Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb dish about their first jobs as teens

Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb have opened up about their first jobs as teens, revealing they both started working when they were 14. 

The Today co-anchors reflected on the right of passage and what drove them to make their own money in high school while chatting with Jenna Bush Hager about teenage jobs on Tuesday’s show. 

‘I started a job when I was 14. It was illegal, probably, but I got a dollar an hour. That’s how they got away with it,’ Guthrie, 51, recalled. ‘I bussed tables.’

The journalist, who grew up in Arizona, went on to get a job at a cookie store the following year when she was 15. 

They reflected on the right of passage and what drove them to make their own money in high school while chatting with Jenna Bush Hager

‘I gained 25 pounds,’ she joked. ‘It was like scoop the cookie dough, eat the cookie dough.’

After the cookie store, she worked at a skateboard shop, which was a highly-coveted job for local teens at the time. 

‘Did you work at the skateboard shop because there was a cute boy there?’ Bush Hager asked, but Guthrie insisted she wasn’t trying to impress anyone. 

‘No, that was like a cool job. I wanted that job really bad. That was like a cool place,’ she said. ‘Then I worked as a bookkeeper, secretary-type position at a construction company, but I worked summer and all year long.’ 

Guthrie explained that she worked throughout high school because her parents made it clear that if she wanted money, she would have to earn it herself. 

‘I started a job when I was 14. It was illegal, probably, but I got a $1 an hour. That’s how they got away with it,’ Guthrie recalled. ‘I bussed tables.’

The journalist (pictured as a teen) went on to work at a cookie store and a ‘cool’ skateboard shop before doing secretarial work for a construction company 

Guthrie explained that her parents explicitly told her that if she wanted money to spend, she needed to get a job 

‘My parents were like, “Don’t come looking for money and don’t be asking for an allowance to do things you’re supposed to do like make your bed. If you want money to spend, get a job,”‘ she said.

Bush Hager, 41, pointed out that Kotb, 58, used to work at Scoops, but that wasn’t actually her first job. Like Guthrie, she joined the workforce early on in her teen years in Virginia. 

‘I delivered the Washington Post as my first job at 14,’ she shared. ‘I think it teaches you, first of all, discipline. You got to get up at the crack of dawn, and then after a whole month of delivering the paper, when you showed up to get the pay. They would hand you a buck, and you were like, “A dollar for 30 days?”‘

Kotb went on to work at Ponderosa, a chain of buffet steakhouse restaurants. She said that job taught her how to ‘deal’ with difficult people. 

‘When people were unkind or they were dissatisfied, you just had to make it work,’ she explained. ‘You’re around grownups, so you learn all that stuff.’

Kotb shared that her first job was delivering the Washington Post. She was 14 and made a dollar a month 

Kotb (pictured in high school) later worked at Ponderosa, a chain of buffet steakhouse restaurants. She said that job taught her how to ‘deal’ with difficult people

Bush Hager noted that she worked throughout high school too, but she doesn’t remember her parents pushing her to get a job. 

‘How can we give our kids the nudge without overwhelming them?’ she wondered. 

‘Do they need the nudge? You didn’t need the nudge,’ Kotb told each of her co-hosts. 

‘No, I needed the money,’ Guthrie joked. 

The mom, who has an eight-year-old daughter, Vale, and a six-year-old son, Charlie, noted that she wants her kids to have jobs when they are in high school.   

Bush Hager, who also worked as a teen, shared how she admires her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, for inspiring her to get a volunteer position at Austin Children’s Shelter 

‘She knew I loved kids. So she just said, “I just visited this. I think you’ll love it.” And I volunteered there every Sunday,’ Bush Hager (pictured as a teen) recalled

‘I would put that at the top of the list of the ways that they could spend their time than some like chess club or sport or whatever,’ she said. ‘I would be like, “Get a job.” To me, there’s nothing more valuable in terms of everything. It just sets you up for life.’

Bush Hager also shared how she admires her mother, former First Lady Laura Bush, for inspiring her to get a volunteer position at Austin Children’s Shelter as a teen. 

‘She knew I loved kids. So she just said, “I just visited this. I think you’ll love it.” And I volunteered there every Sunday,’ she recalled. ‘But she didn’t say, “Go do it.” She just said, “I want to show you something I think you’ll love.”‘

Kotb, who has daughters Haley, six, and Hope, four, agreed that she thinks it’s good for teens to keep busy with after-school jobs and activities because it teaches them to manage their time. 

‘Kids who are not overscheduled but scheduled get more done, she said. ‘Like if you know, I have to work here, I do my homework here, I have sports here, I think you do better.’