Your Kid’s Career = Your Financial Sleep Schedule

Because “I’ll figure it out” is not a plan

Let’s be honest: when your teen says, “I’ll figure it out,” what you hear is, “I’ll be living in your basement until further notice.”

Deep breaths. We’ve all been there.

But here’s the truth: the time to start helping your kids think about their career isn’t after they graduate. It’s not even senior year. It’s now — before the spending habits get baked in, before lifestyle expectations go off the rails, and before they major in something they can’t pronounce.

Because their career? It’s not just about their job title. It’s about the life that job is going to fund. And if they’re not thinking through the trade-offs, you might end up footing the bill (or at least staying up at night wondering if you’ll need to).

A Career Is Just a Spending Plan in Disguise

When we talk about financial planning for young adults, we’ve got to include career planning. It’s the engine behind all those lifestyle choices they’re dreaming about — the travel, the apartment, the gym with the eucalyptus towels.

The real question we should be asking our kids isn’t just, “What do you want to be?” It’s, “What kind of life do you want to live… and how much does that cost?”

This flips the script. Suddenly, choosing a career becomes less about prestige and more about practicality.

• Want to live in New York, eat out five nights a week, and travel twice a year? Cool. Let’s look at what kind of job supports that.
• Want to work in education, live close to family, and have summers off? Amazing. Let’s plan for that too.

Help Them Google Like a Grown-Up

Here’s the best part: you don’t need to be a career coach. You just need to show them how to start.

• Search job titles and average starting salaries.
  
• Use a cost-of-living calculator to compare cities.
  
• Look up growth trends in industries they’re curious about.
  
• Ask ChatGPT (seriously!).
  

Then talk about trade-offs — calmly, like you’re not panicking about their Etsy sticker shop ambitions. The goal isn’t to push them into a “safe” career. It’s to help them align their lifestyle dreams with financial reality.

Freedom > Fortune

You want your kid to be financially independent, right? So do they — even if they don’t know what that looks like yet. The key is showing them that money isn’t about “stuff.” It’s about options.

• The freedom to say no to a toxic job.
• The freedom to live where they want.
• The freedom to build a life they actually enjoy.

And that kind of freedom? Starts with a plan.

So the next time your teen says, “I’ll figure it out,” smile, nod, and say, “Great. Let’s figure it out together — with a budget, a browser, and maybe some burritos.”

Because their spending choices tomorrow start with your parenting conversations today.