Purple pens. One of the many miscellaneous items I’ve been putting off purchasing because they only have one purpose, which only comes around once a month. Going into this, I knew that. And yet I didn’t buy them anyway. 

I’m emptying my wallet, well, not literally, but in my mind for the next two weeks, my debit card doesn’t exist. 

Honestly, I think this might be harder than I thought. I spent all last night reminding myself of the things that I’m going to have to pay for within the next two weeks, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it. I’ve come up with two rules for myself:

1. My mom buying me gifts doesn’t count (it’s my birthday this week, so it would be pretty much impossible for that not to factor in)
2. I’m allowed to fill my gas (without my car, I literally wouldn’t be able to get to work)

My reason for this is that I have a problem with spending money. I work in a retail store and I have friends; it’s like a double whammy. The ultimate goal is not to make any unnecessary purchases or food runs. 

I feel like I’m constantly under the pressure of going out and going shopping because I’ll see something that I don’t necessarily need, but since I’m with my friends, I’ll be more likely to buy it.

I want to see how long I can go. I’ve been employed for a little over a year now, and I feel like it’ll be different for me to have control. With college on the horizon, I want to get a dip into trying my hardest to save. 

God, I’m really hungry. First off, if you want to attempt this, make sure you fuel up before you leave your house. Saturday night shifts aren’t the worst, but when you’re not snacking all day in school to ease the hunger, you’ll find yourself starving.. Dunkin is literally right upstairs. Why would I do this to myself? I should’ve eaten before work. I need gum or something. 

Second of all, don’t be a good driver who hates when others drive them around. You’ll end up being the designated driver, and all your gas is going to go to driving all your friends around. As someone who trucks her friends around every morning to school and then has to drive them around after because they don’t “feel like driving,” it is really annoying. 

Third, don’t have any empathy. Being in a situation where you hate it when people pay for things for you is awkward. Watching your friend, who you know doesn’t necessarily have the funds to spend money on fun, spend money on you is heart-wrenching. 

So I didn’t stick to my rules at all.

Frankly, it was only for things I needed, and I was NOT going around without hygiene products for this journalism assignment. Sorry, not happening. And my friends are convincing to go out for ice cream.

But come on, let’s be honest with ourselves, walking up to that ice cream shop and smelling the sweet sugar that seems to be coated around the whole building is unavoidable. It’s like I’m in the story Hansel and Gretel, with a little Mrs. Lunney inside my brain telling me not to spend the money.

Not even the strongest soldiers would have the ability to say no to that sweet, formidable house in the twisted fairytale. Which led me to a cup of vanilla ice cream.

So my Target run and ice cream trip has me out around thirty bucks. Which, in hindsight, isn’t that bad considering that fact that I’m extremely prone to just buying clothes for fun and going out to get some sort of food with my friends. 

I will admit this challenge is extremely difficult. Sometimes it feels like some of my friends don’t have the same fear as I do when it comes to money. I have friends who blow their whole paycheck and don’t even think twice about it. Sometimes it’s isolating. 

I’d love to have the money and the mind space to do that, but I have this constant fear of losing all my money hanging over my head. I just can’t help but worry.

That’s why I’m resorting to a second job over the summer, because how on earth do these companies expect teenagers to have a life, pay for college, drive to work, and just live on no money and no hours? It’s awful and disrespectful. We do our job, we’re the reason that half of these companies still have employees. It’s because no other adult is going to work for the same garbage money. And why should they?

The expectations that are put on these students are insane. Get a job, take AP classes, participate in extracurricular activities, and have friends (but don’t hang out too much). It’s become an unrealistic expectation for the vast majority of teenagers. You must be perfect, and if you mess up, it’s all your fault. 

Get a job and save money, it’s the whole purpose of life, not love, not friendship, not adventure. Money. And that’s what everyone will spend their entire lives chasing. Because what is life without the capitalist symbol that consumes our nation? We are powerless, we are nothing. So maybe we should start saving the second we’re born. Because in the end, to make any kind of good money, we’ll have to attend a form of higher education that will, guess what? 

“Only cost forty grand.”

The cycle will never end, and why should it? Make the rich richer, that’s the society we’re in. Make the wealth gap bigger, because people can’t accept the idea that lower-class families, maybe, just maybe, will have the opportunity to share the same luxuries as everyone else. 

So here I am at seventeen, facing the future, college, and my career. I’m making $10.80 an hour and barely getting scheduled twice a week. And at the same time, I’m still a kid, so I’m supposed to enjoy my life right now.

So maybe it is ok to blow a whole paycheck, or maybe we should save it all for some broken future that all of us are going to have if we wish for any means to a higher education. Because that’s what America is, the stress of never knowing if you’ll live a lower-class struggling life or somehow get luckier than most. But I guess to most it starts in the here and now, because I’m seventeen and everything I do now determines my life. Right?

And even after all of that, life goes on, we have to settle for the measly paychecks because no seventeen-year-old girl is going to convince a monopoly of companies that they need to pay their workers more. (maybe if Katniss Everdeen and all her heroism popped out of the surprisingly realistic novel The Hunger Games). 

So here I am still writing this article knowing that in the end, there’s really nothing I can do and in a year, my collective savings will decide my education which determines my future. 

But today I sit grateful. Grateful to have a family that doesn’t mind paying for me, grateful for the job that I have now, and grateful that I have one more year to save. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what being seventeen is. The constant fear that you’ll never have enough, while also fearing the thought of losing your childhood by blinding yourself with the future. The ultimate ultimatum.