I’ve looked after my money. As I started working around my third birthday, my first check went straight to the bank.

In this remark, Barks frames financial prudence as a habit formed unusually early. By emphasizing work “around my third birthday” and depositing her “first check” immediately, she presents money management as disciplined, almost instinctive—suggesting a family environment or early professional experience that normalized saving and long-term thinking. The quote also functions rhetorically as a rebuttal to assumptions that performers (especially those who find success young) are careless with earnings. Its tone is lightly self-deprecating but assertive: she claims agency over her finances and implies that stability comes from routine, not windfalls.