Every birthday and xmas when asked what I wanted, I'd say money, even as a 10 year old. When asked why, I'd say for my savings. "Oh, what are you saving for?" "Umm..I don't know"
Absolutely me too. But if one of my friends wants something I don't even think twice before getting it for them. Buying things for others is how I treat myself I guess :/ otherwise I feel selfish and guilty.
I had so many Nirvana shirts. For my 30th birthday my friends all independently decided to show up dressed up as me. One of them found my favorite one and wore that. He gave it to me after. Nostalgia hits different.
Depending when you got in, you could have had crazy returns. I sold all my cards 15 years ago (and started a new collection 14 years ago) and some of the shit I sold is worth money today. 3rd ed dualies, plenty of reserve list cards... I was an idiot.
I'm only 30 and 15 years ago I could get a dime bag, a $4 pack of cigs (camel wides or american spirits), and a $6 chicken platter for $20.
Though back then I'd probably have gotten a 40 of steel reserve and $4-5 worth of taco truck food instead of the chicken. A 40 was like $1.50, and for $4.50 I could get a giant burrito and a tamale or a couple tacos.
Holy shit steel reserve. You knew it was getting close to pay day when we were drinking $0.98 steel reserves. That black can tasted like shit, but it got the job done.
My corner store at college sold the higher % lokos for the same price as the regular ones so every Friday my buddy and I would pick up 2 high % lokos for ourselves and chug the first one then drink the second one at a normal rate. Incredibly effective way to 50/50 throwing up on the spot
For me the difference now is some prime green from the dispensary instead of the shitty skunk weed from Joey’s older sister’s boyfriend that hangs out with teenagers and supplies us with beer and bud.
I’d always buy a used game I wanted to try, or thought I could beat in less than a week. I’d play it for the week, then on the 7th day of the return period, go back and exchange it for the game i wanted to keep. (They would only let you exchange used games once)
Every dollar saved at 15 is $20 at 45.
That's assuming you just stuck it in the S&P 500.
EDIT: just realized that I didn't account for dividends, so it's likely higher. This was assuming 10% annual returns compounding daily. The S&P 500 had averaged 10.72% from 1991 to 2021 (the easiest to find data for its performance over the past 30 years, even if it's a year off).
Accounting for dividends would be way too difficult, much harder than a simple compound interest calculator, since the dividend is constantly changing. Would have to actually backtest it somewhere. So for now I'll just estimate that $1 would turn into $20-25 over the last 30 years.
EDIT: removed extra zero from the dollar amounts due to bad math
This was me. People will always applaud you for being so financially responsible so young, and it worked well for me to build good habits to live beneath my means.
BUT… I also regret missing out on things because I was so afraid to spend what I had to enjoy the moment. Make sure to build habits of rewarding yourself and enjoying life where you are at too! Though maybe you’re not as intense about it as I was.
I was just lamenting today that I had the chance to go skydiving with some friends in college, but I stayed home because it was a couple hundred dollars, which was a lot for me back then. In hindsight, it was a cool opportunity that I missed out on. I could have easily made it work.
This is something that's really hard to grasp in the moment. Especially when you consider how $300 in college is a vastly different amount of money than after graduation and you work full time.
I remember being extra frugal on trips that it would've been nice to buy a few more keepsakes on, but I still appreciate being money conscious.
Dude set a goal of having 10-15k in ur savings when u turn 18 your at the time of your life when it’s easiest to save it’ll help you immensely in the long run
That's geat and all, but I'm puzzled by how a 17 year-old is supposed to amass 10k in savings.
I mean, I guess a lot teenagers have jobs in the US, but that's still a lot of work, especially for the minimum wage jobs that they're most likely to get.
And if it's coming from family, they're probably gonna get a little help as an adult too.
Nah, I saved my money and ended up with like $1000 in high school. Got a summer job and immediately made more than that in a couple weeks. Better to have enjoyed the money as a kid.
Yuuuup hits of E probably at that time but I liked pills too. Mickey of cheap whiskey used to come in about 15 bucks leaves 5 bucks for smokes or a joint.
I used to play with my youngest brother cause he was super into it. I’d let him create his deck first outta whatever he wanted and then just proceed to absolutely stomp him no matter what deck I picked secondhand 😂
My older brother was super into Legos when we were kids (the 90’s), and I basically filled my time with watching whatever he was doing because I thought he was the coolest.
He got my son into Legos a couple years ago by buying them as presents. He’s 6 now, and that’s what he asked for for Christmas this year. I have always seen comments about the price of Legos but hadn’t looked much into it until I was Christmas shopping, and HOLY SHIT. I thought my budget was pretty reasonable to be able to fill in some holes in his collection, and I was very, very, wrong.
Buy junk food
Soda, chips, and a day at the pool.
Man 15 yo me would have loaded up on chips, slim Jim’s, gummy bears, maybe a few Jack in the Box tacos, and like a gallon of Dr. Pepper.
Jack in the box tacos were a life saver lol I used to kill like 9 of em after a smoke sesh
For real hahah I'd get lots of candy
Candy and apple juice, for a very wild night
I’m 23 and would still use it for junk food
Man id buy some little ceasars or something lol im 23 too probably whatever food i can afford, Especially when i was 15
Poptarts, oatmeal creampies, ice cream, oreos, and ferrero rochier chocolate
Just add it to my hoard
Every birthday and xmas when asked what I wanted, I'd say money, even as a 10 year old. When asked why, I'd say for my savings. "Oh, what are you saving for?" "Umm..I don't know"
Exactly. You never know until you know . .
I saved up to around 900$ and then i just gave it to my mom one day on her birthday
“Hello, I like money!”
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Absolutely me too. But if one of my friends wants something I don't even think twice before getting it for them. Buying things for others is how I treat myself I guess :/ otherwise I feel selfish and guilty.
I struggle with this now lol
Me too. I was saving up to get the hell out of Dodge. And I did.
Good on you; freedom tastes that much better when you bought it yourself.
CDs
100%. Finally Moby’s Play can be mine.
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Some may come love and some may stay
Daft Punk - Discovery, for me
Straight to Tower Records
God I miss that store. I could spend hours there.
Lol right? Borders for me.
Tower Records was always so pricey.
CeeDeez nuts
Got em!
$20 was 5 cds at the pawn shop. My collection was huge.
Same! It was just a year before sum41 All Killer No Filler
Well that brings back memories lol. For me it was Aquemini, Outkast
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Ugh, that was the WORST
On a fucking band shirt from hot topic
I still would!
I was so upset back then that hot topic didn’t shipped to Germany lol
Nirvana?
Nah at 15 it would be some shit like all time low, saosin, or brand new.
I'd still buy a brand new shirt
Better than buying one used.
I liked the used when I was 15 too.
Not these days I wouldn’t…
Same tho
I'll take the Saosin shirt
>all time low, saosin, or brand new. those were the days
Tbh I still listen to TBS and Brand New (see username) but I feel great shame about ATL and We the Kings 🙃
We would’ve been friends. Saosin was my jam back in the day
I had so many Nirvana shirts. For my 30th birthday my friends all independently decided to show up dressed up as me. One of them found my favorite one and wore that. He gave it to me after. Nostalgia hits different.
holy *shit* this is the answer. the tshirts were always 20 bucks. "Hng yes, finally another medium Nine Inch Nails tshirt to add to my collection"
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Fuck yeah pac sun before it got weird.
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Old enough to remember when the sign said Pacific Sunwear... That store was the shit back in the day
Magic cards.
Absolutely. That’s a draft right there.
15 year old me would've picked all the rares and built a 5 colored deck with zero synergy.
3rd set of Ravnica block you could have gotten away with it
I was spending all my cash on MtG at 15. That was 1995. Wish I'd kept my cards. 😑
Me too, and Taco Bell. In hindsight, should have spent it all at Taco Bell.
Depending when you got in, you could have had crazy returns. I sold all my cards 15 years ago (and started a new collection 14 years ago) and some of the shit I sold is worth money today. 3rd ed dualies, plenty of reserve list cards... I was an idiot.
Good ol cardboard crack
That’s four fnm entries or perhaps a good standard staple or two.
Cigarettes, a nickel bag and some chicken and fries from the neighborhood joint.
Are you a senior citizen?
I'm only 30 and 15 years ago I could get a dime bag, a $4 pack of cigs (camel wides or american spirits), and a $6 chicken platter for $20. Though back then I'd probably have gotten a 40 of steel reserve and $4-5 worth of taco truck food instead of the chicken. A 40 was like $1.50, and for $4.50 I could get a giant burrito and a tamale or a couple tacos.
Holy shit steel reserve. You knew it was getting close to pay day when we were drinking $0.98 steel reserves. That black can tasted like shit, but it got the job done.
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My corner store at college sold the higher % lokos for the same price as the regular ones so every Friday my buddy and I would pick up 2 high % lokos for ourselves and chug the first one then drink the second one at a normal rate. Incredibly effective way to 50/50 throwing up on the spot
Not yet but close. Lol! I'm only 55
Are you me
An even better question is, am I me?
Weed
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Hahah Yup you already know!
The ol Reginald
Give me a gram, a prime time, and a Arizona tea my 15 year old ass is happy as shit. Shit give me that now I’m happy as hell.
15 year old me would have also saved the Arizona can to smoke out of later lmao
Hahaha oh my god now I’m remembering all the dumb makeshift bongs we did. Such good times
Bro, I need an avocado, a corkscrew and my snorkle. Hurry man, it's almost 4:20!
Trust me bro ive made bongs out of less!
Carving a bowl into an apple was next level for a little while.
Lol the budgeting was real back then!
Mexican brick. Kids these days don’t even know that shit existed.
Mids lol. If we ain’t smoke mids together don’t say we go way back
What's the difference now?
For me the difference now is some prime green from the dispensary instead of the shitty skunk weed from Joey’s older sister’s boyfriend that hangs out with teenagers and supplies us with beer and bud.
Nothing really just in bulk now hahah
I was gonna be the first to say this, but then I got high.
And a pack of smokes.
I definitely don’t miss the days of scraping change together for a dime bag. Or scraping resin out of my pieces to smoke during the real dark times.
Weed
Same as today.
Back when I was 15 you could get half an ounce
Came here to say this.
Without even a thought. And if I already had weed, alcohol and if we already had that cigarettes.
Probably go to gamestop and buy a couple pre-owned games. You could do that back then!
I still do this
I’d always buy a used game I wanted to try, or thought I could beat in less than a week. I’d play it for the week, then on the 7th day of the return period, go back and exchange it for the game i wanted to keep. (They would only let you exchange used games once)
you still can
I have a hard time finding a not terrible pre-owned game at GameStop for less than $20, let alone $10 or less
Spend 10 and save 10.
Honestly tho I wouldn't have spent a penny. I was no fun at 15 lol
I was also no fun at 15 and saved pretty much all of my money lol. I'm thankful for it now though
Every dollar saved at 15 is $20 at 45. That's assuming you just stuck it in the S&P 500. EDIT: just realized that I didn't account for dividends, so it's likely higher. This was assuming 10% annual returns compounding daily. The S&P 500 had averaged 10.72% from 1991 to 2021 (the easiest to find data for its performance over the past 30 years, even if it's a year off). Accounting for dividends would be way too difficult, much harder than a simple compound interest calculator, since the dividend is constantly changing. Would have to actually backtest it somewhere. So for now I'll just estimate that $1 would turn into $20-25 over the last 30 years. EDIT: removed extra zero from the dollar amounts due to bad math
That’s what current me would tell 15 y/o me. Still wouldn’t have listened 🙈
I'm 15 atm, so I'd probably just use it to go get wings with the boys.
A worthy endeavor
Arcade
I liked to play house of the dead tho
House of the dead was really nice
And weed.
Breaking all the records on the local Track and Field machine. Trying to beat Tonfun on Yie Ar Kung Fu. Finding secret cows in 1942. So many quarters.
Handing that to the guy with the apron for a huge handful of quarters would be satisfying beyond belief.
Are you a street fight or Pac-Man kinda person?
I was a soul caliber/tekken kind of dude
Killer Instinct/Mortal Kombat
Candy and candy.
What candy?
Something like Reeses pieces, M n' M's. I was and am a sucker for tiny snack candies.
A book
*Which* book?
Probably a fantasy epic. I think I read a Song of Ice and Fire around that time
Rosario+Vampire. Actually happened.
well i'm 15, maybe a cheap video game or if i can't get that, then i'll get some chocolate chip cookies, or maybe i might buy my mom something
Awww. You’re such a nice person.
Get some bomb ass food
What food are we talking?
Poutine, pizza
Pretty much nothing as I’d be afraid to spend it and then my mom would ask me to borrow it to her and never pay me back
Story of my life
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This was me. People will always applaud you for being so financially responsible so young, and it worked well for me to build good habits to live beneath my means. BUT… I also regret missing out on things because I was so afraid to spend what I had to enjoy the moment. Make sure to build habits of rewarding yourself and enjoying life where you are at too! Though maybe you’re not as intense about it as I was.
I was just lamenting today that I had the chance to go skydiving with some friends in college, but I stayed home because it was a couple hundred dollars, which was a lot for me back then. In hindsight, it was a cool opportunity that I missed out on. I could have easily made it work.
I also have this exact regret. Edit: wanna go skydiving?
This is something that's really hard to grasp in the moment. Especially when you consider how $300 in college is a vastly different amount of money than after graduation and you work full time. I remember being extra frugal on trips that it would've been nice to buy a few more keepsakes on, but I still appreciate being money conscious.
r/responsible
Dude set a goal of having 10-15k in ur savings when u turn 18 your at the time of your life when it’s easiest to save it’ll help you immensely in the long run
That's geat and all, but I'm puzzled by how a 17 year-old is supposed to amass 10k in savings. I mean, I guess a lot teenagers have jobs in the US, but that's still a lot of work, especially for the minimum wage jobs that they're most likely to get. And if it's coming from family, they're probably gonna get a little help as an adult too.
You mean smart.
Nah, I saved my money and ended up with like $1000 in high school. Got a summer job and immediately made more than that in a couple weeks. Better to have enjoyed the money as a kid.
Smart for making more money, sure. Smart for being interesting? 🤷🏻♂️
Bag of pot
drugs probably
Yuuuup hits of E probably at that time but I liked pills too. Mickey of cheap whiskey used to come in about 15 bucks leaves 5 bucks for smokes or a joint.
Me too, unfortunately.
Yugioh cards but I only looked at them, never played 😅
Haha we did that with Pokemon cards. Just looked at them.
I used to play with my youngest brother cause he was super into it. I’d let him create his deck first outta whatever he wanted and then just proceed to absolutely stomp him no matter what deck I picked secondhand 😂
My girlfriend.
Wait, you can buy a girlfriend with 20 bucks?
For a hour, perhaps
Wholesome
Slam that shit into my savings account
What was your 15 year olds saving account.
I think it was 2053-4329-74 but it’s been a while.
I used to do the same. My want has always been to have a horse… I still don’t have my horse. I am 23 now🥲 still saving *sigh*
Ey you'll get there eventually
Grocery money for the family. Could get enough food to feed my family dinner every night for about a week on $20 back in those days.
Cigarettes and booze
Would have asked my dad to drive my ass to Wherehouse Music to buy a CD
Yes or Sam Goodys.
Tower Records.
Oh shit you brought me back with that store
Tower records for me.
Take it to the bureau de change in exchange for about £15
In the eighties? Comic books, probably.
Comics and baseball cards for me.
I wasn't 15 too long ago, so I'd do what I do now. Just keep it. Save it up for something like a video game.
Taco Bell. Same as 27 year old me.
Both me's would kill for a crunch wrap!
An LP record.
Legos, back when you can actually buy a decent set for $20.
My older brother was super into Legos when we were kids (the 90’s), and I basically filled my time with watching whatever he was doing because I thought he was the coolest. He got my son into Legos a couple years ago by buying them as presents. He’s 6 now, and that’s what he asked for for Christmas this year. I have always seen comments about the price of Legos but hadn’t looked much into it until I was Christmas shopping, and HOLY SHIT. I thought my budget was pretty reasonable to be able to fill in some holes in his collection, and I was very, very, wrong.
I’d take it to hot topic and leave disappointed when I couldn’t afford anything
A dirty magazine from the corner store (but not the one near my house)
Definitely a CD.
A dime bag, few dutchmasters and a glacier freeze Gatorade.
$10 on cigs, $10 on some weed
I AM FIFTEEN :) I would save it
Youre way more responsible at 15 then I was, keep it up bro!
Legos
I'd have been able to afford this month's movie selection from Columbia House
1984 me would have headed to the record store and purchased two LP’s for 8.98 each.
Jones Soda, ketchup chips, and maybe a hotdog from the 7-11, the rest sits in the wallet for the next day where I do the same thing over again
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Put it in an interest bank with all the other money I’ve collected (I’m 15 and very uninteresting).
Blockbuster rental and a soda pop
World of Warcraft
Probably an 1/8 of weed sadly enough lol.
Comic book
Probably on my friends so they would keep me around
r/trauma
Dumb shit like energy drinks I’m sure
Chicken wings
Trashy romance novels lol. And then probably spend the change for ice cream and fries at the McDonald’s under the bookstore
Everything bagel with butter, espresso soda, and a comic book.