One about Women's Roles in Business and Society....

As young girls, we learn our behaviors from the women who surround us. I was raised by two women with very different points of view. My mother and my aunt shared almost equally in my upbringing and if I could be anything like either of them, it would be more than I have earned in this life. My mother was a saint and would never say anything negative about anyone, even if it needed saying. My aunt, on the other hand, she opened her mouth and the truth, whether ugly or kind would come rushing out. She didn't mean it in a hurtful way, I would always tell myself. Sometimes the truth needs to be said. Then, I ask myself, to what degree should the truth be given to our young girls?

The thing about my mother's point of view is that her opinion was never heard, out of fear of causing offense. She would tell me confrontation was unladylike, even if my heart was screaming out for validation. I felt her heart must want the same validation, somewhere deep inside. Didn't she ever want to spit out the ugly, unflattering truth? Her biggest fear in life was that someone, ANYONE may not like her. She never met a stranger. The number of people at her funeral violated the building's fire code. The staff had to ask people to stand outside. She never had an enemy. Not one. She never caused offense. She was never heard. I watched her get trampled on by people whose intentions were unkind. She was passed over time and again for promotions at work because she wouldn't speak up. My father and I watched her, knowing she felt helpless when people took advantage of her kind heart. I did not want to be a doormat like my mother. I always saw her as a sweet, lovely, beautiful soul of a doormat.

Then, there was my aunt. She seized life and success by the throat with a vigor and diligence that I will likely never find. She was equally beautiful, with an equally kind heart as my mother's, but she was never afraid of the truth. She was never afraid of the offense it could cause. If something needed to be said, my mom would call my aunt and it would be said. In fact, most of the times that my mother would confront me about my bad behavior (there weren't many occasions because I was a mostly good and terribly precocious child) she would do so through my aunt. She would call Mimi, vent to her and then auntie would get me whipped into shape. Sure, my aunt had a few enemies. There was this one lady at work she would've loved to string up by the toes..... She burned a few bridges, she said some ugly, unflattering truths.... she was probably called a few choice names, but she was also surrounded by people who loved and respected her. Her funeral was also packed to capacity. She fought tooth and nail for her success and she craved the respect she worked so hard to earn. I respected her. I also respected my mother, but in a different way. I respected her martyrdom…. I just don’t know whose footsteps to follow?

I’ve spent most of my life playing my mother’s card. I was quiet and reserved. I harbored a lot of anxiety. I wanted success, but I was afraid of the men and (especially the) women who stood between me and the success I sought. So instead of acting on my desires, I sat quietly for fear of being disliked. However, unlike my mother I was an introvert. I did not have a host of friends to occupy my time. I was mostly terrified of people. I would rather keep to myself. Just like my mother, I had so much unrealized potential. I wanted so much but I was terrified of the struggle it would take to achieve it. My mother spent her entire life in the same limbo. She was too afraid of being disliked to fight for the things she wanted. As I grew older and both my mother and my aunt were diagnosed with terminal cancer, I began to see things differently. I began to find my voice.

 With trembling hands and quivering lips, I began to tell people how I felt. However, I didn’t know how to use my voice. I felt too much anger and fear to use my voice effectively. Still, it felt good to be finally heard. At first, I felt vindicated beyond my wildest dreams. I sought out people who had wronged me in high school to tell them how they had made me feel like dirt and I had never told them off and then proceeded to insult them in every vicious way I could imagine.  I wrote a letter to the doctor who had for four years continuously misdiagnosed my mother’s illness and called him every name in the book. I went off on people I shouldn’t have. I got out of control. I became a stark-raving-mad B-I-T-C-H. I sunk even further into seclusion. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just wanted every person who had ever hurt me to finally hear what I had wanted to say them. The words had been burning inside of me for so long I became consumed by my own fire.

I remember my aunt saying once to someone who needed a good talking to, “You think I’m a bitch for saying this, don’t you? Well guess what, sometimes it feels good to be a bitch.” I think what she meant was that, sometimes, it felt good to have her opinion validated. It felt good to be heard. It felt good to vocalize her grievances. Sadly, life took these two women away from me before my training as a woman was complete. I lost them both in the same year. My burning question in life, since these two women have been taken from me has become this: to be a beloved door mat, or a “bitch” fighting for success? This question has led me to many other questions and they all seem to involve the gender roles we place upon our daughters. Why must it be one or the other? Why a doormat or a bitch? It seems that if a man is assertive, he is considered effective and is respected. He is regarded as having vigor and often rewarded with success. If a woman acts in the same assertive manner, she is not regarded for her zealousness; she’s labeled a “bitch.”  

I think the truth is that society was unfair to both of these women. My mother shouldn’t have had to feel like she had to say yes to everything and sacrifice herself in order to be well liked. My aunt also shouldn’t have had to have been labeled a bitch just to find validation, respect and success. I shouldn’t have had to have spent so many years stuffing down emotions that I exploded on the entire world around me. Where can women find middle ground? How can we communicate our emotions effectively and feel our opinions are validated without fear of being labeled a bitch? Why has society taught us that confrontation is unladylike, being assertive makes you a bitch, and voicing your opinion will make you unpopular? At what point, in our roles in society and business, can we put aside these labels and just be people? Will my daughter have to worry that in order to gain success she must fight tooth and nail, see other women as enemies and play up to the gender roles presented to her? I don’t want that for my children and I don’t want that for myself.

So, my dear women and girls, I’m begging you all to stop for a moment. I’m asking you to examine yourself. Have you let society mold you into either a doormat or a bitch? Do you apologize for every word you say? Do you even say them at all? If you are brave enough to use your voice do you use your it for good or for evil?

One on Student Loans

I've decided to veer a bit from the path I've been on in the last few posts, regarding my personal money story. I'd like to change the subject for just a minute to talk about student loans. I am sure that student loans serve their purpose in many instances, but for my family, student loans have been a nightmare. My brother and I were raised by soft 90's parents, who told us that we were beautiful and special and intelligent and deserving of everything in the world.... and we grew up believing this. I'm not faulting my parents. They had this mentality that because they had not gone to college, that by brother and I would, at any cost. However, if they had forced us to take a more pragmatic approach to our educations, we could have avoided a lot of woes later in life. Although my parents could not have known that "following our dreams" would land us in financial trouble, perhaps I can make someone else understand the dangers of student loans.

By the time my older brother began college, my parents had fostered our pipe-dreams to the point that he signed his life away to a fancy art school to the tune of about 25K per year for almost five years. You are reading this correctly, my brother graduated from art school with roughly six-digits of student debt. I muddled my way through college, not knowing what I wanted to do, uncertain what path to follow. Because my aunt desired that I attend her expensive alma mater, I found myself barely a sophomore and already nearly 15k in debt myself. This debt was even after federal pell assistance AND a scholarship. Then, came disaster. My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. My brother was defaulting on all of his student loans and the bills began pouring in..... to my parents house, because my brother wasn't paying. For whatever reason, my father did not sit down my brother to explain to him what a burden the student loans were. Instead, my father began to pay my brother's student loans for him. The monthly payment to Sallie Mae was my parents third largest monthly expense, outside of rent and my mother's cancer treatments.

They paid more in student loan bills than they spent each month on food, because they couldn't tell my brother he was burdening them. I remember one time, I had lunch with him, to try and explain to him that his bills were burdening mom and dad. Perhaps I didn't articulate myself effectively, because my brother replied that he felt my father wanted to pay for his college and had been unable to do so at the time when the loans were drawn up, and now this was dad's way of getting to pay for his college education. I shrugged and asked then, why weren't they also paying my student loans? Why was I writing a check to Sallie Mae myself every month, if mom and dad wanted so badly to pay for our educations? It turns out he had several separate loans. One paid by my father and mother, one paid by his biological mother and one or two that he "paid" (defaulted) I roughly added the sums in my head and my guess is that between the three families, we were all paying a combined total of about 800-1,000 per month for an art degree. I used my brother as a shining example of how NOT to college.

I moved home to stay with my mom and quit attending the expensive university (it was actually a relief because I resented the school by this point) and vowed never to take another student loan. I also started making payments on the interest of my student loans, so the number wouldn't continue to get larger. I enrolled at community college part time during my mother's illness and paid for it myself. Every month, in addition to paying Sallie Mae, I wrote a check to Snead State Community College for 113.00 to cover my books and tuition. I was really proud of myself. I worked hard and raised my GPA while there. Sadly, my mother didn't live to see me graduate from junior college or proudly accept my full ride scholarship to Athens State University. So, here I am.... 27 years old, finally a senior in college. My path has been arduous but I feel it will be amply rewarding. I've been studying acquisition and contract management and I'm excited to graduate this upcoming fall. My scholarship and pell grants have paid for every penny of my tuition at Athens. I've been paying down my student loans while attending school and have almost paid off all the interest I accrued of the 8+ years I spent in deferment.

So what have I learned about student loans? A few things.... first, CONSIDER the risks and TAKE LOANS WISELY. I have a friend whose nephew is about to go to full sail university to study music production to the tune of 40k a year... I see my brother's future for him and it scares me. I feel like, if you're not going to be a doctor, nurse, lawyer, dentist, medical professional, or going for some other type of professional degree with a promising job market.... it's probably a bad idea to take on a lot of student debt. What are you going to do with that liberal art degree when you graduate with 100,000+ in student debt? Secondly, I feel like deferment is kind of a cop-out. Pay something, ANYTHING, while you're in school or the scary interest monster will haunt you in your sleep when you finally graduate. Finally, I feel like perhaps college is something we need to approach more pragmatically. If I hadn't been urged to go to a school that I knew I couldn't afford, because it was "prestigious" then I wouldn't be in this situation I'm in, now. I am infinitely more proud of the degree that I will earn with my diligent and earnest efforts than I would have been of the liberal arts degree financed by Sallie Mae. However, this is simply my personal story and opinion. Your experience with student loans may differ. In my opinion, the less student debt you can get away with, the better off you'll be when you do graduate.

A Spiritual Windfall

So if I learned nothing else, my tragic divorce caused me to realize I had the strong will to survive. I had all the tools I needed to become the woman I wanted to be, if I could only make myself believe I was worth the time and effort it would take to complete my metamorphosis. Everyone has the tools they need to change themselves, if they really focus on their habits and behaviors. I still believe that even my ex-husband the drug addict, had the willpower to change, if he could have only believed in his own abilities. He did not believe in himself, but he had seen something in me that was beginning to grow very strong and powerful. A tiny spark had been lit. My new found desire to change my situation would spark a fire that would eventually lead me to my true self.

The change was not entirely deliberate at first, it was simply my will to survive that got me through. Then, I started to feel confident and began to explore these small changes that led to larger changes and this began to create a positive snowball effect in my life. I was spending every moment either caring for my mother or working. I kept a nice guy on the side for some weekend fun, but it was never anything serious... just someone to have dinner and movie dates with when dad would stay with mom on the weekend shifts. I would come and go and my life was so hectic for a while that I really didn't even have time to notice all the changes. All the negatives were swirling through my head. Divorced. Debtor. Fat. Unaccomplished. I didn't want to be any of these things.

The first life changing habit I developed, is what many in the field of the study of habits call, a "Keystone Habit" This is a single shift in your behavior that will begin to impact all of your other behaviors. For me, the keystone habit is and always will be: LOTS OF EXERCISE. I know this sounds overly simplistic. Exercise changed my life, made me happy, helped me realize my self-worth and even got me out of debt... but it is true! I decided I needed a change. My mom was sick but I had to work. At this point I was still married to my ex but things were quickly unraveling. How I started exercising is kind of funny. I needed a job and I wanted to work in retail (relatively stress free with flexible hours to be with my mom) but I KNEW I couldn't trust myself to work in retail at just ANY store. It would have to be a store full of things I could never use or I would spend all my income at the store. I wanted out of my comfort zone. So, it was decided, unathletically, overweight me should start working at a sporting goods store.

It was meant to be a joke but in the end, the irony turned out to be a delight. There was "nothing" at a sporting goods store that I could/would use, so the logic was that I would NEVER spend a penny in the store. HAHAHAHA. I decided to take up exercising because the stress of the pending divorce coupled with my mother's terminal diagnosis was more than I could handle. Plus, there were all these college athlete type guys working at the sporting goods store and they were PRETTY. I had always had always been attractive, but slightly overweight, so I knew these guys were out of my league unless I got in shape! I started exercising anyway, just for me at first. I bought some cute workout clothes at work and joined the gym down the street, when pressed by a co-worker to be her workout buddy.

I lost a few pounds and started feeling good. I lost a few more and started feeling confident in my abilities for the first time in many years. I started doing more kinds of exercise. I spent an entire tax return and bought an elliptical trainer so I could workout at home every day. I bought weights and started strength training. I found the kettlebell section at work and began kettlebell training. Nike came out with a new line of pilates clothes, so I took up pilates and bought the DVD and the outfit. Asics put out neon pink running shoes, so I tried that, too! Cute hiking boots? Let's go to the mountains! I was still spending money, but I was also sticking to a budget for the first time ever. I was paying down debts, not racking them up! My new hobby was making me feel great!

By the time the divorce was final and I had a clear picture of the mess I was in, I also started to develop a picture of the life I'd like to have. In shape. In control. In love. In school. In a home of our own someday. It all seemed entirely impossible, except.... I was actually getting IN SHAPE. Was it possible? I'd never been able to run a mile as a kid and now suddenly, I'm taking selfies at the gym and going for "relaxing runs" before bed..... my anxiety began to stabilize. My self confidence blossomed.

I was on track to getting in shape, so what else could I do? I began to focus on school. I enrolled in junior college part-time, so I could still spend plenty of time with my mother and not be too stressed out by the promotion I received at work! I went to school part-time, made the A/B honor roll, worked full-time, enjoyed several promotions and spent every other second focused on my mother's health and comfort. I lived with my parents throughout the entire two years of my mother's battle with cancer and this enabled me to pay off as much debt as possible. My bills were getting less-scary and my mother was doing well... I was growing more and more confident....

but just as I said before, if you let down your guard even for a second, your old demons will be waiting!

A Wakeup Call

As I stated in a previous post, I spent most of my early twenties with some really bad ideas and habits that still haunt me today. Even when the statute of limitations runs out on many of my derogatory marks, I wonder if the lessons learned by those derogatory marks will stick, or if I'm financially doomed, like my own mother. I like to say that, "No, way! I learned my lesson!" but the truth is that being financially fit is very similar to being physically fit. What on earth am I talking about? What I mean is that finances are something you must work at everyday. You mustn't let down your guard for a second or your old demons will find you! How do I know? I've been there, done that and gotten a t-shirt... like three times now.

It takes a wakeup call for most people with bad financial or lifestyle habits to realize they've even done anything wrong. The first time I racked up a load of debt, I was young and dumb. My first wakeup call moment came when the lawyers sent out a certified letter saying that if I didn't come up with $700 to pay capital one in less than a month they were going to sue me! I broke down and went to my mother, who, although she could not help me financially, could always provide support in a non-judging way. She soothed me and assured me that if I simply called and set up a payment plan they would not sue me. She sat there with me while I called the lawyer's office and they did exactly what she said: agreed not to sue me if I agreed to make really big payments on the credit card. So there, I defaulted on my first card at the tender age of 22.

Then, there's the awful money habits I took into relationships. My ex came from a wealthy family and had never lived a day without the best of everything. I was wooed by all the gifts and nice things I'd never experienced. His parents bought us expensive home furnishings and took us to five-star restaurants. He said he made a lot of money working for his father and I was stupid enough to believe him! I thought he was the answer to my money problems. I could just marry this rich guy, he could take care of my debts, and I could live a happy life of Michael Kors bags and fine dining. Only, life doesn't work like that and 22 year olds don't often realize this key bit of information.

I should've known something was wrong by the way he controlled EVERYTHING. I didn't really pay attention at first, because it was just so nice not to have to worry! I don't even know how much the rent cost at our fancy new apartment because I never once paid the rent. I worked to keep myself sane and shopped every Saturday and magically all my bills were paid and there was money in my bank account. Only, he would never combine bank accounts with me. He asked if we could sign up the cable and things in my name because he had no credit. We took on debts in my name. Oh my God....

WAKE UP CALL! The man is a fraud! He had nothing. WE had nothing. His parents were footing the bill for our lifestyle. It turns out the guy was a spoiled rich-kid with an insane drug and alcohol problem that I was NEVER told about, throughout the ENTIRE three year relationship! He wouldn't combine bank accounts with me, because if I could see his bank account, I could see where all his money was going and the truth was terrifying. One night it all came crashing down and I found out all the truth. In spite of lofty promises, he had nothing and in addition to paying our mutual bills (they bought our rent, utilities and food) his parents were paying lawyers, court referral officers, corrections officers, outpatient rehab centers, a team of psychologists and a slew of methadone treatment centers. What did this all mean? Why hadn't anyone told me? Why did I open that box of papers that led to my knowing the truth?

He was a drug addict, plain and simple. He was a second generation alcoholic and in addition to that, he loved opiates and really any narcotic pain killer. The year before we met, he had been arrested for driving his brand new Acura into a tree. When they found him, both he and the Acura were loaded up full of narcotics. He went to the ER. He went to jail. He went to rehab. He was clean and sober when we met, so I honestly did not know when he started slipping. You watch those TV shows (namely, who the bleep did I marry?!?) and you think, these women are CRAZY. How did they NOT know?!? The truth is simply that, some people are con artists. Their entire lives are a mess of lies, spun up so intricately that they start to believe the lies themselves. He was smooth for a long time. For two and a half years, I did not know. It wasn't until my mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness that the truth all came out. I suspected he had started stealing her oxycontin. I got curious. Inconsistencies flared up so I started digging through our lives. Then I found the stack of papers. Lawyers, CRO's, Methadone clinics, doctors, therapists, more methadone clinics, outpatient rehabs..... he owed them all lots of money.

 Armed with my new resolution, I filed for legal separation. Any idiot who would steal from my dying mother was on the fast track to divorce court.  However, for some STUPID reason, I signed the papers his family lawyer's had drawn up and I didn't even TRY to hold him accountable for ANY of the debts in my name. He paid what was in his name and I paid what was in mine. That left me with our debts... including the cable my ex signed up for under my name and then he ran off with the box (OK, I never got it back after I left him... it was worth $800 not to have to SEE him again) So then, I owed the cable company another $800. Ugh. I gave up on ever owning a house, cut up all my credit cards, began working extra shifts and started paying at the debts.

I considered this point in my life to be rock bottom. I was 23, divorced, loaded up with debt and 30 pounds overweight. Not to mention my mother was dying. That eclipsed all else. I didn't even care about the debt or the numbers. I just wanted to give up! My credit score was so low, I didn't even know credit scores WENT that low. I had my wakeup call... but how could I live in the wake of the mess I'd gotten into? I did not yet know it, but I had already begun to take the first few steps on the path to a new life.

My ex-husband's last words to me actually held more wisdom than I would realized for several years to come. On our last meeting, I asked him why he couldn't work to truly BE the person he had claimed to be when we first started dating,  then we could stay together. I asked him if he didn't love me more than he loved the drugs? His answer was pitiful in reply but has resonated in my heart ever since... his reply was short and sullen, but moving

 "Sheena.... not everyone HAS the willpower you have."

I realized I was rich beyond measure. I was rich with a strong will to survive.

The freshman 15 and the freshman 15k

So in my last post I examined where I learned my bad habits concerning health and finances, because these are learned behaviors that can be modified. Everyone learns these things from someone. Usually it's our parents. In my situation, it was a combination of my parents and my aunt.

My aunt was one of the greatest people ever. She made a lot of money and she spent a lot of money and she wanted the same lifestyle for me. I was very grateful for every thing she did for me. Unfortunately, she and my mother both are now deceased, and I'm left with a small amount of money and no tools to use it properly. For now, I'm saving, paying my debts, working, going to school, and earning some extra on the side re-selling things on eBay. Why am I doing all this???? Because I really got myself into a money mess!

How did I do this? Well, in part one I discussed where these bad habits came from, now it's time to tell my personal money-mess story.

So this is where my aunt comes into play. She had the best aspirations for me! She wanted me to attend her very prestigious (see prestigious, read: expensive) Alma mater. I couldn't really afford this school but there was always student loans. She got me a job at her firm and an apartment near school. I paid my bills. Well, sort of. I paid at them, anyway.

The job... was awful and didn't pay squat. I hated every moment of it. The school was a nightmare, the expenses were stifling, the teachers condescending, the students pretentious, the entire atmosphere stressed me out. I made good grades but I hated every second of it. I gained 15 pounds, 20 pounds, 30 pounds.... the next thing I knew, I'd gained 35 pounds!!! My weight was at an all time high!

In the meantime, I was working 40 hours a week and bringing it, what seemed to me, an amazing amount of money (looking back it was peanuts) it paid my bills and allowed me a little for shopping. I shopped til' I dropped! My new apartment was in a fancy gated community and I felt obligated to dress and appear as nice as the people in my neighborhood and the girls at work. I couldn't afford all the designer bags and shoes, so I got credit cards and student loans! Oh my gosh... bad idea. Now I'm over weight AND in debt.

The debt didn't all happen at once, a night out with the girls... a new coach bag.... a really expensive semester at school... computer crashed? Credit card. I had no incentive to save. I was impulsively buying things to try and make myself feel better about how unhappy I was at work and at school!

The next thing I knew I owed Sallie Mae, the US department of Education, Visa, Discover, MasterCard... you name it. I was making money, sure... but I was also spending more than I made and I wasn't focusing on building my savings or paying my debts. I called it, "Building my credit" What it meant was, "amassing lots of debts."

Can you believe they will extend over 15,000 in available credit to a 19 year old girl?? You better believe it. They can't legally do that anymore, thanks to credit reforms. Unfortunately for me, at my going rate it would have taken more than 19 years to ever pay it off!

So, every one has a wake-up call moment regarding health or money. Mine was quickly approaching.

Getting into this mess: we all have our own story

Most women seem to worry about the same two things: money and muffin tops. Now, this is putting it lightly, but who wouldn't want to be in a little better shape... both financially and physically! I will admit,  in my early twenties, I lost sight of both and found myself piling on debt and packing on pounds. We all have our own story of how "it" happened (weight gain, credit card debt, whatever your personal woes might be) So to start things off, here is my personal story.

As for fitness, I was never a fit kid. My parents fed me McDonald's, didn't make me play outside, never signed me up for sports or taught me about proper nutrition... I was a victim of too much autonomy as a child. These freedoms to make my own decisions led to my making bad decisions. I was a very pudgy child and it stifled my self-esteem. Weight became a source of constant anxiety and my chubby tummy didn't make very many friends, so I sunk further into my books.

And as for my lack of money-management skills... they also started at home. My mother, god rest her soul, could never manage money. She didn't understand a budget. I guess that's where I learned about finance. I recall hearing stories that when I was a toddler and mommy would tell me we couldn't buy something because we didn't have any money, I would reply, "but we have a credit card!" Yes, we did... and boy did it get us into trouble.

My parents filed for bankruptcy when I was in jr. high school. Talk about not being popular.... I had a popular cousin who wouldn't even acknowledge that we were related. We were, effectively, the black sheep among my wealthy relatives.... we were talked about by family, friends, people we thought loved us. My mother was very hurt by all the things her family said. She was embarrassed and she was angry. I just accepted cynicism at an early age. I began to understand. People are shallow. People like money. People liked our classic mustangs, our big house, my nice clothes.... Suddenly, at the tender age of 13, all of that was gone.

I sank further into seclusion. People who I thought were my friends wrote me off. I became depressed. People were mean to me. I had to learn to be poor. I'm not complaining. It was an excellent life experience. I'm not exaggerating when I say we were poor. Previously, my father was the manager of a huge plant and received huge paychecks.When we filed for bankruptcy, the company tanked very shortly after, leaving us bankrupt and without a real income. We rented a little house behind a local Wal-mart. My mom worked at the pizza place next door and my dad worked at the wal-mart. It was often we didn't have a working vehicle, so they would walk the half mile to work. We ate free pizza, almost all the time, it seemed. I was the only 15 year-old on the planet who hated pizza.

I remember for my 15th birthday party, we didn't have a working car, so my mom walked to the store to buy my party supplies. I can remember seeing her, as I got off the bus, walking home from the dollar store, toting bags full of dollar-store party supplies. It was a happy birthday. We were poor, but we had a lot of love between us. I had a cake, I had some friends, I had a family who loved me, a roof over my head and our bills were (mostly) getting paid.

Then, after my 15th birthday, I decided it was time for me to start contributing to the family income, so I got a job working for my mother at the pizza place. We had so much fun and I felt so grown up having my own job and my own income! I helped mom pay bills from time to time, when she struggled and we even had enough extra money to go shopping every now and then.... That's when I really started learning negative financial behavior.

Happy times and pleasant memories with mom began to be associated with shopping. Any time we had any extra money, we were at the Clinique counter, hitting up Victoria's Secret or cruising the sale racks at Macy's. We'd hit up target at midnight.... just because we were bored.

I graduated high school, a year early, at the age of 17 and began working full-time. I was 17 and bringing in more money than my dad (at the time) and LOVED the idea of having so much disposable income. I was planning on starting college the following year and intended to work in order to "save" money for college. However... college became a financial and physical nightmare, very quickly.....

Tomorrow: The freshman 15 and the freshman $15,000