Ages 16–18

Your first paycheque, line by line

The number on the job ad is not the number in your account. Your first stub explains the gap, if you can read it.

About 25 minutes Read it themselves Earns The Pay Stub Badge

The Quest

For the kid

You agreed to an hourly rate. Then the money arrived and it was less. Nothing went wrong — this is how employment works.

The lines on a pay stub

Line	What it is
Gross pay	Hours × rate. The number you agreed to, and the only one most people quote
Net pay	What shows up in your account. Gross minus everything below
Income tax	Federal and provincial, withheld by your employer and sent in on your behalf
CPP	Canada Pension Plan. Starts at 18, once earnings pass a basic exemption. Buys a future entitlement rather than being a straight tax
EI	Employment Insurance, against losing the job. Payable from the first dollar
Year-to-date	Running totals since January. These end up on your T4

Income tax is withheld as an estimate of what you would earn working all year at this rate. Work only summers and too much was probably withheld — filing a return is how you get it back.

Not on the stub, and matters anyway

Vacation pay. Either a percentage added to each cheque, or accrued and paid when you take time off. Know which one yours is.
Statutory holiday pay. Rules vary by province. Worth knowing if you work retail in December.
Deductions you agreed to. A uniform, a union due, a benefit plan. Anything unexpected is a question to ask immediately.

Your mission

Reproduce your first stub on paper from your own hours and rate: gross pay, every deduction, subtract. Your number should match theirs to the cent.

If it does not, you have either learned something or found an error. Payroll errors are more common than people assume.

The Parent Playbook

For you — read before you start

The best thing available here costs nothing and takes ten minutes: show them yours.

What to say

Your own most recent stub, side by side with theirs.

"Here is mine. Same lines, bigger numbers. This is what I earn, this is what I actually get, and this is the gap. Most people meet that gap for the first time when they are signing a lease based on the wrong number."

"When somebody tells you a salary, that is gross. Divide by twelve and take off roughly a quarter to a third before you believe anything about what you can afford."

You can cover the figures and show only the structure. Showing them is worth more.

Mistake to avoid

Do not let them mentally spend the gross figure. Sixteen-year-olds multiply twenty hours by the rate and plan around it. The plan is wrong by the size of the deductions, and they find out after they have already committed to something.

Do not let a missing or wrong stub slide. If an employer is not providing one, that is a thing to ask about. Knowing at seventeen that you are entitled to a record of your own pay carries into every job after this one.

Do It Together

The 25-minute activity

Read one T4 end to end 20 minutes · a real T4 — yours works — and their stub

Start with their stub. Have them label every line and say what it is for. Do not help until they are stuck.
Rebuild it on paper. Hours, rate, gross, each deduction, net. Match to the cent.
Open a T4 and find where the stub's year-to-date columns ended up. Box 14 is employment income; the CPP, EI and income tax boxes match the lines they just labelled.
Point out what matters in April: the T4 is what the government already knows. A return mostly confirms it and claims back anything over-withheld.
Do the affordability arithmetic. Annual gross, cut to net, divide by twelve. Compare to a real rent in your city. Say nothing afterwards.
Put the stub in a folder, physical or a phone album. Records are what make Level 2 take fifteen minutes instead of an evening.

Done? Tick the level. Next: filing a return even when you owe nothing, and why that matters.

Done with level 01?

Fills in one leaf on the Makers map and earns The Pay Stub Badge. Kept in this browser only — nothing about your child is sent anywhere.

Financial education, not advice. It describes how Canadian accounts and programs work and recommends no product, provider or investment. Dollar figures are statutory.