Amy Hutchison

I had an intern just complete her term yesterday. She reminded me of me when I was her age. Which, when I said that to her, seemed to insult her. Which in turn insulted me.

But the reason she reminds me of me at her age is because she's upset about the same things I was. You go to school for four years, you work hard for good grades and a great resume, and then you get out just so someone can tell you they either won't hire you until you have experience, or that they will hire you to do menial grunt work like washing cars or waiting tables. Seriously, it took a college degree to do this??

And then I reminded myself of the girl who was over me that year I was first out of college. Her name is Mary. Mary was very well-known in the industry for her age. She had worked three jobs before and was now mid-management. But Mary and I butted heads like nobody's business. She would get frustrated with me for the fact that I would always complain about how I was still waitressing with a college degree. When Mary left the Club, we found in her desk files on all of us employees. These were files that we had never seen, were never reviewed with us, but were just turned into her boss as reports. Mine said something about the fact that I complained about having to wait tables as a college graduate.

The thing is, back then all I wanted was for someone to teach me something more higher level. I knew balance sheets and financial reports, but nobody would trust me with them.

I think if I have an intern again, I will try and do a better job at figuring out what their niche really is and growing them in it. But if there are any 22-year-old fresh graduates out there, I want to give you some advice. You have to pay your dues all over again. I know it's hard to take. But trust me on this, as someone who knows. If you pay your dues correctly and with accuracy, eventually your supervisor will trust you with more, and will give you more. But if you don't, they will make you re-pay your dues until you get it right.

Now, I didn't get on this to talk about that, I actually wanted to talk about something different. A few days ago, I went in to check my account. I had been going out to dinner a lot all week, so I wanted to make sure what I thought was in my account, actually was. Guess what? It wasn't.

You would be surprised how quickly $10 here and $10 there can add up. I rechecked the numbers, and as crazy as it sounds, apparently the bank got the math right. So, I was down to $10 to last from Sunday to Wednesday (it's Tuesday as I type this).

But wait. That sounds like a challenge to me!!!! $10 to live off of for 3 days??? Suh-weeet!

So Sunday, I had Moo Moo Mr. Cow at Moe's. Sunday night I ate at church. Monday I ate at the golf tournament. And today, I had a Subway $5 footlong (half for lunch, half for dinner).

But this makes me think. First off, I never want to be in this situation again. I want to have tons leftover at the end of the month to put in savings. But secondly, when I was first out of college, I made quite a bit less and often had to live on a ridiculously tight budget. I'm talking ramen and tuna, my friends. So why can't I seem to do that now?

Well, the truth is, I can. And I will. So here's the challenge. I am going to start taking out cash for the week. And I'm going to drastically cut what I'm spending, so that I can put more money into savings every month. I'm going to quit acting like a selfish brat and actually do with my money what I should be doing!!! OK, enough preaching to the choir...