Family Finance: Teen paychecks as learning tools

By: Eileen Aj Connelly

Posted by: Scarlett Lu

It isn't the economy that has the teenager bypassing pricier stores and heading for Target these days. It's that the money she'll spend there comes from her own paycheck, not from her parents."I'm definitely more frugal with it than when it was being given to me," said Sarah, 17, of the money she earns working her first job at Amelia's Wheels, a bicycle and Segway rental shop on Amelia Island, Fla.When Sarah got the job at the start of the summer, her parents set just two rules about what she should do with her earnings: She must pay for her own clothes, and she had to repay the $750 they spent on car repairs needed after she had a fender bender. They didn't require that she try to build up savings, but Sarah discovered a penchant for penny pinching as she realized how much she would have to work at $7.50 per hour to afford things she used to take for granted. "Now I see it that may just be lunch, but it's also an hour's worth of work," she said.That insight puts her well ahead of most of her peers. Research shows that high school students are mostly unaware of the basics of personal finance -- tasks like how to handle checking and savings accounts, how credit cards work and the importance of savings. click here to read more.