The Story of My First Paycheck
- M. Joseph Benric
- Jun 3, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 14, 2024
Life, Money and Gratitude #6 The Story of My First Paycheck
I got paid
Payday
It's the end of the week, you've put your time in at work and now it's payday. A smile comes across your face as you think about all the things you'll be doing with the money you've earned. This is especially true when you first start working, there is a certain pride you have when you have a job and you've done it well and now you're reaping the rewards of your efforts. The weekend is coming up and you're young so you start thinking about where you'll go, who you're going to spend time with, what you're going to be doing. Good times. In an ideal world that sounds pretty good, sign me up for that. That is how it should be.
My first paycheck
My first job where I got a paycheck was working at a library part time. It was a pretty simple job, put the books away, make sure the copy machine had paper and collect any books that were left out, I like books and I like libraries so the job suited me. The pay was $10.00 an hour and I didn't have any expenses so this was my pocket money, I could spend it any way I wanted. After my first two weeks of work I was looking forward to getting my first paycheck, I had calculated in my head that I would get $200 for the twenty hours that I worked, yay me, I thought to myself. The librarian handed me an envelope said, "good job, see you next week" I said "thank you" with a smile and opened the envelope. The smile turned into a confused look, the check was for $170, I stared at it for a entire minute trying to figure out what happened. Then I came across a table labeled DEDUCTIONS, Huh? What's this? My first encounter with taxes, I was not happy. Why did they take $30 from me? That was three hours of my time. Federal withholding, something called FICA, Medicare, State withholding, and State disabilities had all been automatically taken from my check. I asked the librarian about this and he said "taxes are used to pay for schools, roads, fire departments, police, military, sewers and a bunch of other stuff that makes society work". This sort of made sense but it still seemed like they took out a lot. The lesson I learned was that when you get a paycheck the government takes it cut off the top before you have any thing to say about it. This did not sit well with me, but I was young and had a party to go to so I stuck the check in my pocket and thought about the evenings exploits and the smile came back to my face.
A couple of weeks later I thought to myself, if the government is going to take my money, how do I make that number as little as possible and reduce my taxes? But that's a story for a later newsletter.
Paycheck: What is it ?
This weeks resource comes from The Balance, an article written by Susan M. Heathfield, describing in simple terms and diagrams what a paycheck is and how it works.
If you'd like to learn more click on the link below.
Until next time, God Bless and be well.
The Story of My First Paycheck
M. Joseph Benric is the author of Graduation Gift ,A Step-By-Step Guide to Financial Literacy for Young Adults
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