At the beginning of this term, I decided to look for a part-time job because my monthly expenses had grown faster than I expected. Train tickets, lunches on busy days, and course materials were taking a big part of my budget, and I did not want to keep asking my parents for extra money. I spent one evening reading job adverts online and saved three options that looked realistic: a café near college, a small bookshop in the city centre, and an evening position at a supermarket.

At first, the café seemed like the best choice. It was only ten minutes from campus, and the manager sounded friendly when I called. However, when I asked about the shifts, I discovered that they mainly needed someone on weekday mornings. That was a problem because two of my most important classes start before ten. The supermarket offered the highest hourly pay, which immediately caught my attention, but the evening shifts often finished after 10:30 p.m. The last bus to my area is sometimes late and sometimes does not come at all, so the journey home did not feel reliable enough.

The bookshop looked less exciting on paper because the pay was lower than the supermarket’s, but after visiting the shop, I started to see its advantages. The assistant manager explained that the weekend shifts were fixed, the team was small, and staff could swap hours when necessary if they gave enough notice. I also liked the atmosphere: it was calm, organised, and close to a bus route I use every day. That night, I wrote down the pros and cons of all three jobs and compared pay, travel time, stress, and flexibility.

In the end, I chose the bookshop. It was not the highest-paid option, but it offered the best balance between work and study. After my first month there, I felt sure I had made the right decision. I was earning enough to cover my weekly costs, I still had energy for my classes, and I had learned that the “best” job is not always the one with the biggest number on the advert.