Who is planning ahead for this day? I certainly am.. Considering there are 3 mini-me's running around I think it's a wise move on my part.
I'm curious to know how many Mustachians have helped get their kids on the road..
- Did you/they pay for their lessons? Did you tutor them yourself?
- Who paid for the car? What kind of car is best?
- Who paid for insurance, tax?
- Are their Mustachians who pay for their kid's GAS?
This article from Carfax opened my eyes to the subject: http://blog.carfax.com/teens-first-car/.
I'm all for helping my kids when they're old enough to drive, however I feel like we should be meeting in the middle somewhere. All I'm saying is they ain't getting nothing unless they've got jobs.
Thank goodness those days are over!
We paid for lessons (required by the state if they wanted to drive younger than 18 years of age) and we had to tutor them on the 50 hours of driving experience (10 of which had to be at night).
Here are combined answers to the rest of your questions:
1. If you have more drivers than cars in your house, USAA (and perhaps other insurance companies) may classify your teen as an "occasional driver". USAA did this for us, even after I explained the way things were in our house. Our daughter did not cost us a penny of additional insurance. One reason may be that we do not carry collision or comprehensive-- only the state-mandated minimums plus a huge liability policy.
2. A used Prius is a great teen driver teaching tool. There's a minimum of controls: no clutch and only a paddle shifter. The brakes are extremely forgiving and the car has impressive stability/traction control. The electric motor gives it a huge surge of acceleration if she misjudges a merge or an intersection. It's very tolerant of a leadfoot driver-- I get 58 MPG with my driving skills, but she still achieved 48 MPG as a new teen driver. After learning on a Prius, our teen hated learning how to drive our Altima with a manual transmission.
3. When our kid was eight years old, we started the "Kid 401(k)" modeled after David Owen's "First National Bank of Dad". We raised her allowance and told her that another portion of her allowance was going into her Kid 401(k) with a parental match. Bottom line: when she was 16 years old she'd have $5000 to use toward a car (and insurance and gas). In addition to evoking her intense interest in 401(k)s and part-time jobs, this gave her a sense of security that eliminated all greedy gimmes for Hummers and Escalades. She knew that she'd be able to buy a car with her own money and take care of it with her own income.
She learned to drive on our used '94 Taurus station wagon that would fit a full-size futon in the back, but apparently she didn't appreciate that "opportunity". In 2008 when she approached age 16, she threw a curveball. She suggested that she pool her $5000 with our parental investment to buy the used Prius. She'd drive it until she went to college, and then we'd cash her out (minus damage and excess wear/tear). We felt that we had to honor that creativity, so we ditched the Taurus and bought the Prius. She took great care of her new investment and only lost $250 for a parking-lot ding. She took that $4750 to college, and two years later bought a used '99 Honda CR-V with 170K miles. She's still driving it, and she's taking it to Spain with her for duty aboard her Navy ship. We're still driving the Prius. We liked the Prius so much that we now own two of them.
4. When she got her license, she took over running all the household errands: grocery shopping, gas, DIY oil changes, even runs to the home improvement store. If my spouse or I needed something done, our daughter did the driving (and undoubtedly combined it with her own liberty checklist) while we reimbursed the cost. If she found coupons or other cost-cutting specials, she got to keep the savings. Of course our evil scheme worked flawlessly: she learned how to be a frugal grocery shopper, gas buyer, oil changer, and home-improvement shopper. I didn't set foot in a grocery store for nearly two years!
She took the privilege pretty seriously. When she was 18 years old and home on college break, she came home one night furious about a "friend". He'd started drinking at college, so when she was driving the group around on Oahu he brought a hip flask of Jack Daniels into "her" car. When she found out what he was doing in the back seat she almost kicked him to the curb and drove home without him. She scared him enough that he emptied the flask on the side of the road and stopped drinking around her.
A side effect of the Kid 401(k) and the errands is that she's very frugal with her budget. She lives with roommates and does almost all of her own cooking (including brown-bagging lunches). She bicycles as much as she can or throws her bike into the CR-V. She graduated from college with zero debt, a five-figure Roth IRA, and a steady job. This year she'll not only max out her Roth IRA contribution again, but she'll also nearly max out her Roth TSP contribution.