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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: April 8th, 2025

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  • WOW! Buying your son a house and a car is extremely generous. Financing his education is beyond kind. I personally would be concerned about your son’s ability to manage money once he is on his own. I don’t think you’re doing him a lot of favors in that department. I think sitting him down and discussing how to budget, what a mortgage is, personal loans, and how credit cards work would go a very long way. Also discussing why you budget and don’t live at the edge of your means is important too - too many people who make good money do this and end up in debt forever. My experience when I was 18 was learning to manage money with my parents help came with a lot of life-long lessons. I got a credit card and they didn’t just pay it for whatever I put on it. I remember getting in a lot of trouble once for putting restaurant dinners and expensive clothing store purchases on it. After my parents got the bill for the month, we had a long conversation of needs versus wants. I never ran that card up like that again because I was informed that I would be paying it off with my minimum wage job. From then on it was groceries and maybe dinner out once a week. I also had a summer job and lived in an apartment with a roommate. Boy does that give you some perspective on money and struggled of others when parents are not just paying for it all. Adult children should never assume mom and dad are paying if they mess up. Life can change in the blink of an eye, and I personally feel it is important to be as self-sufficient as possible and prepared for the worst financially.