When I was sixteen, I saved up for about ten months to buy a second-hand digital camera. I was living with my family in Da Nang, in central Vietnam, and I'd become obsessed with photography after a school trip to Hoi An, where I'd borrowed a friend's camera.
My parents could have bought it for me, but my father said that if I wanted something that expensive, I should earn it, which I thought was unfair at the time. So I worked out that I needed about six million dong and made a plan.
I saved in three ways. First, I stopped buying snacks and iced coffee after school, which saved a surprising amount every week. Second, I helped my aunt at her small clothes shop at weekends, folding clothes and serving customers, and she paid me a little for each day. And third, I sold my old bicycle and some comic books that I'd collected since childhood, which was quite painful. I kept the money in a tin box under my bed and counted it far too often.
When I finally bought the camera from a photography shop in the city centre, I felt incredibly proud, more than I'd expected. Because I'd worked for it, I treated it with enormous care. I learned how every button worked and took it everywhere. I'm now twenty-five and work as a wedding photographer, and that camera is on a shelf in my studio. I think my father was right; earning it taught me to value it, and to plan towards a goal step by step.