Megan McArdle was mixing personal finance with well, impersonal finance today, discussing rent-to-own retailers and their customers, who purchase their goods at an inflated price because they neither have the ready cash to buy the couch they want, nor do they qualify for a traditional loan or a credit card — and her commenters nearly uniformly observed that someone who’s poor enough to be looking at a rent-to-own couch really ought to be paying a visit to the thrift shop instead (and that most low income people do exactly that).
To be sure, I’m not sure that, even if finances were tight, I would feel comfortable buying upholstered furniture used. Maybe there are ways to treat it to ensure that no bugs or germs move in with you, say, a spray or even a hot iron? But the point still stands that the immediate gratification comes at a high cost when it’s financed via rent-to-own, as well as the larger point that individuals on a tight budget need to learn the sort of basic life skills that mean they’re not at the mercy of such businesses.
On a tangent, I observed that my husband and my father are both pretty good in the handyman department, though in Dad’s case, we really should be using the past tense as the number of things he can fix these days is pretty limited, and I myself, although I’m pretty clueless in the home repairs department, can manage anything involving a needle and thread and/or a sewing machine.
And my husband and I were talking, earlier today, and purely coincidentally, about the fact that I wanted him to be sure to teach the kids, as they move into their teenage and young adult years, his basic home repair (electrical wiring, installation, simple plumbing) and carpentry skills (his dad was an actual master carpenter, though he later moved to a sales job). For my part, I suppose I’m going to have to make sure they know the basics of sewing, even if only to sew a button or hem a pair of pants (though my oldest is pretty bad in his fine motor skills).
What else? I think it’s important that they have some basic understanding of cooking — hey, one good thing about Boy Scouts is that the boys plan the meals for their campouts — and the idea of meal planning.
Car maintenance isn’t what it was — you can’t really expect your kid to learn much more than how to jump start the car and how to change a tire. I suppose also how to check air pressure, and check the oil and that sort of thing.
Oh, and laundry — and the ability to iron a shirt.
What else is on your list of must-have life skills?
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