Things I wish someone had told me in high school.
High school doesn’t matter. Your grades matter & graduation matters and what may seem like a huge deal now turns out to be tiny details later on. Take this time to prepare yourself for post high school situations because this is the last chance you get before you get thrown out into the world! Enjoy high school as much as you can, take in all the details, truly love your friends, master your classes, reach your full potential and don’t let anyone or anyone’s opinion stop you from doing what you want to do. Prepare, prepare, prepare! Too many people start trying to get their lives in order at the very end of senior year and that’s what’s stressful. If you’ve been preparing for graduation time since you started? Post high school will be a cake walk.
Here are some of my tips for preparing and more of what I wish people had told me:
Open a checking account and open it at a credit union instead of a bank. This way if you’re ever short on bills for some reason you won’t be receiving a $40+ overdraft fee when the money isn’t there. Also, when you want to apply for a car loan it’s MUCH better to go through a credit union instead of the dealership because the interest rates are so much lower. If you don’t have to apply for a car loan and your parents are covering your first car? Thank them. You can’t thank them enough. It doesn’t matter what kind of car it is if it’s a running automobile because later on you can sell it and use the cash to get what you want. Literally everyone wrecks their first car! I probably know 2 people for every 100 that didn’t.
Credit is so important. I’ve heard so many people about to graduate high school say “I can’t wait to move out and be 18/on my own and out of my parents house” but they fail to realize you have to have credit to do that. Credit is hard to establish and it takes patience. I built my credit score believe it or not by totaling cars with full coverage insurance and having the insurance pay off my remaining balance on the loans so it looked like my balance was paid off quickly. (Didn’t plan on it working out this way but it did.) That isn’t the best option though lol. The best way is to go through your credit union and apply for a secured card. This doesn’t have all the luxuries of a regular credit card as you’re required to keep a minimum balance on the card and pay off your card payments frequently. It’s what I would consider a training card and once you’ve done that for awhile and your credit builds you will be approved for a regular credit card (but that doesn’t mean you want to take them up on that offer, I would just use the secured card to build your credit so that when you want to move out you’ve got something to back you up and get into an apartment with) —I would ask your credit union more about secured cards since I never had to use one and built my credit through a not-so-likely way some of my details might be a little off.
While car payments & loans are also great tools for building your credit I’ve found that the best way to save money is not having one. A phrase I learned in finance in high school from Dave Ramsey stuck with me for years, “live like no one else, so you can live like no one else.” I know it’s hard and frustrating not having a car especially when you have the cash to get a loan but TRUST me this is the best tool for getting on your feet successfully and patience is key. Save up and buy a used car in cash. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy. The best car I ever owned was a 20 year old Toyota Camry with sky high miles on it. I paid $1600 for it in cash and drove it until the wheels fell off. I never had to pay any expensive maintenance fees even with it being old with high miles and I was able to take the monthly cash I saved from lack of a car payment and maintenance fees and save, save, save so that by the time the wheels did fall off? I sold it and went out and bought a nice new BMW. And you’d think driving a beamer you wouldn’t miss that old Camry but I did! I missed how affordable it was.
Work a part time job through high school and SAVE, SAVE, SAVE. I was that girl who worked all through high school but by the time I graduated I didn’t have anything to show for it. I spent all my money on handbags & clothes & trips with my friends. If I had put back all my paychecks while my necessities were covered by my parents & I was living with them by the time I graduated I would have had a few thousand put back so that I could continue to afford shopping & outings once I graduated and still have a nice safety net. The clothes & things you buy throughout high school will be lost and outdated in no time and it’s a waste overall. Invest in a nice capsule wardrobe with basics that will last you and save the rest! Nothing wrong with enjoying your high school experience and going out with friends here and there but the more you save the more you will thank yourself. It took me the longest to get my first job bc I had no experience, you have to be very consistent with them! Apply, make note of all the places you applied, and call back a week later. Tell them “I’m just checking on the status of an application I submitted a week ago” and that should be enough to get you an interview at one place. When the interviewer asks you what skills you have don’t just shrug or give a generic answer. Go in there prepared, tell them things like “I’m dedicated, I’m always on time, I’m detail oriented and I’m easy to get along with.”
Take a career test. There’s plenty of free options online. This will give you a sense of purpose and something to work towards. Don’t expect to have a dream job or start a career right out of high school or college either, start at the bottom and work your way up. It doesn’t matter if you’re flipping burgers at McDonald’s or working in an office of an auto dealership. If you show punctuality, professionalism, reliability & dedication you will move up in no time. You will have references to take with you to any job you see that you want. I made the mistake of no-call no-showing to the job I had all through high school and I had nothing to show for it! Always work out your two weeks notice when you leave a job, even if you tell yourself you’ll never return because there are way more benefits that way!
Focus on yourself way more than you focus on other people. It may sound selfish but it’s the best thing to do. When it comes down to it? Other people never care for other people as much as they do themselves. You could dedicate your time to another person or people but it will always be wasted time if you didn’t invest some in yourself. The people who are the most unhappy are the ones who are always looking at what everyone else has & where they are at in life yet never working on what they have & where they are. The more you focus on yourself the less you care about what other people see you as and the more you care about what you think of yourself, and that’s all that matters.
I hope these tips helped and inspired you! I hope no one takes this as a preachy “I know more than you do” type of article and really uses it and applies it to their life. I wanted to reach out and help with words I wish I had previously heard! Lots of love.
