“I take my hat off to Eddie Woo, who did such a fantastic job and he’s just so wonderful,” says new Teenage Boss host Emma Watkins.
“But this series, we’ve changed the age range of the teenagers. So instead of it being younger, the teenagers range between 15 to 17 years old, which means that the stakes are so much higher than the series before.”
Emma Watkins, best known for her Wiggles and ‘Emma Memma’ performance career has succeeded teacher Eddie Woo in ABC’s home finance challenge.
Now known as Teenage Boss: Next Level for its third season, the series tasks its young participants with budgeting for their families for one month.
Saving funds for dream targets such as an overseas trip, 18th birthday parties or even their first car, the teens will get to keep whatever cash they have saved from their budget by series end. Bonus.
“Essentially, they have to choose something that they want to save for, and usually in the realm of saving put more money for a car or an overseas trip. Some teenagers saved for specific items like a drawing tablet or a pair of running shoes or a necklace. It was all very individual, and it was reflective of their goals at that time,” she continues.
“The budget is based on a discussion between myself and the parents. The family budget is worked out by the parents first. Probably my most favourite part of the whole series is when we go to the house for the first time, and the teenager has to guess what the budget is for the month. They’re all terrible! Nowhere near it! It was very rare that they would even get within about $1,000!
“Then you see the parents realise how much the teen doesn’t know about the budget.”
Fixed costs such as the family mortgage, rates, school fees are exempt from the challenge. But teensmust budget for the weekly variables.
“It mostly was affecting food, groceries, leisure opportunities, entertainment, eating out. They could affect water and electricity, that was in their remit, as well as public transport and taxis,” Watkins explains.
“Mostly, a lot of the savings were things that they could enact quite quickly, like groceries. And most of the teenagers thought that it would be easy to reduce their grocery bill. They didn’t think that they would need that much food. But of course, they were the hungriest out of the whole family! That changed very quickly, and that was actually the case with almost all the families. ”
Filming by McAvoy Media took place across 10 households, of varying make-up, in Adelaide, with Watkins meeting teens at the top and tail of each episode, as well as advising via zoom calls.
“It’s of course, very fun for them to receive the cash up front at the start, particularly in real money, not just electronic. I think for them, that kind of gave them the realisation that either this was a lot of money and that was exciting, or that this was a big responsibility. Essentially it’s both.”
In episode one soccer player Jack takes an unconventional approach to meals whilst managing his family’s budget. With the goal of funding a ticket for an international gap year, mum Claire and sister Aime may bear the brunt of his cost saving measures.
Indeed it was often young sibling who provided unexpected conflict in the episodes.
“That came about because some of their privileges were put at risk, like pocket money. Allowances was one of the big things that got little ones fired up. So when the younger siblings found out, they then realised that the experiment was happening,” she obsserves.
“It was amazing because once they realised that it affected them, then they were more willing to try and influence their older siblings and influence the rest of those decisions that were made.
“But honestly, I was pretty impressed. I thought some of them would never, ever get there, but they did actually bunker down. Sometimes it’s a bit like the maths test at the last minute and they were frantic in the last week because they realised that they really were in a pinch. But then it gave them other opportunities -which we haven’t done in the last two series- for those teenagers to get a casual job and earn money to put in the pot.
“It really made me aware of my own situation, and particularly with the cost of living crisis now I think this show is more relatable than ever.”
Teenage Boss: Next Level All episodes from 7am Friday 11 October on iview. Weekly on Saturday 12 October at 7:30pm on ABC Family.
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