APPLICATION #4: Kaitlyn Bridge

Kaitlyn Bridge is a 21-year-old from Red Deer.

Here is Kaitlyn's video application:

Here is Kaitlyn's current situation:

I have recently left my job to pursue creative endeavours of writing comedy and video blogging fulltime. I am currently trying to get funding to go to school to become a medical aesthetician, but until then I will be exploring the lifestyle of a starving artist. When I heard about this contest I thought I would be perfectly suited for the job.

Here is Kaitlyn's blog post:

It was almost five years ago when I first moved out on my own from a small town to the big city. I was 17 and I thought I was the smartest person in the world and that I had it all figured out. In reality I was just a naive kid with a stupid hair cut. I remember the sparkle in my eye and how I thought my life would be perfect, No more parents, no more rules. Money? Not a problem, I’ll get a job and everything is going to be an awesome party. These unrealistic ideals were soon shattered when I found out the only jobs I was qualified for paid minimum wage and ended in me saying “would you like fries with that?”

And that was soon followed by more questions, like….

Rent is how much? School is how much? A jar of cheese wiz is 10 bucks?

A problem for young adults and students have is often when we first move out on our own we don’t budget our money properly.  We are culturally bombarded through advertising to live up to material expectations placed on us . No matter how tech savvy our generation is, most of us are financially illiterate. We are often too distracted with academic or the social concerns to  realize how easy it is to spend 500$ on things that really aren’t essential necessities, even if those shoes were super cool and purple, do you really ‘need’ them? Before long we are buried in credit card debt and we have to survive on mac’n’cheese and grandmas home made meatloaf for the rest of the year.

So I budgeted my money and worked my butt off and went to college. That’s what I was supposed to do right? That’s what everyone told me to do. Except I was walking around with a giant question mark above my head.  I didn’t know what career path to choose. I ended up enrolling in general studies for a year. It cost me 4000$ to learn that I don’t care at all about greek dead guys. Education is an absolutely fabulous way of growing and sustaining a financial future. The problem is most of us straight out of high school don’t know what we want to do with our lives yet and college is a good way to land you into a heap load of debt if you are not ready yet to make that choice.

Three more years have passed and a lightning bolt finally struck me, I thought I was doomed to work in minimum wage employment my whole life because I wanted to live practically instead of taking another leap into possible debt and failure,  but in reality I was putting my dreams on the back burner to a steady pay check at a job I didn’t enjoy. Alberta can offer a lot of great financial services for students, I am currently  applying for any grant I’m eligible for. I’ve done my research, prepared myself and I’m ready to go back to school as a mature student to secure a financial future doing something I actually enjoy. Because without taking risks we can never achieve success.

Kaitlyn