New or Used? : Economic Outpatient Care Edition
Hello Steve,
I’ve enjoyed for a couple of years now the articles you’ve written for TTAC and the insight you give on used cars and the business you work in. Since you do provide your contact information, I thought I’d write to ask a question relevant to my used-car-shopping situation.
The situation – this girl (my cousin, in her early 20s) used to have a nice 2005 Civic that was given to her new by our grandparents when she finished high school. This would normally have served her until the end of time, but she sold it last year for very stupid reasons.
Now she is back in Atlanta, has no money of her own (she lives at home and is supported by her mom) and is trying to get her life back on a more solid track, but can’t do anything without a car. Her mom would rather not spend a few grand on another car, but it is a much smaller burden on her than using her own car, and they do not live in an area where there is any realistically-usable transit. So cheap used car it is.
My cousin would prefer some kind of SUV for style reasons, but while I love her and want her to get her life together, I don’t think her own preferences have much weight here – she is being supported by her mom, who is also prepared to spend ~$3,000 on a car for her despite her own bad decisions.
I think the primary need is for something as reliable as one can get for that kind of money that is not too expensive to maintain (ex.: my mom’s husband knew of a well-kept one-owner 190E in Toccoa being sold by a friend, but I would not consider an old Mercedes, even a well-kept low-mileage one, to be a low-cost-of-maintenance car.)
It strikes me that in this price range the ownership and maintenance history of a particular car is probably more important than the brand reputation of a given make and model. My own firsthand knowledge is centered around ’90s Nissans and old Fiats, as that is what I own or have owned and maintained myself.
I will appreciate any response you may have the time to give.thanks,
Steve Says:
A few things…
I really don’t know why you are putting yourself out there in the first place. Let’s face it. Her mom doesn’t need to indulge your cousin at this point in her life and neither do you.
The following words you wrote were the only ones that mattered.
“Now she is back in Atlanta, has no money of her own (she lives at home and is supported by her mom) and is trying to get her life back on a more solid track, but can’t do anything without a car.”
Bull.
She can apply for jobs and get a taxi when an interview comes along. If she’s in the Atlanta outskirts, she has plenty of time to take long walks and reflect on her present and future.
Your cousin has time to read, write, exercise, plan, learn, develop a skill or three, and figure out the way forward. She doesn’t have to worry about where her next meal will be coming from, or whether there still will be a roof over her head in the near future.
This is what we call in life, a learning opportunity. And a golden one at that. We all go through them. A hardship can often be a good thing because it teaches you a valuable lesson about who you are as a person, and who you can trust as a friend.
When you constantly give people things they don’t rightfully earn (such as money, love, respect, etc.), that thinking process stops. The indulgences become entitlements, and the entitlements become expectations. Several books have highlighted this unique process of babying as ‘economic outpatient care’ but it applies to all things emotional and financial. In the long run, you make the person more sick and dependent on handouts by shoveling unearned gifts their way.
So why would you want to help give someone a new freebie when they have recently committed, “very stupid decisions” with their old freebie? Think about it. Some people are smart enough to eventually move a swing when it’s facing a brick wall.
Do that instead. Listen to her. Be there for her. Do what you can for her. Heck, 2 years from now she may be the one on top of the world and you may be experiencing your own struggles.
But mark my words. She won’t be successful if her mom simply gives her a car. Let her earn it.
More by Steven Lang
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For context the pickup was my first car. Pay for your own car and no longer be the family tow bitch was the lesson I learned. Plus it gives you that crucial sense of having earned your wheels.
I've made some poor decisions regarding vehicles in the past, and I'm grateful for my parents' bailing me out when it came down to it. There is a fine line between enabling and indulging... the use of a 94 Eagle Vision is hardly indulgent, although it's probably more than I deserved at the time. In high school I was given the keys to the family Bronco, and added to the insurance... which I though to be my due at the time... but I was involved in a fender bender, and then an accident that totaled the Bronco. So I was cut loose - I bought my own $500 car to replace it, and paid half the insurance and my own gas. This was a successful strategy until I got caught speeding in it halfway through college. I sold the car to pay for the ticket, since I no longer had a license to drive it. After the 6 months of bumming rides back and forth, my parents lent me their Eagle Vision, which I put into another fender bender after only a year of driving it... when my sister graduated from high school it went to her and I was off the parents' insurance for good. I was lucky enough to find a good paying job close enough to bike to work, and so I delayed getting a car for a good year and a half after graduating, being able to use my wife's (then fiancee's) car let that happen. I've had the same car now for 5 years and insurance has settled down quite a bit. Without the parental support through college, especially after my disastrous decision to speed, I'd have had a much harder time of it.