One important caveat via Thorn is that she can't promise he'll stick it out at the group home until school starts next spring. He might end up using a car to get out of Texas: "I don't want to promise people that he'll make the most responsible decisions. He's only 18 and on his own."
Either way, I see it as an investment in his future and helping him find a way to make his life better.
I already emailed Sir Kraab with my donation. Because I'm virtuous.
3: I was wondering about that. I've never tried to use Paypal to collect money, but if other people have and think that's the way to do it, I'll set it up.
I was going to post exactly what Sir Kraab did in the first comment. I can't promise he'll go to school or anything like that, though he's a very responsible guy.
In fact, I just logged onto facebook and the latest update on his life is that he just started dating a girl who's very pregnant (presumably not by him since they seem to have only met a few weeks ago) and so like I said, "responsible for an 18-year-old" doesn't mean making the choices the adults in his life might prefer he make.
If you have a Paypal account associated with an email address, we should be able to just send it to you as a gift [and you can send it on to Colton, and/or buy cake].
Right -- there's no difficult setup to do to take Paypal payments. The only time I've done it, I was impressed by how easy it was.
I can't promise he'll go to school or anything like that, though he's a very responsible guy.
This is part of that middle-class privilege thing -- eighteen year-olds aren't actually all that responsible regardless of who they are. But if you've got family watching out for you, you get helped out even if you're going to squander the help doing something silly the first couple of times.
Which means that I think helping him buy a car is a perfect reasonable thing to do, even if it doesn't lead immediately to a four year degree.
Just to be controversial: so are you thinking giving him a lump of cash, or purchasing a vehicle in consultation with him?
We could argue about what's the right amount of paternalism.
How about purchasing a vehicle plus some healthy food?
I second the question in 11. I expect that I will buy my son a car if he needs one for school or work when he finishes high school, but I will not give him the cash equivalent (nor, according to my will, would my estate).
Also, best to include prepaid insurance for the first year if you do gift a car.
I could bicycle to my nursing-home job before college, but my grandparents gave me their car when I needed it for a job afterwards. Money forthcoming.
A while ago I remarked that I was calculating the fraction of my income I give away post-tax, not pre-tax, and someone said That's special dealing as you get a tax write-off; I thought about it and realized that it's only *sometimes* special dealing, as it turns out tax-deductible status lines up rather poorly with what I think is a real charitable contribution. E.g., the neighbor who needs money, and the International Red Cross, not in; symphonies I have a subscription to, in. Now I tot it up as a linear combination of pre- and post-, depending.
I'm so glad to see this! I remember reading that earlier post about Colton and trying to figure out a way for a random mostly lurker to get some money to him. But apparently Paypal takes care of that.
Thorn, would it make him feel more comfortable taking money from us if you told him that it's normal for people to give graduation presents to the children of their friends and we're just a little late?
I'd like to contribute, but am also interested on how it would be implemented.
Such discomfort about receiving large gifts! How many people actually feel that? Breaking Bad implies it's common among men.
Sorry, Thorn. As soon as I posted I remembered that "normal" is exactly the kind of word you're careful *not* to use when talking with these kids, which is one of the reasons you're so good at what you do. So, consider what I said translated into a form that doesn't implicitly criticize Colton's birth family.
Mme. Merle, I talked to him and told him that I have some friends (gave the impression it was just Sir Kraab and M/tch, since they live near him and he knew we spent time with them when we visited him) were glad to hear he was doing well and make a policy of giving away a certain amount of money and wanted to know whether he'd accept money toward transportation options. That's when he said he'd want to use it to get the heck out of the town where he lives and do some traveling, including visiting us.
Kraab lives less fairly close to Colton, so I am happy to get the two of them in touch and let them figure out what works best or just let her use her judgment.
Both Colton and Rowan are very touchy about receiving what feels like charity, though I think it's harder for Rowan (who turns 18 this week, gasp!) and Colton was somewhat skeptical about the existence of friends who like him because they like us, but was willing to go along with the idea. This is a situation where if he were with us I'd have bought him a junky car but I can't manage that financially right now with the life I have instead and can't manage it cross-country either.
I also still have contact information for Colton's Court-Appointed Special Advocate (who is awesome, unlike Nia's) and his foster dad, both of whom have influence over him and his decisions if no actual legal standing now that he's an adult. They could probably help advise if needed too.
12: We should also make sure the cup holders are too small to hold more than 16 oz. of soda.
If this is the Austin-area CC, I can offer free or cheap tutoring. I have done both free and paid tutoring for many students there in math, computer science, and more generally for their writing.
One more here happy enough to help out, but uneasy about a lump sum gift that likely will not be quite enough by itself.
Carmax doesn't have gift cards per se (and, though their prices run high, both price and inventory are at least posted rather than being some dude who starts by asking "how much do you have?"). It looks like there's a way for anyone to pay into an existing CarMax Finance account with only the account number. That might be a way to do it, or maybe too much hassle.
If there's any traction. knowing exactly how much is available will be important for decisionmaking. I'd be in for $200 earmarked toward transport this way or some equivalent, but not in a form redeeemable as cash.
19: I like the idea of involving one or both of these people. While I'd be happy to help him pick out the right vehicle, find insurance, or even just talk things through, I don't feel comfortable trying to influence a kid I don't know.
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I'm really sad about Hobsbawm. Not that I was masturbating to him or expecting him to live forever, but...still.
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So we're going to need to raise at least $50,000, right? I mean, we don't want him to roll like a bitch. I don't want this kid in a weak used 3 series like some account executive with delusions of grandeur.
KIDDING. This is a great idea and exactly the kind of thing we should be doing; email sent to Kraab.
Though I guess that if we raise enough, I could just buy a beater and give it to him, as I would if it were my kid.
Whoops, now I see where the Hobsbawm pause/play should have gone. Email to Kraabie sent!
I have a Paypal account but it will take 2 days to reconfirm my bank account. I don't know if it will accept money in the meantime. Could someone try? It's tied to mypseud geemail.
Y'all are great. I've already got commitments from 12 people.
If this is the Austin-area CC, I can offer free or cheap tutoring. I have done both free and paid tutoring for many students there in math, computer science, and more generally for their writing.
Out of curiosity, how much do you charge? I'm thinking I ought to put up posters around CCSF, but I have no idea what the market rate is, so to speak.
(I am waiting for Sir Kraab or Thorn to confirm that Paypal works for them and how to donate.)
Sir Kraab is handling the whole money side, as I'd feel a little weird doing that and it would just drive home that these are things I wish I could be doing and can't, which is stupid since I suppose Sir Kraab is doing it because of me.
Thanks to all 13 and to people who are supportive but don't want to or aren't able to give money, too. For added humanizing, I put a fairly non-identifying photo of him with me in the pool.
Out of curiosity, how much do you charge? I'm thinking I ought to put up posters around CCSF, but I have no idea what the market rate is, so to speak.
A lot of it was on a volunteer basis, but for basic subjects at a CC it would still be cheap: $25 / hr.
Tutoring rates are totally variable, though. Here, there are a ton of college students that are willing to do it for as little as $10 / hr. On the other hand, I know someone who taught a high school student Latin in NYC for $150 /hr.
I didn't see 28 when posting 32 -- money sent as well.
35: And received! OK, everyone, Paypal is up and running.
Log into Paypal, and there's a tab that says "Send Money". The form will ask for the email address to send it to and the amount, and that's all you need to know.
Money sent, I think.
Kraab and Thorn, if you guys were playing the long con, excellent work.
36: I made $100/hr tutoring Greek. It was the most awesome job ever -- noodling around in Homer for a few hours a week with a nice kid while his mother fed me cookies and cups of coffee. (This was on the North Shore.)
Y'all are upgraded from great to awesome. We're up to $1,025 already.
I'm so not a car person -- what's a beater run these days?
Pretty sure you can get a running car for $1500, not including insurance.
Plus $75 to get a mechanic to check it out and $60 to register it.
36: When I was tutoring, I charged my clients $40-50 an hour. Most of my clients came through the WyzAnt.com network, and I got 60-80% (increasing over time) of what the client paid for those, after WyzAnt took their cut. Expenses (including travel to the client's location) came out of my cut - I was glad to be driving a Prius.
I started out charging $40 an hour (plus a distance surcharge that could add $10-20/hr for clients over 1/2 hour away), because that seemed to be the median rate charged by reasonably comparable tutors in the WyzAnt network. Once I built up my client base to the point I was starting to turn people away, I raised my base rate to $50 and dropped the distance surcharge, which had seemed to be discouraging clients who were just over 30 minutes away.
Count me in for less than one percent of a running car! Or most of lunch.
I'm in. I'll email krabbycakes.
I am glad to see people doing this. These are supports that fall apart when family falls apart. I know this from experience and from being a person who is often a last resort in my families.
Speaking of which...This past weekend I got touched by a young (minor-child) relative who was sent off to college without realizing that her parents were not going to pay their part of what financial aid assumed that family would pay. This youngster is 4 weeks in to classes and the mother is saying, "This is your problem; figure it out." No amount of figuring will solve the missing many thousands. The child should never have been driven to school by the mother (who was proudly posting on FB about taking the kid to school) if the kid was just going to drop out after a few weeks. Yes, the world is hard sometimes. Yes, that's a lesson to learn (hard not to learn it). No, this is not the right way to teach your children. (The kid thinks at 1st to get a cosigner for a loan. But private student loans can't have a minor signatory.) If you can't afford it, the kid doesn't get taken to school! So, the kid calls around in tears to a few relatives near & far. This pushes my buttons, so after a long talk and review of the aid package & the payment plan I pay the difference for rest of the year (at least I get miles on my card). I make it clear that I cannot do this again next year and that financing for next year should be settled before the end of this Spring term. I still think I am on the hook for $8K more. The payment plan and the cost estimates in the aid package don't match up and the diff is 8K in the wrong direction.
Also, private 4yr schools are not cheap! Especially those that don't have nice endowments that help with the aid package.
I know this from experience and from being a person who is often a last resort in my families.
Been there, done that, under very similar circumstances to the ones you describe.
Holy crap. What a nightmare. Bless you & keep you, md.
Damn, md. What a nightmare, and what a mensch you are.
54: Awful. Why not just take kid into the forest and lose him/her?
Big karma points for md.
Oh wow, how infuriating, MD. Why the fuck didn't they have frank conversations about who was paying for what last spring?
It's really amazing that they had no conversation at all about the subject before the kid went off to college. Before the kid decided to go somewhere other than State.
If I were going to guess based on similar situations, the kid handled the application for financial aid, and when the package came in, showed it to their parents. Who looked over it, and were noncommittal in a way that read to the kid as "We can make this work" and read to the parents as "We didn't say we were giving you any money."
Probably so. The parents majorly dropped the ball by not being explicit, though.
Why not just take kid into the forest and lose him/her?
Exactly! The whole thing has me really mad.
Oh, someone should smack them silly, absolutely. Not helping (short of absolute inability) is a shitty thing to do itself, and not helping and not making the situation clear is horrible.
If more people would support the "forest" option, I'd be happy.
Why aren't the parents paying? The financial aid people apparently thought this was an amount the parents could afford to pay. Do they just think kids should pay their own way through college? Do they want to go to Tahiti?
Did you comment about the nonpayment on the mom's fb post?
I think 61 is a good part of it. But that's part of parenting. The kid finished HS at 16 and had/has little practical sense of how to do much with money.
The 'rents are not the best with money either (they have had to borrow from me recently for some semi-expected stuff) and probably wouldn't t like having such a frank talk. Tough. That's their job.
But, they should have said, "honey, the money isn't there. We can't afford more than $X. [which is near zero]. You can't go there after all." But, NOOOOOOOO.
(I am reminded of George Bailey.)
Not helping (short of absolute inability) is a shitty thing to do itself,
...while you encourage the kid to attend the expensive school. I have sympathy for parents who say "We could help you take on gargantuan loans, but no. Go to state school."
66: This is from when I was in college, so twenty years old, but I had the impression that the calculation of what was affordable for parents was pretty vicious, particularly for parents at around median income: employed homeowners without a lot of spare money. I knew a few people who weren't getting anything from their parents where you got the sense that maybe the parents could have tried harder to come up with something, but not much.
I do think that they should be able to afford it! (There is all sorts of drama involving child support & a step-parent here too. But that shouldn't be an issue.)
I will be making clear that when the younger siblings hit college age that I cannot do this for them. Heck, I cannot do this next year. (I won't sign for a loan, so this comes from my ready-savings.)
I certainly feel manipulated. I was manipulated by the circumstances if not in a targeted way. Ultimately I couldn't abide seeing a kid wonder lost in the forest.
I will be making clear that when the younger siblings hit college age that I cannot do this for them.
This is heartbreaking for us; the family where it comes up has three kids, and we've bailed out the oldest kid a lot, and come to the same kind of realization that we can't keep doing the same sort of thing for all three. The second one seems to be launched and okay, but the third is floundering badly, and I feel terrible that we aren't doing anything like as much as we did for the oldest.
This kid has an aunt & uncle who told their kids at the start of HS, "you can go where you want, but we can pay what we would for the flagship state school." That strikes me as fair. Plenty of warning and upfront.
LB is right that FA can be mean & vicious. The package did get changed mid-summer. But it was only a loss of a Pell and the shifting of that to a PLUS loan. That's not much (because the Pell's are too damned low). But parents' poor credit has blocked the PLUS route too.
Similar things happened to 3 different friends in college (incidentally in all 3 cases there was also child support drama etc.) -- although not freshman year. One friend solved the problem by establishing himself as an independent or something? I'm not sure what the term is. But basically, the financial aid people could only consider his finances and not his parents'. I think that involves taking a year off and getting a job.
Also, 71 is my understanding as well. I had a lot of more range in what college I could attend than my more middle middle class friends because we were LMC.
71 That was my impression back then as well. However, these days the super competitive high-endowment schools are pretty generous with the financial aid and I'd have no sympathy for parents who said they couldn't afford to send their kids to an MIT or Princeton. Second tier private institutions are a different matter but even there it is completely fucked up not to have a discussion about what the parents are willing to pay, and also fucked up not to be willing to spend most of what the more traditional financial aid office expectations are. Judging from md's comments they're not doing that here.
74. Ow. Dolley I recognize this heartbreak. I have no idea what I will do if push comes to shove with the next set five years from now.
Damnit! I want to be a relative who can just give gifts. Y'know, the fun stuff. Generous gifts even. Bu, gifts.
But, back to Thorn's kids...having grown up in foster-care myself, and having a tattered family-support system, I know how important support on even small things can be. Not just financial either. All the how do you do X lessons that a person just doesn't get a chance to pick up. Social Capital.
Sir Kraab is female? I had no idea.
HopeMob supposedly was created to further this sort of thing, though the mechanics seem a little too contesty for me.
Sir Kraab is female? I had no idea.
Huh. What threw you?
71 is basically what happened to me, except less drastically. Parents had a little money, but not much, and a big, falling-apart house that was probably somewhat overvalued. And my 2 younger sisters. Also, my mother fucked up the FAFSA somehow. So when I got the aid packages from the really good schools I wanted to go to, the expected family contrib. was like $15,000 or maybe a bit more, which was just not happening. So I went to a shitty school, dropped out, and then took almost a decade off before going back and paying for it almost all myself with loans (except for the $5000 from my grandmother's estate, which was certainly a big help, but a minor factor overall.)
Speciest really. This is a fascinating and slightly disturbing look into my psyche, but I realize that I think of Crabs and Lobster and various shell fish as male, and vertebrate fish as female.
Loans should be paid off in a little over 3 years though, so that is good.
Speciest really
Sir Kraab is the real speciesist.
84 is delightful. As are the lot of you people, really.
Paypalled Sir Kraab.
I charge about $40 for my maths tutoring. Plus more if I have to leave the house.
I had the impression that the calculation of what was affordable for parents was pretty vicious, particularly for parents at around median income: employed homeowners without a lot of spare money.
Vicious would be an overstatement, but the thought of it makes me grimace. English and Welsh undergraduates can get a means-tested loan for living expenses - so the amount my kids would be able to get won't actually pay their rent, let alone eat, buy books, dare to enjoy themselves. I'm not sure why they can't just borrow all they need. My kids - and C and I! - are fortunate in that once C's grandpa's house is sold, the money will be split between the greatgrandchildren, and that should pay their living expenses, so I shouldn't really need to worry, but I do. There'll be two years (in theory) that kids A & B will both be at university and our mortgage will still need paying. After that it gets rather easier, as Kid C probably won't overlap.
So we're going to need to raise at least $50,000, right? I mean, we don't want him to roll like a bitch. I don't want this kid in a weak used 3 series like some account executive with delusions of grandeur. - Halford
My teen-age son thinks exactly this way. A 1999 Honda Civic will have to do.
Can we get him personalized Unfogged license plates, like a gift card? "RTFA," perhaps. Or just make him a bumper sticker?
43: I made $100/hr tutoring Greek. It was the most awesome job ever
I feel certain that if this low-hanging fruit had hung over in the other active thread, someone would surely have plucked it.
I drove my friend's early 2000's Honda Civic hatchback while he lived in a different city and I can't tell you how many times I got asked whether I'd sell that car. (Can't, not mine.) At least three people told me that year and model was their dream car and asked if I'd write down their names. People who want that Civic really want that Civic.
94: I got this about my 1990 Civic hatchback, too. I miss that car.
md you are a mensch (catching up on the thread). parents should be slapped. they took what might have been merely disappointing into the disappointment of a lifetime.
When I went to university I had to establish that I was an independent adult, who wouldn't be getting any parental support. I was luck enough to go at the time when student grants were basically being phased out, but hadn't completely gone, so I could cover it with a combination of student loans, the grant [which, iirc, ceased to exist towards the end of my degree and was never more than about 20% of what actual living costs where], and working a lot of hours.
If my niece makes it [only family member with a genuine shot, I expect] to university, fuck knows how she'll afford it.
MD20/400, nice one.
When I was in college, in order to establish yourself as an independent adult, you had to do all sorts of crazy things to certify that you had a really bad relationship with them and didn't speak to them very often. I was luckily enough to get a merit scholarship the first three years, and save enough working for the the fourth year, so it wasn't a problem, but it would have been a big problem, b/c my parents were shoulder deep in debt & medical bills but looked middle class on FAFSA paper. I lived at home and started college underage, so establishing independence would only have made things worse.
I remember my friend's parents owned a bookstore, and the FA people calculated their wealth as though they were going to sell the bookstore in order to pay for her college education.
Heebie-heebie, I don't know if this is a question for you or Heebie-Geebie, but do you have any special insight into why the tuition is so damn high? I don't feel like professors are getting paid that much more, and even when you take into account rising costs of pensions and medical benefits, it seems kinda crazy. As someone with an inside view of reasonable higher education, where do you think the fat deposits are?
I'm fundamentally mystified. The explanations I hear are all relatively small, ie administration getting bloated, increased pressure to have nice facilities (for public schools, of course state support getting slashed but those aren't generally the most outrageous expenses anyway) - but they all drive tuition up, and nothing drives it down. Plus schools don't feel any pinch if their graduates are loaded w debt - there's no feedback of sharing the pain with those who could set tuition.
Ile, I've been trying to figure out the same, and two of the answers I've come across are 1) significantly decreased state funding, and 2) growing IT costs. Thankfully, my employer is one of the few state universities that I know of at which reason #1 is not--yay endowments!--but tuition has still increased.
I paid for college myself (with the help of grants and loans as well), though had I been smart enough to stay in state I would have actually made some money on the deal. So that was dumb.
101: that feedback bit makes sense. I guess it's only now getting the point where the loans are truly untenable, not just blinkworthy. . .and our collective tolerance for debt before now let it get that way. I still cant' figure out WTF I was thinking when I took out my grad school loans. (I mean, I was thinking I would get a job. But still.)
102:IT costs? Really? You think it's that much? I would have thought that would be a net gain, what with all the secretaries and filing cabinets dispatched?
Sorry, Heebie, all of what you said made sense, I just latched onto the feedback bit as a nicer articulation than one I'd heard in a while.
102:IT costs? Really? You think it's that much? I would have thought that would be a net gain, what with all the secretaries and filing cabinets dispatched?
What about, you know, like, computers? There seems to be more of them on college campuses now.
94 -- it's b/c those cars are great for putting in mods and souping up, Fast and Furious style. Clearly you were hanging out with cool people.
Computers are cheap as fuck, as in what, 5% of the salary of the person working them. Project IT budgets aren't that high eitherz I can't buy IT as an explanation at all.
Missing a question mark. Bah, typing on phone.
Schools not only don't get punished for having higher tuition, they get rewarded?
I have dark mutterings about overhead on research grants, but I don't think they explain much except why schools like to be R1.
The article in 109 sounds about right, especially the facilities maintenance part of the building spree.and then it trickles down to all the less competitive schools in some form or another.
Also the midland university example is clearly drawn from the same playbook as heebie U uses.
Computers are cheap as fuck, as in what, 5% of the salary of the person working them. Project IT budgets aren't that high eitherz I can't buy IT as an explanation at all.
But you have to pay that person. While the number of secretaries may have decreased, the number of people handling IT services has presumably skyrocketed. I find it very plausible that IT cost growth is one of the factors contributing to tuition inflation.
This sounds familiar. I hadn't caught on that the no loans for phd advice now applies just as much to some non-phd fields.
I must have screwed up the html in 113. This sounds familiar:
I still cant' figure out WTF I was thinking when I took out my grad school loans. (I mean, I was thinking I would get a job. But still.)
What facilities maintenance? Normal seems to be letting them wear down so a new building with a new name on it can go up.
Also, what IT personnel? It's being outsourced to Google and Dropbox and github and Wordpress.
Bitter bitter bitter mutterings.
re: 112
I'd need to do some concrete research to work it out and it's entirely possible my subjective impression is wrong, but I work in academic IT provision, in a very large institution [i.e. a library] which provides much of the core IT infrastructure and project IT provision within a university. I have a pretty solid idea how many people are providing those services, how much they are being paid, what the equipment costs are, and how much money is coming in in terms of outside funding. It's much less of a net cost than I suspect people think. It's clearly non-zero, but I'd be surprised if it's really much more (if at all) in relative terms over similar admin and infrastructure costs for the same or similar institutions before IT became more widespread.
What facilities maintenance? Normal seems to be letting them wear down so a new building with a new name on it can go up.
I think this probably varies a lot by the wealth of institutions. But the article was saying that specifically, a lot of the buildings built during the facilities arms race starting in the 1990s will soon be due for new AC/roofs/major renovations.
114: Like so? Decades of what comes back not being what goes out in any single department, and not so obvious totting-up of outgo and income being the same overall?
Even if that were punctiliously accounted for, I am bitter that this adds an incentive for doing research as expensively as possible.
Tired of being bitter. If I'm going to think about this I should write some damn grant requests already yet. I have plots! Indicating a need for further research, which could be expedited by etc etc!
Er.
Back to the original post, in a way, equally quixotically: I think wedding presents and some graduation presents are now very badly timed, and should be explicitly replaced by Moving Out presents. People need stuff when they join their first (probably group) household and when they first live independently much more than when they're moving into a dorm or when they're continuing to live with someone they bought sheets with already.
Late to the thread, so I'll add my voice to the chorus thanking Sir K and H-G. I'll send along my donation forthwith.
m/d, you are a prince among men. Let's hope the young one uses this time as wisely as possible.
Count me in on the side of thinking there is no way that IT is accounting for any measurable part of college cost increases. I haven't done higher ed budgets, but I have looked at a heck of a lot of nonprofit budgets in my time and that just makes no sense at all.
*Maybe* a bit in increased library costs associated with those appalling cartels behind journal subscriptions, but even that couldn't account for more than about 0.5-2% of tuition hikes, I'd bet.
119: I don't understand how they get split out here but the department I'm in gets so much more grant money than the others that I'd bet the issues are different.
Yeah, my belief is that IT costs are a net win.
Where are we at in total? I think $2000 is a good goal for a heater whip+registration+insurance.
Hell, for 2K I'd just sell him my Volvo.
120: absolutely, on both counts.
On the first count my life as a tortured peon in the in between world of grand administration has a) convinced me that all research professors are capable of becoming assholes, given the right conditions and b) convinced me that *nice* research professors need all the encouragement they can get to write research grants, b/c somehow it's the mean ones who always get them out the door first. So in the spirit of Mineshaft solidarity I am encouraging you! Wish I could do more
My agreement with the latter count is pretty obvious: graduate to me never meant moving out (and once it meant, moving back in. I gave shit away! Woohoo! So I guess it was graduation for all my starving foreign classmates) and at this point I don't really feel like getting married, except unless we decide to breed. Pre
Can we get him personalized Unfogged license plates, like a gift card? "RTFA," perhaps. Or just make him a bumper sticker?
I really like this. It made me smile. But, no. Not sure I'd want someone else's in-joke on my car. Can't really explain it to him either.
Urban Dictionary doesn't even have our definition for RTFA. Close though.
Get ready to fork over the Volvo, heebs. We've hit 2 grand.
Wow, y'all. Originally, I wasn't sure if we would just be putting together a few hundred to help him toward a car at some point. Given that we're actually going to be able to pay for one, I think I should go ahead and buy it with/for him and make sure he doesn't get ripped off, gets it checked out by a reliable mechanic, handles all the paperwork, etc.
He's got some savings that can go toward the insurance and I'll budget for the rest out of what we raise.
Thorn will connect me with the other adults in his life and we'll figure out how best to make it all happen.
Yay, Mineshaft!
I didn't make the IT thing up, though. Will find relevant links at some point.
So do you guys think you have enough, or do you still want donations?
Holy cow, did we really hit 2K? That's great.
I am amazed and so honored that people have decided to care about Colton in large part because I care about him. I just emailed his caseworker for her advice on which responsible older adult to get involved in this, and I'll be in touch with Her Kraabiness when I learn more.
md, what you've shared about your time in foster care has meant a lot to me over the years and I really appreciate your stepping in to help other young people. I hope that Colton will take that stance when he's older, and I think benefiting from all this generosity will make that more likely.
130: teo, I think we're good. Maybe there's a deserving moose who could use a hand.
People, we've raised $2,600 and there are still a couple of checks in the mail! While I'm certainly not going to turn away anyone who still wants to donate, I think we can wind this down.
I'm really proud of you all for stepping up. I'm feeling pretty broke right now, and hella job insecure, and I've got a bunch of other commitments for small donations that I need to honor first, otherwise I would be right there with you. But good job everybody!
Wait! I am still trying to figure out my Paypal account! (As in I don't remember which email I used.) You'll take my money, goddammit!!!
Eh, figure out how much you were going to give and bookmark it for the next worthy cause.
I am very pleased that this worked.
139: I used to ruin my shoes until I solved a related problem.
Wow, just checked the thread my vague plans to contribute to this are now out of date. Will allocate chosen amount for some other good cause. Of course I could just give it my mother for St. V de P since just off the top of my head I can think of three people (two adults returning to education and one young guy first in his family to go past secondary) her local branch has given a college grubstake to. She also personally does a good bit of moral support including encouraging the young guy to do his repeat exams and writing to the head of his department to ask that if he was borderline to take into account that he had struggled with huge disadvantages compared to other students. (He got back in.)
St. V de P
My dad runs a chapter now that he's retired. It keeps him very busy.
You know what I've just realized? An orange post title has done some actual good in the world. I can die happy now.
What does that even mean, the orange post title thing?
The post title is orange to make it visually distinct.
147: Many many years ago, when I was a wee slip of a blogger who actually posted about politics and being outraged about things, someone pointed out that talk is cheap and the readership of Unfogged was intelligent, highly educated, and affluent, and could do wonders if they were organized into some political task. Forgetting for the moment that I couldn't organize a bunch of sailors into a whorehouse, I decided that I would make a series of posts calling for some actual useful activity on the part of the commentariat, and that these posts would be identifiable because the titles would be orange. And I made three or four ill-thought-out and pointless orange-titled posts, and no one including me ever did anything useful, and I have been even more sheepish than I was before ever since.
I would like to be identified as the original nag, and that I never helped with organizing the resulting energy into anything useful.
I wasn't going to say nothing, but yeah.
That's a sad story. I also just read an excerpt from some new SF-set novel, where a 36 year old divorced guy pretends to be a tourist at a youth hostel in order to have a night on the town with two 20 year old women from NJ who're pretending to be Israeli. Also sad!
Megan is why I stopped running the water for the entire time I shave or brush my teeth.
I couldn't organize a bunch of sailors into a whorehouse
I think I may see your problem. Traditionally, the sailors are the clients, not the employees.
That explains what went wrong with my last public service project. Possibly I should stick to crochet.
Moby, can I get you to stop killing snakes?
I promise not to kill any snakes while shaving or brushing my teeth.
So guys, now we get to the O. Henry portion of the Orange Post Title thing. I just talked to Colton's foster dad, who says that Colton moved out about a week ago to live with his pregnant drama-prone high-schooler girlfriend and her family where people supposedly love and accept him, and he's probably going to quit his job and doesn't want to think about school right now.
The foster dad is really frustrated and disappointed and has told Colton this, but right now there aren't any adults (not the dad or caseworker, at least) who are interested in facilitating something like a car for him because they're upset with him.
I haven't had a chance to talk to Colton himself and will try to make that happen in the next few days, but he can be elusive when he doesn't want to talk about what's up with him. I haven't talked to Sir Kraab, but I'm sure it would be fine for anyone who's not comfortable supporting him when he's making what the adults in his life consider bad decisions (if ones that are very typical of 18-year-olds in general and ones who've aged out of foster care in particular) to ask for a refund.
For what it's worth, Rowan's ex-caseworker thinks she saw him at a restaurant in our area, looking kind of rough and driving a motorcycle, so he's probably managed both a vehicle and questionable life decisions on his own. I'd expect the same sort of behavior even if I'd parented either of them because it's part of growing up, but it's not necessarily the part of growing up I'd be keenest to subsidize.
162. I'm OK with Sir Kraab, or others responsible adults, leaving my contribution in a Colton fund. Odds are he is going to need it in the next year. I don't know how Kraab (or foster-father or Thorn) feels about hanging on to funds.
163 is kind of what I'd envision, that when he's in contact with me and functional and self-aware to an 18-year-old level, we could look into working something out. While he's melting down and flailing, I've sent him a message saying I'm thinking of him and hope to hear from him soon, which I think is all I can do.
And I didn't tell the foster father about the funds since it woudl have given him one more thing to rant about how Colton had so much good stuff he was throwing away, but I did tell the caseworker, who suggested putting things on hold rather than financing his escape, essentially.
Seconding 163.
Presents with light strings on seem normal to me: 'as in a silken field a tent', if done well.
Same here. Some kind of scholarship fund would be fine, or even just money invested as a savings pool to give the kid when he gets "responsible." Or whatever Thorn/Kraab feel comfortable with.
Or we could just rent a bitchin' hotel suite for UnfoggeAKon 2012-13.
168. Hell, we can do that anyway! I am so glad to be at a point where a parking ticket doesn't break me. Been there. Did not like.
Definitely, anyone who wants their money returned, just let me know.
For now, I will tuck whatever funds people want to leave with me away into a separate savings account, and wait to get some direction from Thorn and Colton's caseworker.
Late to this but sent a few bucks anyways. I say just go ahead with the original car plan.
People do all kinds of stupid shit and all you can really do is point them in the right direction and maybe give them some tools and hope for the best. Not having some reliable transportation is a huge barrier to things like employment and schooling. With a car he'll at least have the ability to facilitate good choices and he'll also have a means to escape bad ones if he pulls his head out of his ass and wises up. It's a good thing to do and if he fucks it up then that's on him.
I think gswift is on the right track. He's living out in the middle of nowhere, basically, and that's frustrating for someone raised as a city boy. School has started again and for the first time in his life he's not there but still doing the same part-time job he did all summer. So it seems really unsurprising to me that he's responded by rejecting a lot of the stability in his life and taking on a big emotional burden where he can feel like there's an identity for him as the good guy who's taking care of this girl whose other boyfriends have deserted her.
He did actually respond to my facebook message asking how he was doing. I'm not going to report in real-time how conversations go, but he's not trying to avoid me and I appreciate that.
I'm so grateful not only for the generosity here but for the understanding.
162: Whoops, I spoke too soon about the doing some concrete good thing. But I agree that it makes sense to hold onto the money until he needs help with something: he'll need a car sometime, or part of first semester's tuition.
I'm fine with Thorn and Kraab using their discretion - that was the general plan from the start - and thank them for watching out for Colton.
Also approve of the new plan. If funds are left over, there will be other comparable needs in the greater unfogged community in the future.