Here's why I have such a strong opinion on this topic:
My parents were going to buy me a new car for my first car. A Neon - any color I wanted, any trim I wanted. I refused because I felt it was too much money and I understood the depreciation of new cars. My parents were well off, so a new car wouldn't have put any kind of strain on our finances. I just couldn't make myself waste the cash. Instead, I chose a used white stratus. It had almost 50K miles and was in good shape. It didn't look cool and it wasn't sporty, and it had an automatic rather than a manual, but it was a good value (less than half the neon's cost) and I hate to see money wasted. Now if I had asked for metallic blue neon with the good engine and the manual with electric everything I could have gotten it no questions asked, but I refused.
Did that make me a good kid? Not at all. Were my parents bad parents for wanting me to get a new car fresh off the lot? No. That's silly. They wanted me to have something nice because their first cars were trash. Did they raise me to think about money the way I do? No, we have completely different ways of thinking about money. Did I do it to humble myself? No, that's nonsense. I was 15 and I wasn't trying to be humble. The fact is, his dad wanted to do something nice for him and he did. If my parents would have surprised me with a car instead of letting me pick it out, it would have been a brand new neon because that's what I had my eye on at the time. This kid probably saw a Maybach and said something about "That would be such a cool car." And his dad said to himself, "You know what..." But I bet you money if he'd have taken his kid to the lot he would have picked out something else. That kid's not a bad kid, he just has a rich dad that loves him. And there's nothing wrong with that.
My parents were going to buy me a new car for my first car. A Neon - any color I wanted, any trim I wanted. I refused because I felt it was too much money and I understood the depreciation of new cars. My parents were well off, so a new car wouldn't have put any kind of strain on our finances. I just couldn't make myself waste the cash. Instead, I chose a used white stratus. It had almost 50K miles and was in good shape. It didn't look cool and it wasn't sporty, and it had an automatic rather than a manual, but it was a good value (less than half the neon's cost) and I hate to see money wasted. Now if I had asked for metallic blue neon with the good engine and the manual with electric everything I could have gotten it no questions asked, but I refused.
Did that make me a good kid? Not at all. Were my parents bad parents for wanting me to get a new car fresh off the lot? No. That's silly. They wanted me to have something nice because their first cars were trash. Did they raise me to think about money the way I do? No, we have completely different ways of thinking about money. Did I do it to humble myself? No, that's nonsense. I was 15 and I wasn't trying to be humble. The fact is, his dad wanted to do something nice for him and he did. If my parents would have surprised me with a car instead of letting me pick it out, it would have been a brand new neon because that's what I had my eye on at the time. This kid probably saw a Maybach and said something about "That would be such a cool car." And his dad said to himself, "You know what..." But I bet you money if he'd have taken his kid to the lot he would have picked out something else. That kid's not a bad kid, he just has a rich dad that loves him. And there's nothing wrong with that.
