In college, I did not have much money. What college student does? But usually we have our summer jobs that hold us over. The summer after my sophomore year, however, this did not happen. I had been accepted into a six-week summer program in another state, and who wants to hire someone for only a month? Thankfully, the program was all expenses paid for - yet I wasn’t making a buck either.

I found myself being invited to movies, out to dinner, and to get ice cream almost every day. What savings I had quickly dwindled. I babysat while growing up, but now all my clients’ kids had grown up and/or were now my competitors for the new runts on the block. I could offer to mow the neighbors’ lawns, yet I had never even mowed my own lawn.