Advice for a High School Senior: Money

In a few months, you'll graduate from high school and you'll need money. Everybody knows that you need money to live. Whether you go to college or look for work, you need money.

You gotta eat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it will cost you at least $35-$39 a week at your penny pinching best to eat. Take out every night and the costs jump to $69-$77 a week. Depending on your eating habits, that boils down to $150 to $334 a month.

You also need a roof over your head. In Los Angeles, a studio apartment rents for an average of $1,353 a month. In New York, it rents for $2,309. In Miami, the roof over your head begins at $1,238.

Most young people will want a car. Even if you can get buy with a bicycle or the bus or the train, there are costs. In 2009, the average American spent $7,658 a year on transportation costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Call it $638 a month.

Get a job? The unemployment rate for people with a high school education in January 2011 was 9.4%. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, making an average full time job gross $1,329 a month.

I said gross. Your take home pay will be less, a lot less. Your employer will withhold $200-300 for taxes and Social Security.

College may be an option. It postpones worrying about the costs of living for four years. You stand a good chance of making more than minimum wage in your first job after college. And the unemployment rate for 4 year college grads is only 4%.

The average college student in the U.S. graduates with a debt load of $24,000. You start your life in a financial hole. You will have to pay those loans off, and it may takes decades.

The $2,100 a month minimum costs of living will still be there. Your paycheck will be higher, but so will your tax deductions from that pay. You may be paying for health insurance out of that paycheck, and you will need better and more expensive clothes for most post-college jobs. You'll want to have some kind of social life and definitely a love life. That takes money, too.

Here are some tips, from my mistakes and those of my college friends.

Public transportation is cheaper than owning a car. If you can use the bus or the train, that $638 a month in transportation costs drops a lot. Don't make your first purchase after getting a job a new car. Go used or go by train and cut your expenses. A good friend made that mistake and she kept her new car just about a year before she could no longer pay for it.

They hawk credit cards everywhere in most colleges. The sellers offer some neat gifts for filling out an application and you can always use a stuffed animal, calculator or flying disk. When I finally got my cards paid off, I had to whittle down a balance of nearly $50,000. I used the cards like cash but they were cash I did not have. Avoid credit cards like the plague.

Try to save something from every paycheck. You can have your pay direct deposited, and it can usually be split between two or three bank accounts. Even if it is only $5.00, it is savings and you will need that nest egg someday. Stuff happens. Save for that day.

Join a credit union. It's like a bank but with some very distinct advantages. Loan rates are low. Interest earned on savings is usually higher than in a bank.

Living alone for the first time is great. And it is expensive. Give some serious thought to having a roommate. If you have a roommate, make sure that the bills are not in your name. You know that you will pay the electric but you may not always be able to count on your roommate.

Graduating from high school is among the top experiences that you will ever have. Knowing about the costs of living after high school will help you continue to find new experiences to enjoy.

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