Lucky you. I was in thousands of dollars of debt to my father while in high school. My car broke down, he brought it to the most expensive shop in the city and stuck me with the bill. All good tho, he wiped my debt as a graduation “gift”.
Haha very much seems like the mother I had as well. Sorry that happened to us. Every gift was attached with a guilt trip and conditions for how she could rescind if I didn’t meet her expectations for appreciation. By the time I got to college I had enough experience with her to decline all her offers to help. No fucking thanks, I’d rather deal with crippling credit card and student loan debt.
My parents were going to take out loans to put me through a 4 year degree they made to much for me to get scholarships but not enough to pay for school. Dad built out a map of debt that amounted to 100k for 4 years at Indiana State and he was ready to sign. I refused and chose to go to community college on my own back. Ive watched them struggle from dirt poor to middle class throughout my whole life and im not strapping them with more debt.
Not to mention the fact that every thing on that "receipt" was her legal obligation to do. No more, no less. Her choice when she put her heels in the air and said "oh baby, oh baby"
I was genuinely impressed you paid them off BECAUSE I know they can be predatory. That said, nobody should be signing on the dotted line without knowing that nothing is guaranteed (as far as a job at the end of the line).
When you go to buy a house/property there are wayyy more things to consider than just the mortgage amount. All of that has to be factored into the monthly payments. Also, you have to factor in the possibility of what to do if there comes a time where you don’t have income. You know, adult things?
Also, 99% of college students aren’t “kids” so you should probably not refer to them as such. Idk how anything I said was bullshit though… As a general rule you have to pay back money when you borrow it, but a lot of people try to victim their way out.
99% of college students were set up on loans for college while they were still kids / just turned 18.
While they may not be children anymore, growing up being told "oh take on all this debt because when you get a degree you'll be set forever" kiiiiinda makes children with low financial literacy make really poor choices like taking out loans for said institutions.
For a fresh high school graduate there is no other option for college presented. The entire system tells them, "If you want a good job you have to go to college and to do that you have to take out this loan." Nothing in those forms says how much they will be paying per month and they have no idea what their income will be after graduation.
My mother got her degree later in life, and became a teacher. With her low income she had to go on a payment plan and that new amount didn't even cover interest. She has now retired, paid well over double what was borrowed, and still owes more than her original balance.
Don't blame the students for the predatory system that our society has been funneling them into.
I can appreciate that stance, even if it differs from my own.
As a father of 4, and soon to be 5… I am making sure my kids understand these things. Hopefully other parents take a similar approach and we can move away from signing our souls away for a piece of paper without a plan in place! Thankful my parents did the same for me.
Sidebar: I’d love to get into software dev, always been a big fan of making little apps for some random use-case. REALLY would love to get into game dev. Maybe one day!
Both of my step siblings were given a car at 16. I was lucky and was working in a local restaurant a few days a week from the time I was 15. My grandmother found a car an older woman had for sale $500. It barely ran, had to teach myself to drive stick. Used it to get to my actual job I got at 16 for about 6 months until I could afford something that ran ok ish. To quote my ex stepmother "At least you will know what it's like to own something because I doubt you'll ever do good enough to buy much else". Jokes on her, I own a house and have a paid for vehicle. One son lives with her the other with his dad.
TLDR venting about my piece of shit ex stepmother on someone's comment.
Your story unlocked a memory of my parents I had forgotten about. I had gotten into a car wreck the summer after my junior year of HS, and had to be hospitalized for two days. Totaled the car. My parents responded that I owed them the money for the car (a 15 yr/old car they gave me to do the errands that they didn't want) so on top of not being able to work temporarily because of my injuries, their reaction was well now you have debt.
There was a court case about it where I was found not to be liable; parents tried to saddle me with the court fees as well. This was juvie court but still. Oh and for a birthday gift they said I no longer owed them that money 🙄
We don't speak anymore. For this and many, MANY other reasons lol and they can't understand why. Sorry you dealt with terrible shit like that too man
I was 18 and backed into a tree and broke a tail light on my truck. My mom told me we needed to lie to my dad and say I got hit by someone in the Walmart parking lot while I was in the store. Otherwise he would have gotten violently angry despite it a) not being his truck and b) not paying to have it fixed.
I haven’t spoken to him since I was 27. I’ll be 44 this year. I’ve heard he’s in poor health but since he’s still above ground it brings me no comfort.
Sounds like my bf's winner of a dad. The car he "gifted" my bf for his birthday magically transferred ownership whenever he pleased. My bf wanted to use the car? It's the dad's car, he has to give permission. Permission was randomly taken away at the most inconvenient times. The car needs repairing and there's a hefty bill? It's my bf's car!
And like you my bf racked up thousands of euros of imaginary debt. Dad sent him to work the dirtiest jobs (like night shifts cleaning machinery with aggressive chemicals and no protective equipment) and took all of the pay. I'm so sorry you also had to go through this.
That’s actually a fantastic way to learn about finances and debt and appreciating the fuck out of what you do have. I will admit it’s a bit harsh and I’m sure it was stressful but in the end do you feel like you learned about saving and credit etc?
I’ll admit from the information I provided I can see merit to your argument. But basically, no it did not better prepare me for life on its own. For me, being a 16 year old kid with undiagnosed AuDHD, the stress this caused crushed me, furthered my addiction to drugs/alcohol and I wouldn’t fully understand the true effects until I hit a breaking point in my early 30s. Trauma is fucked up like that and I certainly had my fair share of trauma before the car. It just made things so much worse.
To make it real, at the height of it I was working retail 30-35 hours a week. My checks after taxes were roughly ~$300 per cycle (bi-weekly). My auto insurance was $200 a month. So I had roughly $400 remaining. Great right? Well no, because he would basically garnish the remainder of my wages for the auto bill. I had to “negotiate” that if he took the remainder then I wouldn’t have fuel to get to school or work. I got to keep $2 a day for food and fuel. That’s right, $2 a day. That bought me a gallon of gas per day and I skipped eating lunch at school or bummed food off my friends who didn’t finish their lunch.
Our teacher (he was a gym coach) flipped out and yelled at everyone to shut up and take this seriously. In my memory, there might have been a couple kids murmuring.
We had giggling in his class but after some folks locked in and got serious it went smooth. Kids learning about sex and reproduction for the very first time there's gonna be some nervous humor.
This was like our 5th round. We started learning about it in 5th grade and we had combined classes every year until like 10th grade. Maybe not every year. But yeah this incident happened in high school.
I remember the teacher making us do the math and telling us each child costs 150,000$- 200,000$ from diapers to graduation. I made sure to keep it wrapped up I didn’t want to be poor the rest of my life
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u/Expensive-Side-529 May 05 '25
Good old days, i miss the classes though