Your Child's First Car and What You Need to Know (and What if They Wreck it?)

Please check out the update, originally from October 17, 2017, at the bottom of this post! This is a sponsored post.

My 16-year-old son Joel will be hunting for his first car soon! This is him driving us all from Kansas City to Nashville

Cars offer the freedom and mobility to go where you want. This independence is crucial when you live in an area that doesn’t have an extensive public transport system. While getting your teen a car will let them test their limits and makes them more responsible, nothing will beat the life lessons they will learn, but you may have to help them buy their first car. To help your teen buy their first car, follow this quick guide and check out CarCareNinja for more information about reliable cars:

Encourage Your Teen to Get a Job

Before a car can ever come into the equation, your teen first needs a job. A job is a rite of passage for many teens, as it will help teach them about real-world responsibilities. The job will help them expand their social abilities and it will also provide them with an income that they can do whatever they want with. After all, they will need to be able to pay for the car’s fuel!

Have a Budget

There are many ways a teen can finance their car. They can either have enough savings to buy a used one outright, they can finance it by themselves, or you can help them. A great way to help them buy a car is to pay for the deposit as a gift to them, and to then let them finance the rest. Regardless of how you and your teen plan to pay for the car, work out a reasonable budget beforehand. Remember, the longer the lease, the more you pay over the original ticket price.

Insurance

Insurance is a must, and a premium insurance can help protect your teen better than the basic level one they can probably afford. It’s usually cheaper to add your teen to your own insurance, and can give them more room to make their car payments. It’s important to note, however, that not all accidents mean that your insurance will be affected. If either you or your teen was in a car accident that wasn’t your fault, it’s important to contact a Stuart car accident law firm to get you the compensation you deserve.

Do Your Research

When your teen wants a car, you need to make sure that they choose one that has high safety ratings to today’s standards. There are a lot of old cars that, technically, have high safety ratings, but only in the context of the year they were produced. Steer your child away from flashy cars and instead towards safe, reliable cars that will keep them safe for years and years to come.

Once you’ve chosen a good car within your budget look up what its manufacturer price is and negotiate the car down to a much better price than what the ticket says.

It can be scary to see your child drive off without you in the car, but it’s an important life skill that gives everyone the freedom and mobility necessary to be an independent adult. Help your teen buy their own car, and they’ll be accountable for it, ensuring they are more careful, and safer. 

UPDATE:
Last night after work, my now-18-year-old son Joel was heading to the gym. He was driving straight and another man turned in front of him and they collided. Both of them now have a messed-up front right end of their vehicle. Both of them got towed. Now what? My son was towed to a collision center at the expense of our insurance company because we recently got emergency roadside assistance. But what now? If they can't fix it and we can't get a fair price from the insurance company, I'm thinking we should give something like this a shot where they buy cars that have been in an accident for cash.