As long as you are under 18 then any/all money you earn thru an employer or make as a business or get money donated to you is theirs and not yours. You're right that the point in earning money is to use it, but initially for the things you "need". Your parents are attempting to do two things: 1) teach you the difference between a want and a need. (and that if you let a "want" go long enough you'll forget about it and be better off), and 2) how to save your money for your own education so you won't owe that bill till you're 100 years old. If you have a need then pose it to your parents. Otherwise understand it's a hard lesson but you're learning it now for the rest of your life. Know too that after 18 if you're still living in their house and begin to earn then immediately you will owe them rent, so know the best thing to do after 18 is to go right into community college while you're working, or into a vocational school. Right now you should begin getting all A's (if you haven't already) and start looking at different careers, and maybe do some volunteer work in those areas when you hit 18. In the meantime do book learning.
Saving money is an important lesson, but what is the point of saving all your money if you can't enjoy the benefits of it? Learning how to spend responsibly is just as important as learning how to save. Perhaps you could use the Ten Times Test as a rule of thumb. I first learned about this rule in the book Pirates of Financial Freedom, and it basically says if you buy something you want (rather than need), you should have at least 10 times that amount in savings. If you don't, that means you are spending over 10% of your life savings on something you don't need. In your case, as long as you spend less than $30 on something, that seems like a responsible purchase. Then build your savings back up to a new high (such as $600) before spending again.
Technically, if you are under 18, even if you WORKED for it it is still legally THEIR property...
That said, you should try to figure out WHY they insist you save it rather than spend it....they are TRYING (though obviously not very effectively!) to teach you a valuable lesson about the benefits of saving....You have $300....if you DON'T spend any of it, and you keep on doing what you've been doing, pretty soon it will be $600.....then $1,200...and so on...
Trust me, in about 10 years you'll be glad they made you save your money.
Do what you want with it like my aunt says you like buy it or if they still don't stand up to them say it's my money I saved it and if I want to spend it I will if you don't like tell someone who cares that doesn't work spend it behind their backs they're not going to ask to look into your account
useless spending is bad, but saving on where necessary to spend money is also bad.
They dont want a pair of shoes in theyre house?
with all repsect your parents are not smart, at least they should teach how to invest, and how you can be master for the money and not slave to it, and how to make those 300 to 30.000
It is still their house. They probably just do not want it in their house.
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