{"id":239,"date":"2009-06-23T16:13:05","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T00:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kidnexions.wordpress.com\/?p=239"},"modified":"2009-06-23T16:13:05","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T00:13:05","slug":"239","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.familymathnight.com\/blog\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"Life Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nathan&#8217;s been shopping for a car. \u00a0If you&#8217;re familiar with my other posts, you already know what a deliberate shopper he is. \u00a0That&#8217;s what happens when kids are in charge of their own money. \u00a0It may take some kids a little longer to get to that point, but eventually, they all learn the value of a dollar.<\/p>\n<p>So Nathan&#8217;s been shopping for his car for about six weeks. \u00a0And in these six weeks he&#8217;s learned information that will carry him through the rest of his life. \u00a0It&#8217;s been painful at times, but a lot of life&#8217;s really important lessons are painful.<\/p>\n<p>Facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>his dollars get matched dollar for dollar by his grandparents (nice!)<\/li>\n<li>he&#8217;s looking for a Toyota or Honda due to their reliability<\/li>\n<li>he wants a 2001 or newer with less than 100,000 miles, more or less<\/li>\n<li>he&#8217;s willing to spend $7400 (includes the matching)<\/li>\n<li>nice rims are a big plus (sigh)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lesson 1: \u00a0Yes, even used cars are taxed. \u00a0In California it&#8217;s called a <em>use tax<\/em>, but it&#8217;s essentially the same thing as sales tax. \u00a0He hadn&#8217;t planned on that in his calculations and it caused him a little grief knowing his two choices were to spend less on the car or pull out more than he had planned from his mutual fund. \u00a0He decided to pull out more funds.<\/p>\n<p>Lesson 2: \u00a0Seemingly nice people can turn out to be frauds. \u00a0He found a car on ebay that was the cat&#8217;s meow. \u00a0I was a little suspicious of the great price but we emailed for more information anyway. \u00a0When the seller replied, Nathan was so exited. \u00a0Apparently the seller was in the military and needed to get rid of the car. \u00a0He made it very clear that he wanted us to be protected 100% so said he would only go through the ebay protection program. \u00a0I decided to do a little research and, long story short, the whole thing was a scam. \u00a0But it took Nathan a few days to realize it and in the meantime, he wasn&#8217;t exactly thrilled with John and me.<\/p>\n<p>Lesson 3: \u00a0Always have a mechanic you trust check out the car before you buy. \u00a0We had found a car locally and were one step from handing over the cashier&#8217;s check when our favorite mechanic said he wouldn&#8217;t buy the car. \u00a0Do you know how hard it is to drive home with a 16-year old when his dream car, complete with $1200 rims and sunroof, turns out to be a lemon?<\/p>\n<p>Lesson 4: \u00a0The car fax is a good thing to get, but don&#8217;t rely on it solely\/always keep your paperwork. \u00a0One car we looked at had it&#8217;s original owner. \u00a0She had all of the work done by her uncle and told us that nothing major had happened to the car. \u00a0She had no paperwork on it. \u00a0The car fax was stellar. \u00a0When our mechanic checked it out he showed us where he believed it had been in an accident which, along with a few other things he mentioned, made us turn it down.<\/p>\n<p>Lesson 5: \u00a0Things often take longer than you think. \u00a0This has been a long six weeks for all of us. \u00a0But in the end, he&#8217;ll realize it was worth it. \u00a0It&#8217;s hard to be patient, but once he has the car those six weeks will practically disappear.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a long road&#8230;one we&#8217;re still traveling along. \u00a0But when it&#8217;s all over, Nathan will have his first dream car and I will have some peace of mind that he&#8217;s better prepared to do these sorts of things when he&#8217;s in charge of all his financial decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nathan&#8217;s been shopping for a car. \u00a0If you&#8217;re familiar with my other posts, you already know what a deliberate shopper he is. \u00a0That&#8217;s what happens when kids are in charge of their own money. \u00a0It may take some kids a little longer to get to that point, but eventually, they all learn the value of a dollar. So Nathan&#8217;s been shopping for his car for about six weeks. \u00a0And in these six weeks he&#8217;s learned information that will carry him&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.familymathnight.com\/blog\/?p=239\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,16,17],"tags":[22,23,24,26,29,31,228,33],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kids-and-spending","category-teachable-moments","category-teaching-kids-financial-literacy","tag-kidnexions","tag-kids-allowance","tag-kids-and-finacial-literacy","tag-kids-and-money","tag-kids-money-management","tag-kidssave","tag-teaching-kids-financial-literacy","tag-teaching-kids-money-management"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Life Lessons - Karyn&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.familymathnight.com\/blog\/?p=239\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Life Lessons - Karyn&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nathan&#8217;s been shopping for a car. \u00a0If you&#8217;re familiar with my other posts, you already know what a deliberate shopper he is. \u00a0That&#8217;s what happens when kids are in charge of their own money. \u00a0It may take some kids a little longer to get to that point, but eventually, they all learn the value of a dollar. 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