“I was excited about going away to college,” says Grace Hopkins. “I have basically done everything my entire life with my sister. This would be the first time for both of us to be on our own for an extended period of time.”
As excited and prepared as Grace thought she was, she acknowledges there were some rude awakenings during her freshman year.
“My parents made it a point to teach us how to do laundry, clean our rooms and manage money so I thought I was totally prepared for being on my own,” she says. “It was kind of a shock when things like time management and budgeting got the best of me. I have always been good about managing my time, but I was with friends who were also excited about the newness of college and wanted to have fun first. They encouraged me to have fun and I let some things fall behind.”
Even though Grace had been budgeting her money before she went to college, she wasn’t used to having to pay for everything herself.
“It was just so tempting when your friends wanted to go grab something to eat,” she says. “I figured out pretty quickly that, if I kept spending money like this, that I was going to be broke before we made it to mid-terms.”