I got towed! (Even though I was wrongly parked!) longish

[protege]

That reminds me of the idiots where I live. My street turns back on itself and is a bit narrower than other streets. Because of that, it's one-way. Needless to say, whenever there's an event at the school a block away, we tend to get idiots parked on *both* sides of the street, which means we can't get out of our driveways and the school buses can't get through!

And yes, I am one of those people who *will* call the cops! Don't want to get hit with a towing fee, but a 'release from impound' one too? Then don't park in front of my damn driveway! I'm one of the nice people on the street--there are a few people who *will* key up cars or slash tires!

[Auto]

Why on earth were either of them having this conversation with you? It was not your lot, and it wasn't your actions that got the car towed.

Maybe you could have directed them to some random passerby on the street to complain to. It would've had the same effect.

I guess neither of them were rocket scientists.

My feelings exactly.

[SongsOfDragons]

You lot whose parents make you pay rent and such may yell at me, because I only pay half of what I have to. Currently I'm living in university managed housing, and I only go home once every month, and for the four month total vacations we have. My dad pays my rent, PAYG phone credit (non-contract; I can spend £20 in six weeks) and slips me £20-or-so every time I see him. I pay, out of my student loan, my fees, utility bills, fixed internet bills and food shopping. I'm an only child, and as to my loan, once I'm earning a salary of £15,000 or over I'll have to start paying that back.

Uh, that's not THAT bad, is it?

[skeptic53]

Shoot, our folks wouldn't allow my brother or myself to own a car. But we had to work in high school, as my Dad wouldn't pay for college since he had worked himself through school. To get to work, we had to *rent* the family car.

I worked my way through school doing two jobs in summer and one during school. Didn't own a car, lived with roommates, ate beans and rice (& cheap beer, we even brewed our own...).

But there is a complicating factor for today's young people. When Dad worked his way through university, he dug ditches for 50 cents an hour, but his tuition was $40. I worked for $1.25-1.80 an hour in high school, then up to $5 an hour in college. But my tuition was around $1200 per year and housing was relatively cheap, 3 of us could share a house for less than $150 each per month.

Today..... sheeeeeit you'd have to be a crack dealer to work your way through college.

So parental help is a lot more common nowadays. That doesn't take away from the damaging effect of not having to learn the value of money, how to cope with bills etc, and to take responsibility for your own actions.

[protege]

I paid rent while still living at home. Even though it wasn't very much, it was still like living in a third-world country. No heat in winter, and no A/C in summer. My bedroom was always too hot or too cold, simply because they wouldn't adjust the thermostat! When they played that game, I simply refused to pay rent for awhile

I've always had to work for what I wanted; whereas most of my classmates didn't have to. As a result, most things I had were inexpensive, or second-hand. Whatever I got had to last. Money was pretty tight then. Things weren't helped by my parents using my bank accounts as their own person S&L, but that's another story

Even now, my car is paid for. So are my college loans. Because my previous Tercel was paid for shortly after purchase, I didn't have any bills for a *long* time...and could afford to send in multiple school loan payments every month. I think I paid that one off about 5 years early. Same thing with the Mazda. I didn't like having the debt hanging over me.

Fast forward a few years, and I've just bought a house. When I was arranging financing for it, my advisor was amazed at my credit score...nearly perfect!

The only reason I was able to do *any* of this, is because I managed to save most of what I made after college. I also decided that I was *not* going to repeat my parents' mistakes. I've been doing things "my way" and it's working out great