When I wanted to drive myself to school it wasn’t as simple as just obtaining a driver’s license. My parents gave me conditions- 1) If you want to get a driver’s license you have to be able to pay for it and 2) If you wanted to get a job you would have to provide your own transportation. Basically we have the chicken and egg situation- driving leads to job which leads to driving; either way I ended up working starting the summer before my junior year.
For each mile I drive I pay my parents, and that includes school as well, because it wasn’t like I couldn’t have just ridden the bus. So I’m very cautious with what I do. I don’t drive to my friend’s house if I don’t have to, I take the shortest route home, and go straight to and from work, nothing in the middle. That summer I probably worked forty hours a week, and when school started, twenty five hours a week. I didn’t have a lot of spare time. And that’s probably why I’m very peculiar with what I do spend my money on, because it’s so true- time is money.

Everything I do I relate it back to time and money. I bought my brother a phone charger for about nineteen dollars for his birthday. I haven’t seen it once. Doesn’t he know that took me three hours to work for, that’s three hours of my life he just wasted. The first summer I worked I brought food from home despite working in a grocery store. Why, when I work eight hours, use an hour of that for a meal. Work an hour for a sandwich I could get from home- no.

Yet, I spent six months of work for two weeks. Some may say wow- what a hypocrite. What did you spend it on, a car? Did you go on a shopping spree and get carried away? What did you do?
I went to China.

Just like the driving, if I wanted it I had to pay for it. The initial fees were all me, such as the airline ticket. Things that happened later, if we went out to eat or went to a temple that didn’t need to be prepaid for, then my parents would cover that. I still gave up three thousands dollars.

Many people asked me, well more like tell me, “Oh so you got a job to go to China.”

No I got a job so I could drive, but that’s beside the point. Even if I didn’t have a job I still had money I’d been saving for years; from birthdays, allowance, and random little jobs. I had no specific plans for the money, it just happened to be convenient that I got a job so that I did have enough. I don’t need a specific motivator, I already have a concrete one- the future.
Because some things are worth the money, and when the time comes you want to make sure you have enough to get it. Even I, the stingy money hoarder, believe: some things you just can’t put a price tag on.