brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. We have a 15 year old daughter and she is a social media influencer. We've made her older siblings buy their own cars and they probably had a six to $7,000 to buy a car when it was time.
But obviously her situation is gonna be much different and we aren't necessarily in agreement as to, my husband and I, as to how much money we should allow her to spend on her car. What is she earning? This is crazy. It is crazy.
Her manager says that in the next year she'll make $100,000. Currently she has a fully funded Roth IRA. She has 32,000 in brokerage and she's averaging about $8,000 to $10,000 a month right now. Wow, so what does she wanna spend on a car?
To get what she wants, she'd wanna spend around $15,000. Wow, okay, I can understand your syndrome. Is that, can I just ask, can I just ask honestly? Is that more expensive than your car?
Yes. Wow, this is something. Yeah, okay. Oh my gosh.
This is juicy. And this is how I would feel as a mom and I don't have a 15 year old. Let me just say that. I have a 10 year old.
So I take this with a grain of, I always take giving parenting advice when there's, or I don't care, I won't even say this is advice. This is like what just came up with me Wendy as a mom. We'll just be, we'll just be girlfriends just chatting. I like that.
What rose up in me is less about the dollar amount and more about what I am, what am I helping her as a mom see that is important in life. Meet every dollar budgeters, Christy and Steve, their life is chaotic, but their money is simple because they budget with every dollar. Budgeting with the spreadsheet took a ton of time. But now it's every dollar, I can do a budget in five minutes.
And tracking purchases is just as simple. It's so freeing to know exactly where your money is going. It just takes that stress out of your day to day life. You got this handy in family, every dollar.
Create your free account today. What am I helping her as a mom see that is important in life? And she's in an industry, which I'm not mad about. I'll link a dresser too, I'm not mad at the influencing world.
I'm really not, I'm talking about half my clothes. I see someone like you. I'm like, I'm also a lot older and you've had a lot more maturity to grow over time. It can be, it's like the, it can be a very vain, self-inward looking type industry.
In general, I'm not saying that you're a daughter. I'm just saying the industry. The industry, right? Hollywood has an industry influencer, everything has pros and cons.
So as a 15 year old, what I want to facilitate in her is that our stuff cannot own us. And that's from a debt perspective, but it's also from an identity contentment perspective. Our stuff is not going to make us who we are. And the moment we live in a world where our stuff starts to define us.
And if you took all the stuff away, if you took the hair extensions and the eyelashes and the cars and the clothes, who am I? Who am I? Take everything away. Who am I?
So like I would be pushing a message so hard Wendy to her of, this is incredible number one what she's doing. Like her, her tenacity to go out and do stuff. And she, I mean, it's amazing. It's absolutely incredible.
So I don't want to squash this entrepreneurial side of her, but there's just a lot of caution and flags that this is going to be the first big purchase that she makes that could go take her down a road to say how much does stuff influence who I am as a person. And to have the restraint to say, I want this $50,000 brand new car. But also, I'm going to understand that I am 16 years old. I'm going to have a level of common sense with my life.
And I don't need a $50,000 car at 16. And it would show a lot of maturity and a lot of confidence as a mom to her if she was like, you know what mom, I get it. Like I want a $50,000 car. What does she want?
I don't even know what that would be. Keep bringing a regular. Okay. It's that what if we went and bought a used Jeep, right?
Like going by a used version. Like what does that do to your identity? Does that make sense? I'm trying to poke on the triggers of what I don't want to be magnified for her as an adult in her 20s.
It's like, how do you make a purchase that that doesn't influence it? I think what you're right, Rachel, I think you're right. Spot on on that. I also think there's part of it.
And again, there's part of this that's hard to put into words. There's also part of it where it's just about building a maturity. You said building a maturity level, but it's almost like her following, right? She didn't immediately start with a million followers.
She had to work to build that up. And as you go through those stages, your character also builds to be able to hold it a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, right? And so I think the same can be true from a financial perspective. With large purchases.
With large purchases, when you're gifted large amounts, there also has to be a part of your personality that can carry that because here's the thing. She's going to, if she does a $50,000 car, there's a lot that's going to come with that. There's going to be expectations from her friends. There's going to be things that she feels like now I have to be here or I'm projecting this to a world, now I have to be here.
It's almost like, it's all, and again, I don't have kids this age, but it's almost like when I was in eighth grade and I wanted to start wearing makeup, I didn't have a bad reason for wanting to do that. I just wanted to improve my, the way I looked as an eighth grader. But my mom saw ahead and was like, hey, you're just not there yet. Like you bringing makeup is going to bring a different type of attention.
It's going to bring more. You know what I'm saying? There's more that goes along with these things than meets the eye. So I'm with you on not doing a $50,000 car, but I think it's fair for her to have more than a $6,000 or $7,000 car to reflect the work she's done.
100%. Yeah. So maybe it looks more like, I don't know, what's reasonable for a 16 or 20? Yeah, what's up?
Yeah, 20, 25, I don't know. It's reasonable for a 16 year old that has the cash too, which is incredible. And she's buying her own car. So like I want to reward part of that in her.
But I think for a teenage girl and that whole world and all of it, I'm like, I just want to where I can steer the motivation in a healthy way so that that is what's magnified as she gets older versus just being like, Oh my gosh, you can afford it. So just get it. And I went into a degree. I have restraints on myself.
I'm such a spinner. I love clothes. I'm such a spinner. I'm like, I probably could go out and get more.
But I'm like, for my own dignity and my own sake, like in my own contentment, I have to say no to myself sometimes, even though I can financially afford things sometimes that I'm like, does that make sense? Like there's something there for her at 15 that I just want to protect. I agree. And I'm looking at our audience out here and I'm like, I want to be on point.
Are we saying things that make points or are you like, no, you've missed it? But should she get a $50,000 cart 16? Is there any hands up? All right.
Okay. We got a good, we got a good little sample out there, by the way. What about like 25,000? I feel like is that too high?
Oh, we're getting some lower 20? 20? All right. Okay.
So you guys think she should stick to the six, the seven to $10,000 range? Okay. This is like a price for eight. We're getting mixed with $10,000.
Yeah. I'm going to give her some money to spend. I'd be okay with 20, 25. Honestly, I would.
Okay. And let me say this to Wendy. It's got to be in cash. And you said her manager said she could be making a hundred thousand.
That's not money in the bank. That's good. So it needs to be reasonable with what she has now. I don't know what I don't know how much money she has right now in that account.
Yeah. That's true. We just monologues. I apologize.
It also reflects our teaching, which is even at 100,000, 50, that would be too much at this point. Yeah. He right at the line. So even from a rule of thumb perspective, not just from a, I don't know, quote, kind of like morality.
Yes. Um, good call. Thank you for calling me. Create your free every dollar budget today.
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