As an angry teenager, I couldn’t wait to get out of my parents’ house and be on my own. I had seen it in the movies; the young single girl living in a city on her own. It looked like so much fun.

Although my parents had taught me about money, I had never really had any of my own. I had never really had to pay for anything before. I was lucky enough to have parents who paid for everything.

At 18, when I left for college to be on my “own,” I still had the cushion of my parents’ money. My parents told me not to get a job right away. I think they wanted to make sure I could handle college without the added stress of working and financial responsibility. Even though I was away from them, I still didn’t really know how to handle money. Then I met Brooke.

I met Brooke the first day of college. We became friends and ended up living together in the dorm sophomore year. Brooke had worked since she was 16; paying for her own car and insurance. I was amazed. She knew about bills and how to manage them. I had never even seen a bill. She was very smart and money savvy.

Brooke took care of me throughout freshman and sophomore year. She was so self sufficient. She knew how to take care of herself. Because I was oblivious to the real world, she helped me along. She always knew just what to do. I didn’t think I’d ever be as smart as she was.

When we felt that living in a dorm had run its course, we decided we wanted to live off campus together.

Though my mother was against it at first, Brooke assured me it would be a savings from living in the dorm. Brooke was right. She presented me with an Excel sheet listing the cost of living in the dorm versus the cost of living in an apartment. She factored in food, gas, and rent. According to Brooke’s calculations, it was a savings. With my mother’s blessing, Brooke and I set off on our apartment hunt.

Actually Brooke did the hunting. She researched apartment complexes around town within our price range and geographical radius of campus. By the time we visited our first potential apartment, Brooke knew the possible rent amount (split between us of course), how many miles it was to campus, and the estimated time it would take to drive to campus (with or without traffic in rush hour).

Even though it was the first apartment we looked at, we loved it. As we stood in the two bedroom model apartment, I was already decorating it in my head. In the middle of deciding a color scheme, something caught me off guard. Brooke began asked the manager questions. What about trash pick up, water, utilities? What’s included? What’s not?

Trash pickup? You mean the trash man doesn’t come get your trash out of the goodness of his heart? You have to pay for that? Water? Isn’t water free? Utilities? What are utilities? My head started to spin. The manager answered her questions. Apparently it was what she wanted to hear because we signed a lease and moved in.

Over the next couple of years, I learned a lot from Brooke. I was starting to learn how to pay bills and how to take financial responsibility. By the time we finished college and went our separate ways, I had complete confidence in myself to take care of myself financially. I now find myself explaining to my little brother about trash pickup, utilities, and water expenses.

While I did learn a lot about money from my parents, I think it took seeing someone my age being so financially responsible for it to really set in. I grew up thinking my parents were the only ones who knew how to pay bills. I realized that people my age and even younger were taking care of their own expenses successfully.

I credit my parents and Brooke for getting to me to the point I am now.