Necessity vs Luxury

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The Subway by my work is a popular spot for local Chapparal high school students to hit for off-campus lunch. Every time I go to buy a sandwich, I wait in line behind 17-year-olds that drive Audis and play games on iPhones. And it angers me.

It angers because I highly doubt those teenagers have contributed financially to those purchases, nor provided any logical argument besides “everyone else has one”.

I started working at 15. I got a cell phone at 16, and a car at 17. I made payments to my Dad for that car – a broke down 1993 Dodge 4-door. My cell phone could do nothing but send/receive calls. I insisted on paying for my clothes. When I got to college, I wanted to pay my own insurance. I didn’t want an allowance from my parents and any traveling I saved up for myself.

And now I’m saving up for my first car. I live on my own, I pay all my own bills and I put myself through grad school.

The lesson here is there is a difference between necessity and luxury that teaches kids to be self-reliant and understand the value of a dollar.

I understand that cell phones are a necessity these days. An iPhone is not. An iPhone is a luxury for a teenager. They do not need to play games, receive email or write blogs from their phone. All they need is to be able to tell parents and friends where they are. A parent should pay for necessity – the child should pay for luxury.

Before Christmas, Justin McHood wrote a blog post asking people to provide input on whether his 10-year-old daughter should get a cell phone. She wrote a letter providing her argument and offered to contribute the $40 she had saved toward the purchase of the phone. It is an excellent argument, and were she my child, I would have given it to her.

If a child wants a necessity to become a luxury, they should contribute. Want a nice car as opposed to something with 4 wheels? Get a job and save. Want brand name clothes from Nordstrom’s as opposed to Old Navy? Give me the dough.

Necessity is not an argument for anything other than the basic model.

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