NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Aug 23, 2019 7:32:43 GMT -5
Maybe I missed it, but does he have a job? Does he earn his own spending money? Mine earned their spending money, including buying their own gas. Since you can afford it, I don't see anything wrong with providing the car. I would keep the car in your name, though. There may come a time when you don't want him driving. I have good kids, but there were a few times when I had to "ground them" from driving the cars. I can't think of any benefit to you to putting the car in the kid's name. Our cars were in dad's name but we were listed as primary drivers. It was with the understanding that driving was not a right and if we did something stupid the car would be taken away. My brother got his taken away quite a few times. A lot easier to enforce when you own the car. My dad was also a bad YM parent and covered insurance/registration on the cars until we graduated. Once I got a full time job then I took over.
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Aug 23, 2019 10:16:59 GMT -5
JMHO, but I wouldn't "sell" him the car, I'd make it available for him to use. You can still buy an additional car, but this "older" car will become the "kid's car". He can pay for gas & basic maintenance, and maybe the insurance if he's working, but that gives you the right to pull the car keys for any bad behavior (catch him speeding, or driving recklessly, or skipping out of school early with a carful of friends).
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alabamagal
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Post by alabamagal on Aug 23, 2019 11:58:56 GMT -5
I think your plan is fine, although you might think of having him pay for gas and insurance instead. Might make him more aware of how expensive insurance is.
We gave each of our kids a $5k car when they were 16. It was a huge time benefit for us to reduce driving them to school and activities and jobs. We paid for insurance until they finished college. The plan was for the vehicle to last them through college and then I would gift them the vehicle. Worked great for first 2 kids and they both kept the vehicle for 2 years starting real world jobs. Third kid 2 vehicles totaled ( one his fault, one not) and then we gave him our old pickup truck which he drove for last 2 years college and first year working, then returned to us.
Even though I am bad YMer and gave vehicles to my kids, none of them are over-entitled 20 something’s. They are all self supporting, tax paying citizens.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Aug 23, 2019 12:28:34 GMT -5
I think what we give our kids, or don't isn't based on good/bad-yming.
More people posting to this thread clearly live rural. I live urban. I do not drive my son to HS. The school is less than a mile a way. He bikes, walks or can take the bus. I just bought him a used Canndale (almost a 1K bike brand new) for a couple hundred off craigslist. It doesn't work to drive him to school with the younger kids' scheduled school start time. I cannot be at two places at once. And it seems better to ask a teen to navigate a mile by himself rather than asking a 6/7 year old to navigate 3ish miles by herself.
You cannot convince me that it is worth it to spend 200-250/month to have my son drive two miles a day. And that's super great if that works for other families. Even if I lived in million dollar home and drove 100K in cars and could afford to retire at 50, I STILL would not spend 200-250/month so that my son can drive two miles a day. He can also walk, bike, or bus to a ton of businesses to look for work. At this point, he is only allowed to work 3 hours a day on school days, and the latest he can work is until 9 pm. A bike, or bus will still work for him. It's also not much of a bother to swing by on my way home from work...or other kid activities or whatever to pick him up.
We designed our life to live close to all the things we do because we absolutely get no value driving. Sitting in a car is a waste of time and money, literally.
I am pretty careful about how we spend our money. We don't make enough that we can prioritize wasting money. I haven't figured out a way to make time...so..
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schildi
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Post by schildi on Aug 23, 2019 13:36:44 GMT -5
Thanks for great feedback!
Talked to DW, I think we will go with the recommendation of NOT selling the car to him, and keeping it in our name(s) - I am not even sure at the moment if it's registered to me, the wife or both. Regardless, I think we'll keep the registration as is. I agree that this way, we have more leverage in case he does something not-so-smart. We will come up with a good way for him to spend (or save) his car money. We have about 3 months to figure out all the details. Another followup question: Subaru Starlink. Looks like I can get a subscription for $75 annually. It would allow me to locate the car 24/7 on the computer, or on the phone using an app. That seems really handy with a teenage driver. It has a few additional safety features: - Automatic Collision Notification - SOS Emergency Assistance - Enhanced Roadside Assistance - Maintenance Notifications - Monthly Vehicle Health Report - Diagnostic Alerts - Stolen Vehicle Recovery - Vehicle Security Alarm Notification - Remote Lock/Unlock - Remote Horn & Lights - Remote Vehicle Locator What do you think? Worth the $75 per year? I am thinking about trying it for a year maybe. If you had the locating ability, would you tell your teenager about it? Or be sneaky?
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schildi
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Post by schildi on Aug 23, 2019 13:39:25 GMT -5
BTW, we did have Starlink for free for the first 6 months, and the locator function worked great, with a map and all. I ALWAYS knew where DW was.
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NastyWoman
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Post by NastyWoman on Aug 23, 2019 17:09:34 GMT -5
I did something similar with my son, although I just bought a new car and gave him the “old” one. However, I was a bad parent since I didn’t charge him anything for it. He’s now graduated from college six years later, and he still has the car. I prefer to give them something safe instead of “cheap”. ... and that was the other art we did: we didn't make them pay for anything beyond gas. But skin in the game or not: they both turned out to be very hard workers who are also exceedingly good at saving. I don't believe all that much in you have to work while still in school; you have to contribute to school cost, you have to... I believe children either will follow what they see their parent(s) do or not.
I base this on my childhood experiences and how my siblings and I turned out. My parents were wonderful people who deeply loved us, but they couldn't see a penny without spending it. Now having 7 kids was partly the reason for that but they also liked to live life/have fun. My siblings and I are 4/3 in the extreme saving/tomorrow is another day camp. So are the spenders spending because that is what they saw growing up? I know I am in the savings camp because of what I saw (at age 12 my mom involved me in budgeting when they went too deep in the hole) and I did not want that for me or my kids. Yet the spenders' kids grew up just fine too so
ETA: DS1 never worked while in school. DS2 worked as a systems administrator at a startup starting at age 16. The only limit we ut on DS2 was that none of his grades could be lower than a B+ or he had to give up his job. Mostly I but to some extend also (now) xH and worked around his schedule so that he would have a car available to get to and from work. From the money he earned DS2 trekked around Japan for a month after graduating form HS
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NastyWoman
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Post by NastyWoman on Aug 23, 2019 17:12:53 GMT -5
Thanks for great feedback!
Talked to DW, I think we will go with the recommendation of NOT selling the car to him, and keeping it in our name(s) - I am not even sure at the moment if it's registered to me, the wife or both. Regardless, I think we'll keep the registration as is. I agree that this way, we have more leverage in case he does something not-so-smart. We will come up with a good way for him to spend (or save) his car money. We have about 3 months to figure out all the details. Another followup question: Subaru Starlink. Looks like I can get a subscription for $75 annually. It would allow me to locate the car 24/7 on the computer, or on the phone using an app. That seems really handy with a teenage driver. It has a few additional safety features: - Automatic Collision Notification - SOS Emergency Assistance - Enhanced Roadside Assistance - Maintenance Notifications - Monthly Vehicle Health Report - Diagnostic Alerts - Stolen Vehicle Recovery - Vehicle Security Alarm Notification - Remote Lock/Unlock - Remote Horn & Lights - Remote Vehicle Locator What do you think? Worth the $75 per year? I am thinking about trying it for a year maybe. If you had the locating ability, would you tell your teenager about it? Or be sneaky? Are you sure he wouldn't tell YOU about it?
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alabamagal
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Post by alabamagal on Aug 23, 2019 17:27:00 GMT -5
I have mixed feelings about the tracking. We didn’t have that option when kids were early drivers.
I think I would do it, primarily for collision notification. I would tell the kid we had the capability, but would not constantly track them unless they were late or we had reasons not to trust them.
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schildi
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Post by schildi on Aug 23, 2019 17:28:57 GMT -5
Thanks for great feedback!
Talked to DW, I think we will go with the recommendation of NOT selling the car to him, and keeping it in our name(s) - I am not even sure at the moment if it's registered to me, the wife or both. Regardless, I think we'll keep the registration as is. I agree that this way, we have more leverage in case he does something not-so-smart. We will come up with a good way for him to spend (or save) his car money. We have about 3 months to figure out all the details. Another followup question: Subaru Starlink. Looks like I can get a subscription for $75 annually. It would allow me to locate the car 24/7 on the computer, or on the phone using an app. That seems really handy with a teenage driver. It has a few additional safety features: - Automatic Collision Notification - SOS Emergency Assistance - Enhanced Roadside Assistance - Maintenance Notifications - Monthly Vehicle Health Report - Diagnostic Alerts - Stolen Vehicle Recovery - Vehicle Security Alarm Notification - Remote Lock/Unlock - Remote Horn & Lights - Remote Vehicle Locator What do you think? Worth the $75 per year? I am thinking about trying it for a year maybe. If you had the locating ability, would you tell your teenager about it? Or be sneaky? Are you sure he wouldn't tell YOU about it? Yeah, there's a good chance he'd figure it out!
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schildi
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Post by schildi on Aug 23, 2019 17:30:53 GMT -5
I have mixed feelings about the tracking. We didn’t have that option when kids were early drivers. I think I would do it, primarily for collision notification. I would tell the kid we had the capability, but would not constantly track them unless they were late or we had reasons not to trust them. I agree. I don't think I would constantly track him. But it does add to the safety. Say he's late. Traffic, or whatever. Instead of calling him and giving him the distraction of a ringing phone while driving, we could see that he is on the way home using that Starlink.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Aug 24, 2019 9:43:41 GMT -5
Why not teach your kid to contact you if he's going to be late? And, yes, I'm pretty upfront with my kids that I decide how much privacy they get based on their behaviors...That starts when they are tweens and get a cell phone.
Do you all have AAA? I know they offer the same things, but at least with AAA you get other travel perks/discounts on tickets and what not.
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