“I take my hat off to Eddie Woo, who did a fantastic job and is just wonderful,” says the new Teen Boss presenter Emma Watkins.
“But in this series we changed the age group of teenagers. So instead of being younger, the teenagers are between 15 and 17, which means the risks are much higher than in the previous grade.”
Emma Watkins, better known as her Move and ‘Emma Memma’ performing career succeeded Professor Eddie Woo in ABC’s Home Finance Challenge.
Now known as Teen Boss: Next Level For its third season, the series tasks its young participants with budgeting for their families for a month.
By saving funds for dream goals like a trip abroad, 18th birthday parties, or even their first car, teens will be able to keep all the money they saved in their budget until the end of the series. Bonus.
“Essentially, they have to choose something they want to save for and usually, within the savings, put more money towards buying a car or a trip abroad. Some teens saved up to buy specific items, like a drawing board, a pair of running shoes, or a necklace. It was all very individual and reflected their goals at the time,” she continues.
“The budget is based on a discussion between me and the parents. The family budget is first drawn up by the parents. Probably my favorite part of the entire series is when we go home for the first time and the teenager has to guess what the budget is for the month. They are all terrible! Not even close to that! It was very rare for them to make it to around $1,000!
“Then you see parents realize how much the teenager doesn’t know about the budget.”
Fixed costs such as family mortgage, fees, school fees are exempt from the challenge. But teens should budget for weekly variables.
“This has mainly affected food, groceries, leisure opportunities, entertainment and eating out. They could affect water and electricity, which were their responsibility, as well as public transport and taxis”, explains Watkins.
“Mostly, a lot of the savings were things they could implement quickly, like groceries. And most teenagers thought it would be easy to reduce their grocery bill. They didn’t think they would need so much food. But of course they were the hungriest of the whole family! This changed very quickly and this is what happened to almost every family. ”
McAvoy Media’s filming took place across 10 families, of varying composition, in Adelaide, with Watkins meeting teenagers at the start and end of each episode, as well as offering advice via zoom calls.
“Of course, it is a lot of fun for them to receive the money up front at the beginning, especially in real money, not just electronic money. I think for them it gave them the perception that either this was a lot of money and it was exciting, or it was a big responsibility. Essentially, it’s both.”
In the first episode, football player Jack takes an unconventional approach to meals while managing his family’s budget. With the aim of funding a ticket for an international gap year, mother Claire and sister Aime will be able to bear the brunt of their cost-cutting measures.
In fact, it was often the younger siblings who provided unexpected conflicts in the episodes.
“This happened because some of their privileges were put at risk, such as allowances. Allowances were one of the big things that excited the little ones. So when the younger siblings found out, they realized the experiment was happening,” she notes.
“It was amazing because once they realized it affected them, they were more willing to try to influence their older siblings and influence the rest of the decisions that were made.
“But honestly, I was quite impressed. I thought some of them would never get there, but in fact they hid. Sometimes it’s a bit like the last minute math test and they were frantic the last week because they realized they were really in trouble. But then it gave them other opportunities – which we didn’t do in the last two series – for those teenagers to get a casual job and make money to invest.
“It really made me aware of my own situation, and particularly with the cost of living crisis right now, I think this show is more relatable than ever.”
Teen Boss: Next Level All episodes from 7am on Friday 11th October on iview. Weekly on Saturday, October 12th at 7:30pm on ABC Family.
#Teenagers #run #Mom #Dads #bank #tonight