DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: Even though my son has a good job, it doesn’t pay enough to support the kind of car he just went out and purchased. It’s the kind of car I wouldn’t consider buying even now, when I make more than I ever have before. I don’t even know how his credit rating qualified him for the size of the loan he must have had to take. The monthly payments and insurance must be out of this world!
The other thing I wonder is if he took into account that his fancy imported car is going to cost a fortune every time it has to go in for servicing, which is something I warned him about. My brother found out the hard way when he bought a foreign car a few years back and ended up selling it within two years because the upkeep was putting him in debt.
Why would a smart kid, as I consider my son to be, do something so dumb? He is usually savvy about his finances and this just baffles me, to be honest. --- HE COULD HAVE SPENT LESS
DEAR HE COULD HAVE SPENT LESS: I think it’s natural to want to reward ourselves in a special way from time to time. Perhaps that’s what’s behind your son’s apparently out of character, extravagant purchase.
Even so, he may not have abandoned his usual good sense and did indeed take his ability to meet all the real and potential costs involved with his new car under consideration before he committed to buying it. If he did get in over his head, hopefully he’ll follow your brother’s example and get out from under a financial yoke he isn’t able to tolerate — and take more care to look before he leaps in the future.