Master Key Experience Week 17 – Persistence

My son taught me a lesson in persistence this week.  He’s 19.  In college, with a job.  He’s inherited my admiration of Mercedes-Benz.

We have a deal that I will pay of portion of his college education but he also needs to contribute.  After one semester at a private, insanely expensive college, he decided he didn’t love what he was studying enough to go into crazy debt.  He has a goal of graduating college debt free, which I’m sure he will make.  He’s been quite strategic about taking classes at the local college that he can transfer into another college that has a fabulous reputation in the field he’s going into.

Since he’s gotten back, he’s been saving like crazy.  And then last week he saw an older, extremely well-kept Mercedes.  He asked me to look at it with him.  He dug into insurance costs.  He was dead-set that he was getting that car.  Not today, but eventually.

I was dead-set against it.  His car is fine.  It’s in good condition, gets good mileage, and should last him (with no payment) throughout college.  I tried to explain this to him.  I used logic.  I explained how insurance would be through the roof, how interest rates would be higher since he has no credit history, and also how he doesn’t have enough set aside yet to pay college in full.  He would not let it go.

He listened…for about a second…and then flew into action.  He picked up shifts at work.  He started taking surveys online.  He literally has been a whirlwind earning extra cash.

As fate would have it…thank goodness!…this Mercedes was not meant to be his.  This morning he told me he got an alert saying it’s been sold.  But he’s not stopping…he’s continuing the surveys and additional ways to pick up cash so he can save enough to cover college quickly…and then start saving for his Mercedes when he’s out of school.