Anna's New Car

Sorry to be so absentia lately -- we're just too busy! One thing after another, each day fills up and we find ourselves running back and forth. Part of it is having two college kids here for the summer. But part of it is being off of school. School is a wonderful organizer of life. Home school is a wonderful organizer of home life. I don't go anywhere before 2:00 during the school year. In the summer, my schedule, every hour of it, is up for grabs! Yikes!

Anyway, the car:

 Cute, isn't she? Anna needs to give her a name.

 She's a 2000 Ford Focus, great gas mileage, with just over 100K miles on her. Very good deal.

 Anna's tickled. She was home for only 24 hours, on a break from camp, and was hungry. So she's holding a little skillet of stir fry rice, and posing with her new car.

 The inside was nice and clean. No nasty smoke smell. She bought it herself, with cash, from a dealership, so they had cleaned it up well.

Car insurance (like all insurance) is outlandishly expensive these days, so we could never afford to buy insurance for our teenagers. Thus, they got no driver's licenses. Thus, we bought them no cars. But the upside of that is that they saved their own money and bought their cars themselves when they're older. They buy their gas, pay for repairs, pay for insurance, and learn to care for and appreciate their own cars. I really, really think this is a much better way to go, than handing over the keys to a brand new 30K vehicle to your sixteen year old on his birthday. That doesn't foster any good character traits that I can think of. Just my personal opinion. Lots of families I know do that, because they have the money (or ... er ... the debt!) to do that. We don't. And at this point I think I can say I'm very glad for that. It's sweeter for them to wait for it, save for it, and see the fruits of their labors.