14.09.2026
Share Your World 14th September 2026
Here are this week’s questions & my answers
Share Your World – 14 September 2026 💜
This week’s Share Your World is about pocket money, first wages, cash and discounts.
And somehow my answers have taken us from a hardware store in Norway to a furious market seller in the Canary Islands.
With Garfield somewhere in between.
1. As a child, how did you make extra pocket money?
I started working when I was 14.
My first job was a summer job at my auntie’s hardware store.
And that summer job taught me something rather unexpected about myself.
A hardware store might not seem like the obvious place to discover that…
Until you remember:
PAINT.
Lots and lots of paint.
I mainly have trouble distinguishing certain shades and tones. Black and dark blue, for example, can sometimes look the same to me.
So teenage me working around paint wasn’t necessarily the greatest combination.
“Can you get me the black one?”
Me, staring suspiciously at two tins:
“Well… one of you must be black.”
Thankfully, as far as I remember, nobody asked for a black wall and went home with a blue one.
After that summer, I started working weekends in a grocery store that autumn.
Food was considerably safer.
A tin of beans remained a tin of beans regardless of what colour I thought the label was. 😂
2. What did you spend your pocket money on?
A little bit of everything.
I definitely bought clothes.
Growing up, quite a lot of my clothes were inherited from my older cousins. There was nothing wrong with them, but they weren’t necessarily things I had chosen.
Once I earned my own money, I could finally walk into a shop, find something I liked and buy it.
My style.
My choice.
My money. 💜
But I certainly didn’t spend everything on clothes.
There were books.
There were notebooks and pens.
Apparently that particular obsession started early and never really went away.
And then…
There was Garfield. 🧡🐈
I loved Garfield, so anything featuring that big orange, lasagne-loving, Monday-hating cat had a rather unfair advantage when it came to separating teenage me from my wages.
So my teenage financial priorities were probably:
Clothes I chose myself, books to disappear into, notebooks to fill, pens to write with… and Garfield things I absolutely did not need but obviously had to have. 😂
Looking back, perhaps I haven’t changed that much.
3. Was your first pay packet in cash, cheque, or directly into your bank?
My first wages went directly into my bank account.
So I missed the old-fashioned experience of receiving that first little envelope of cash.
Considering the aforementioned combination of clothes, books, stationery and Garfield, putting the money safely into a bank account was probably a very sensible decision. 🤭🤣
4. Have you ever received a discount for paying for something in cash?
Many times.
It used to be quite common to ask whether you could get a slightly better price when paying cash.
Sadly, cash seems to be disappearing more and more from everyday life now. Most things are paid for by card.
Cards are convenient, but spending physical money somehow feels different.
With cash, you actually watch it disappear from your hand.
With a card:
Beep.
And apparently you’re €100 poorer.
But talking about discounts reminded me of something that happened during our first year in the Canary Islands.
Everyone had told us:
“When you go to the markets, you have to bargain!”
One day, around late September or the beginning of October, I was walking around a market when I spotted some beautiful Christmas tablecloths.
I stopped to look.
And I really was only looking.
Christmas was still months away, and I thought it was far too early to start buying Christmas things.
The seller came over.
He talked.
And talked.
And talked.
Eventually he disappeared into his tent and returned with a calculator.
Tap, tap, tap.
He showed me a number.
Price number one.
I shook my head and politely explained that I was just looking.
I started to walk away.
More calculator tapping.
Price number two. 🤣
Again, I politely declined.
More tapping.
Price number three!
And I have to admit…
By then it was really cheap.
But cheap or not, I genuinely didn’t want to buy a Christmas tablecloth in September.
So I thanked him and declined again.
Apparently that was one no thank you too many.
He threw the calculator into his tent and launched into a stream of angry words.
My Spanish wasn’t particularly good at the time, but there were two words I certainly recognised:
“Guiri!”
and
“Capitalista!”
🤣🤣
And I walked away completely bewildered, thinking:
“But… I wasn’t even bargaining! I really was just looking!”
Apparently I’d accidentally discovered the ultimate market negotiation technique:
Don’t actually want what they’re selling. 😂
The poor man must have thought I was the most ruthless negotiator he’d encountered.
Meanwhile, I was simply thinking:
It’s September. I don’t need a Christmas tablecloth.
Gratitude 💜
This week I’m grateful for the independence I learned when I was young — and for the memories that still make me laugh all these years later.
Starting work at fourteen taught me that earning my own money meant having choices.
Being able to buy clothes that hadn’t first belonged to an older cousin was a small thing, but it gave me a feeling of independence.
I could choose what I liked.
I could buy a book simply because I wanted to read it.
I could choose a notebook because I wanted to fill its empty pages.
And, apparently, I could spend some of my hard-earned wages on Garfield.
Those first jobs taught me responsibility and independence.
They also taught me that putting me in charge of identifying dark paint colours might not be the wisest business decision.
Then, years later, moving to the Canary Islands taught me that I apparently possess extraordinary bargaining skills…
as long as I have absolutely no intention of buying anything.
Sometimes the little lessons we learn about money aren’t really about money at all.
They’re about independence, choices, growing up, discovering ourselves — and collecting stories along the way that can still make us laugh decades later. 💜
#ShareYourWorld #SYW #Gratitude #FirstJob #PocketMoney #TeenageMemories #Garfield #Books #Writing #MarketStories #CanaryIslands #GrowingUp
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
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