The following post is written by my sister, who just helped her teenage son get his first car.  Since her son is two-and-a-half years older than my oldest daughter, I’m always attentive to how her family’s doing things, since I know I’ll be right behind her!

This image is from FutureLink.com, and is not my nephew's car!

This week my husband and I did something that could either be considered very wonderful or very stupid – depending on who you ask. What did we do? We bought our soon-to-be 16 year old son a car.

My husband and I both grew up in lower income families – me in the city, him in the country. Neither of us had help buying our first, or any other, cars. Not because our parents didn’t want to, but because they couldn’t afford it. My own family does not have much money either, but we only have one child. That really does make a difference.

Back to the car. The boy has been told for a long time that we will contribute as much as we can to his car fund, but the more he can contribute the better the car will be and the sooner he is able to get it. This plan requires the boy to have a job. No job, no car. For 2 years the boy has had no car.

Finally, this summer, the boy got a decent job. He saved up $200 (because I forced him to put it in the bank) and had it sitting there for about a week. Since he was building up his savings and working steady, we began the car hunt again.

My husband and I went to a new dealership in town and saw a potential car for our son. We did all the things that grown ups do when they look at a car and then discussed it all the way back home. We decided that this was a good car for the boy, now we had to discuss it with him.

We told the boy about the car, the good and bad (body damage mostly) and let him decide if he was interested in it. He said that he was and we moved to the next phase of the discussion – financing.

We knew that the boy had some money saved and that we would only have to come up with a few hundred dollars instead of the whole thing at once. We explained to our dear son that the remaining amount of the balance of the car – after he put his $200 down on it – was a loan from us. Welcome to the Bank of Mom and Dad.

All three of us sat down at the kitchen table, discussed what we expected of him in regards to the car and also in regards to the loan. We explained to him what his payment terms were, when it had to be paid by, and what would happen if he missed a payment. Then all three of us signed the agreement and it is posted on the refrigerator.

So far, he has been very responsible with his car. We are very proud of him. Some of the responsibilities of car ownership has been a surprise for him, however. For example, he expected to make a good size payment on his next check. A wonderful thought, get the car paid off as soon as possible. My husband told him that that would be nice, but you better save that money for tags and insurance! His jaw dropped, his eyes got wide and all he said was, “Damn!”