Garrett came in from his last mowing job on Thursday, dropped a sweaty envelope on the kitchen table and said, "That's twenty-three hundred." He'd been keeping a tally on the back of a calendar since the summer of 2023. Three summers of lawns on our street and two streets over, a push mower and a borrowed trimmer, and he had $2,300 in the bank and another $40 in that envelope he wanted for a pizza.
He turns 16 in January. He'll want a car around then. So Tina and I sat down that night, after he went to bed, to figure out what we were actually willing to spend.
How we picked the total
We started backward. What does a reliable, boring, cheap-to-insure first car cost around St. Joseph right now? I spent a couple of evenings scrolling listings and watching what sold. A decent Corolla, Civic or similar compact from roughly 2009 to 2013, with somewhere between 120,000 and 160,000 miles and a clean title, was going for $5,500 to $7,500. Under $5,000, most of what I saw had a rebuilt title, a check engine light, or a seller who said "it just needs" something.
So we picked $6,500. High enough to get a car that isn't already somebody else's problem, low enough that if it gets dented in a school parking lot nobody cries.
Then the split. Garrett puts in his $2,300. Tina and I cover the rest, up to $4,200, and not a dollar more. If he finds a car for $6,000, our share drops. If he wants a $7,500 car, he finds the extra $1,000 himself, and good luck with that on mowing money in November.
What the $6,500 does not include
I made this mistake with the Silverado in 2019: I budgeted for the truck and then acted surprised by everything that came after it. So this time I wrote it all down.
- Sales tax, title and plates in Missouri: I'm guessing $500 to $650 on a car in this range
- A pre-purchase inspection at our shop: about $125, possibly more than once if the first car fails
- First-month catch-up maintenance: oil, wipers, a bulb or two, maybe $75 to $150
- A repair cushion for whatever the inspection misses: $500 set aside
- Insurance: separate, and the big one once he's licensed
That list adds up to roughly $1,200 to $1,400 on top of the car, plus insurance. Tina and I are covering those, out of what we've been calling the Garrett fund, which is mostly the money we didn't spend on a vacation this year.
I also called our agent this month to ask about Garrett. He told us their policy didn't charge for a permit holder in a household car, but to list him anyway so nobody is surprised later, and that rates change when he gets licensed. That's what our agent told us; other companies may do it differently. I'm bracing for that day separately.
Why no payment
This is the part we didn't argue about. Nothing with a monthly payment. Not a loan, not a buy-here-pay-here lot, not a "we'll help you build credit" offer from a nice person in a polo shirt.
Partly it's math. A $6,500 car that costs $6,500 is cheaper than a $6,500 car that costs $7,600 over four years. But mostly it's what a payment does to a 16-year-old's thinking. A car you own outright is a tool. A car with a payment is a bill that shows up every month whether it runs or not, and he's going to have plenty of those later. I'd like him to start with zero.
It's also how I run things at work. I spend my days watching what trucks cost per mile, and the ones that hurt are never the old paid-off units. It's the ones still being paid for that sit in the yard waiting on a part.
Garrett had one question when we told him the plan the next morning. "If I find it for less, do I get the difference?" Tina said no. I said we'd talk. That's about how most of our negotiations go.
The search starts after Labor Day. Until then he's doing driving hours in the van and reading listings on his phone at dinner, which we've told him to stop doing. He has not stopped.