My experience with money

   I think I’ve mentioned this a great number of times before, but oh well! So in this website, in addition to sharing with you guys some tips in life based on my personal experience with the experiences of people that I know, I would also want to share with you some stories of myself, so that hopeful through these stories you can be inspired or that you can learn something from it, either it is something bad that I’ve done or something that I’m proud of. Today, let’s talk about money! Yes, I understand you all - we all love money, and we all want to be able to earn some money when you are still underaged. I really do empathize with you all - I remembered that when I was in middle school, whenever I was feeling bored and that I had nothing to do, I would literally search online for ways to make money as a young teenager. Today, I would like to share with you my personal story in regards to working and earning some money (even if it wasn’t a lot), so that hopefully you can learn something from what I have gone through.

   Alright, so to look at my whole journey of making money, we will take on a journey to take us back to when I was in 5th grade, when I was studying in elementary school. In my class of 23 students (lol I still remember the exact number of students there), I was pretty much the smartest student there, and many classmates would come to me for academic help. On seeing this occurring, one day, an idea suddenly came to my mind - the idea was that I would create a book sharing tips on how to be better in academics. And since I was a person who would hold out my plan instantly after the plan was made, the exact same night, I told my dad of the plan, and he happily agreed to help me. Essentially, the plan was that I would design and write the content on an online document, and my dad would help print it out - my previous house was rented by a photocopy shop, so he could reach out to that shop to get the copies printed out. Honestly, until now, I couldn’t believe that I could be so dedicated in making that - believe it or not, I’ve been able to type out 12 pages of content (one introductory page, 10 “tips”, and an ending page) in a single night - well, each page was online like 60 or 70 words, but still, I was pretty impressed with how I was so determined in finishing it in one day. On the following day, while my dad was asking the photocopy shop to print 10 copies for me, I spreaded the word about this “book” of mine to people in class, and on the day after that, the copies were ready. I think something that I didn’t do very well was that I set the price for each book to be pretty expensive, but still, I was able to sell 2 copies - you may think that I’m such a fool, but honestly, to be able to sell at least something to other people and earn money from it was just a very awesome thing for a 5th grader like me then.

   Fast forward to 8th grade, this is when I started my tutoring (and teaching) work. As I have said before in my post about my experience with tutoring, it started with me teaching 5 kids when Covid was still occurring, and initially, I didn’t get that much money to tell the truth. But my ultimate intention in teaching these students so that I can become more confident as well as learning public speaking skills, so of course I didn’t care much about money - again, to be able to receive just a small chunk of money was already an achievement for an 8th grader back then, right? But then, I do think that dedication and hard work pay off, since as time progresses and I have my new clients (oh my god why do I sound like a successful businessman sharing his life story), the amount of money that I get from tutoring also rises as well, which is something that I so greatly appreciate.

   Alright, so with that being said, there are several things that I have learned through my experience with money from a young age. First of all, money is not easy to earn. Don’t expect to do something and expect that you will get money. Even though it may seem from what I say that tutoring is a pretty easy job, there are certainly a lot of things going on in the background that I am not mentioning - sacrificing my time, planning out the curriculum, creating and printing out assignments, writing reports for parents, negotiating about price, etc. Don’t expect money to come to you that easily - work hard for it, please! And second of all, don’t try to earn money solely because you want to make money: at the end of the day, I strongly believe that you have to love what you do so that you can earn an amount of money. While searching for jobs that you can do does help, at the end of the day it is not always about money that matters the most - it is that you are enjoying your work, because only when you don’t get stressed out about the idea of “you have to make money” can you actually have the mind to put yourself into making value to your customers.