A Week in Atlanta on a 17 Year-Old's Salary
Money Diaries, a series brought to life by Refinery29, highlights how individual millennials from various locations and income levels spend their money for one week.. With this in mind, I’m tracking every dollar to see how I spend my money over a week.
Growing up, I always preferred to save the money I earned from my various small business ventures. I sold lemonade, ran a snow-cone business, and sold numerous baked goods. It took until halfway through high school before I began to spend money. Nowadays, I typically spend small amounts of money on gas for my car and food when I’m with friends.
The week I chose to track all of my spending also took place while I was hosting a foreign exchange student from Denmark and had a few events with my youth group. I was also busy with tech for a large portion of the week in preparation for the premiere of Freaky Friday. Needless to say, I was excited to see how I would spend my money that week. While I tried to track everything, my documented expenses were not as accurate as they could have been since I did not account for all of my family’s expenses.
Occupation: Student
Industry: High School
Age: 17
Location: Atlanta
Income: No standard income (babysit occasionally)
Day One
7:15 a.m. — I ran around packing up my bag for school. I got home from spring break much later than I expected to last night, so I had to empty out my backpack and pack it up again. I didn’t have enough time for cereal, so I ate a Larabar ($1) as I ran out the door.
12:35 p.m. — I’m the only person I know who doesn’t have their off campus form signed. I haven’t wanted to go off.This saves me money as I don’t spend money on my lunches.
8:30 p.m. — I needed a new notebook ($2) as I filled mine during math class today. Luckily, my mom was going to the store so she picked one up for me.
My Daily Total: $0
Actual Cost of Life That Day: $3
Day Two
4:30 p.m. — I was still hungry from my lunch as I had eaten my lunch around 11am compared to 12:30pm like usual. Ms. Cates keeps a basket of snacks for students to put 50 cents into and we can take a snack out of the basket. I had put $1 in last week, but I hadn’t purchased two snacks, so I snagged a snack.
6:45 p.m. — I filled up on gas as I wasn’t sure when I’d have time to in the next few days. I always go to Costco (membership is $60), as I find they have the best price. I filled up half a tank, and spent about $30.
Daily Total: $30
Actual Cost of Life That Day: $90
Day Three
5:00 p.m. — My Danish exchange student arrived today. We all gathered outside to welcome the students to Galloway before taking our students back to our houses. My dad found out Luna, our exchange student, likes steak ($12) so he ran out to pick some up to grill.
Daily Total: $0
Actual Cost of Life That Day: $12
Day Four
12:30 p.m. — I was craving some tomatoes so I grabbed some from Flik before going to meet with a teacher. I bring my own lunch to school but I’ll sometimes grab some vegetables from Flik if my lunch didn’t fill me enough.
7:00 p.m. — My family likes to get Korean BBQ ($12 for vegetarian, $20 for omnivore) every few months as it's such a fun dinner idea, so we took Luna out for a dining adventure. I loved their rice noodles, so I ate them while my family cooked the meats and vegetables.
Daily Total: $0
Actual Cost of Life That Day: $72
Day Five
7:30 p.m. — My dad made homemade pasta for dinner. I love making homemade pasta as its an easy dinner that is always fresh. I heated up some sauce to put on mine.
9:00 p.m. — We met up with Rosie, Natalie, Catie, and their exchange students for rolled ice cream. I was tasked with educating all the Danes on rolled ice cream, which is funny since I can’t eat most of the treats. Ice cream for Luna, my sister, and I ended up costing $22.50.
10:00 p.m. — Rosie, Natalie, and their exchange students came back to my house for some quality free entertainment. It took a long time to decide what movie to watch but we ended up choosing The Interview.
Daily Total: $22.50
Day Six
11:00 a.m. — I made plans with Natalie to hang out with our exchange students today. We decided on meeting up at Ponce City Market before going to the World of Coke. I pay for parking for 2 hours which sets me back $4.60.
12:30 p.m. — It took some time but we decided to eat at Brezza Cucina, a sit-down pizza restaurant, where we ordered 2 pizzas, pancakes, and a bowl of roasted potatoes. The food was really good, but I felt like the pizzas were a bit expensive for their portion sizes. The meal ended up costing $72.
2:00 p.m. — Honeysuckle Gelato is my favorite local dessert treat in Atlanta as I have so many great memories of eating raspberry sorbet with my dad. After our tasty lunch, I had our group walk around for a bit before getting in line at Honeysuckle. My single scoop was $4.08.
2:30 p.m. — We took a stroll on the Beltline for a bit to show off the art on the path. As we were walking, I noticed my parking was about to run out so I added another half hour to my parking tab so I paid $1.60.
3:30 p.m. — We drove to the World of Coke because the Danes were excited to try the different sodas Coke offered in their tasting room. The parking lot I pulled into was charging $20, so I opted to find a different spot. The next parking lot wasn’t taking my money but a nice family gave me their all day parking pass ($10) so I didn’t have to pay for parking. Not paying for parking is the best thing in my book.
4:00 p.m. — The World of Coke’s tasting room wasn’t working so we walked over to the SkyView ferris wheel. Luna bought my ticket for me ($13) since I bought lunch, which was so sweet. The ferris wheel was such a nice way to end their tour of Atlanta.
9:00 p.m. — I’m obsessed with Atlanta. One of my favorite parts about Atlanta is the skyline, namely seen from Jackson Street bridge. I’ve been there so many times, but I’ve never seen it at night, so, it was such a treat to see the skyline at night.
Daily Total: $82.28
Actual Cost of Life That Day: $105.28
Day Seven
10:30 a.m. — I went on a hike with my BBYO chapter at a Chattahoochee hiking spot. I paid $3 for parking for some gorgeous views and good laughs with quality friends.
2:00 p.m. — My family ventured to the High (family membership is $110). We have a family membership, so it's really nice to be able to pop in without stressing about get the experience for the full price of admission.
6:00 p.m. — I attended a Tulane information session where I unexpectedly saw some friends I hadn't seen in quite a bit. It was such a good treat to see them.
Daily Total: $3
Actual Cost of Life That Day: $113
Weekly Total: $137.78
Money spent on gas: $30
Money spent on parking: $9.20
Money spent on food: $98.58
Actual Cost of Life This Week: $417.78
I’m not surprised to see how I spent my money this week. I knew I would be spending more than usual as I would be paying for stuff for at least two people each time I did anything. Tracking how you spend your money is such an important activity teenagers need to be doing. It really helped me put my spending in perspective.