For a few years in the ’80s, Tony Hawk was one of the highest-earning kids in the world.
He started skating professionally at 14, raking in $160,000 a year before he was even old enough to drive. In an appearance on the “Richer Lives by SoFi” podcast, Hawk said it felt like he had all the money in the world.
“I didn’t have very good perspective on it,” he said. “My dad was trying to guide me and sort of warn me, ‘Hey, this might not last forever.’ When you’re that age and the money comes so consistently, you don’t see the end in sight.”
Hawk wasn’t careful about his spending. He described taking his friends on trips to Hawaii and paying for everything, as well as going to Sharper Image and buying “super expensive” electronics.
“I would just go there and blow through the store, just get whatever was new,” he said. “Probably the most ridiculous purchase was a tanning bed. I thought, somehow that would be cool to have. I live in southern California, why am I buying a tanning bed?”
But not all his purchases were a waste of money. During his senior year of high school Hawk “was making good money,” and his dad sat him down to give him a piece of financial advice: Invest in real estate.
“And what I heard was, ‘You can have your own place,'” Hawk said, adding that he was excited about the prospect of inviting a few friends to live with him in his very own party house. “I was only 17 when I bought the house, so he had to cosign for it.”
The house, he said, would go on to be the best purchase he ever made. A few years later, he’d buy his “dream home,” complete with a big skate ramp. But when his income began to dwindle, he quickly found himself falling behind on his payments.
Indeed, things got so bad that at one point Hawk put himself on a $5-a-day food budget, subsisting on Taco Bell, ramen and peanut butter.
With a child on the way and a new skateboard company in the works, Hawk decided sell the dream home and go back to the property his dad had recommended he buy back when he was 17.
“That first property I bought, that was my saving grace,” he said. “I ended up moving back into that house with my new family, because my son was born at that time.”
Though he would once again have a financial windfall starting in 1999 thanks to the success of the “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” video games, Hawk learned a valuable money lesson from the experience.
“It was a wake-up call,” he said. “You should always be living so that you know you have savings.”
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