Back to School Money Talk: A Teen's Take on Budgeting, Saving & AI with Jack Adkins

This month's theme is back to school, so we flipped the script and put a high schooler in the guest chair. Jack Adkins just wrapped up his summer internship at TradeWinds, and before that, he was figuring out money the same way most students do: mostly on his own.

Host Mike Manganillo sits down with Jack, an incoming senior at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh, to talk through how a teenager actually thinks about budgeting, saving, and the financial decisions ahead. Jack shares how he opened a Roth IRA at 16, why he'd call himself more of a spender than a saver (but is working on it), the one impulse golf-club purchase he regrets, and what a summer of building AI-powered financial tools with Claude taught him about the industry's future.

They also get into golf, travel plans, and Jack's goal of breaking 30 on nine holes because Beyond the Balance isn't just about the numbers.

Topics covered:

-Starting a Roth IRA in high school

-Budgeting on a teenager's paycheck

-Using AI tools for real financial projects,

-What schools do (and don't) teach about money

-Why starting early is the biggest advantage anyone can have.

TradeWinds LLC is an investment advisor registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The information presented is general in nature and is not designed to address your investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs. Prior to making any investment decision, you should assess or seek advice from a professional regarding whether any particular transaction is relevant or appropriate to your individual circumstances. Although taken from reliable sources, TradeWinds cannot guarantee the accuracy of information received from third parties. The opinions expressed are those of TradeWinds and may not come to pass.