplus of products constantly competing to be in and out of style, how does one know what is really a need or a want?
A recent trend taking over students’ social media feeds is videos of “NeeDoh hunting.” NeeDohs are squeezable fidget toys that come in a variety of colors and shapes. These toys are popular collectables for people of all ages, and it has become a social media trend for those influenced to get an early start to their financial day by lining up for store openings to get the NeeDohs when they drop. Senior Alexa Andrews participated in the NeeDoh hunting trend because she “saw it blowing up on TikTok.”
Andrews said that she is “100% influenced from what [she sees] online, especially from influencers.” Though she ultimately feels “very happy” with her decision to wake up early and stand in a line outside Target to wait for a NeeDoh drop, Andrews agreed that the multitude of online trends and teenagers’ willingness to follow them “leads to overconsumption.”
The danger of this influence is seen in the idea of “micro trends.” This is when influencers use their power over viewers’ minds and wallets to promote products to massive popularity in a short amount of time, then quickly fade them out to make room for more influences. In the case of a high schooler with an undeveloped financial mind and an entire income to spend on wants, this is the ideal way for them to throw away their money without realizing it. 42.2% of students say they have purchased something in the last month because they saw it was trending online.
Andrews said that this issue stems from teenagers’ inherent desire to “fit in with everybody else.”
Though it is difficult to escape the feeling of needing to be trendy, it’s not a lost cause. Everyone is capable of making practical financial purchases for themselves; they just have to see the benefit of smart decisions and the harm of careless ones. There is no better time to begin these practices than as a teen.
Junior Kayla Carney explained how the careless spending habits of teenagers make sense on a psychological level, “because their frontal lobe isn’t developed.” Carney said that it’s crucial for students to “start the spending habits early; they’re going to have them later.”
The easiest spending habit to practice, according to Quackenbush, is to “pay [yourself] first.”
“Every time you make income, whatever your income source is, dedicate a minimum fixed amount of money to savings. Every single time you get paid,” Quackenbush said.
For teenagers driven by influencers and impulse buying, though, this may be easier said than done. Many ultimately still struggle to manage their finances in a world that has only grown more commercial. This financial crisis derives from teenagers’ susceptibility to trends and lack of education. However, this problem is easily solvable, according to Quackenbush, by adding a crucial step to a student’s purchasing process, the simple question: “Is it an item I want or need—and really be honest.”
