Doug Asks for Some Advice

Doug called Dudley with a money question, which was an exciting moment for Dudley. He had been training for it his entire life.

“Dad, I got a credit card.”

Dudley sat up.

“What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

Dudley sat back down. This was going to require some work.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“It’s a credit card.”

“I understand the category.”

Doug had recently started working while he was in college. He was making his own money, paying for more of his own things and discovering that adulthood was mostly a series of people asking for money at inconvenient times.

The credit card had a $1,500 limit. This seemed reasonable to Doug until he realized he occasionally wanted to spend more than $1,500 in a month.

“So I was thinking I could just use the card,” Doug said, “and then pay it down when I get paid.”

“That can work.”

“Okay. Good.”

Doug had apparently expected the conversation to end there. It did not.

“What’s the APR?”

There was silence.

“The what?”

“APR. Annual percentage rate.”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you read the agreement?”

Another silence answered the question.

“Doug.”

“Dad.”

“You signed up for a financial product without knowing what it costs.”

“It doesn’t cost anything.”

Dudley closed his eyes. Somewhere, a credit card executive felt a pleasant disturbance in the universe.

“It absolutely can cost something.”

“I don’t think mine does.”

“What’s the interest rate?”

“I just told you I don’t know.”

“Go find out.”

There was some tapping.

Dudley waited.

More tapping.

“Oh.”

Dudley recognized this as progress.

“What?”

“Twenty-seven percent.”

There it was.

“Okay,” Dudley said. “So let’s say you carry a thousand dollars on that card for a year.”

“I’m not going to.”

“I know. We’re doing math.”

Doug sighed.

“At twenty-seven percent, carrying a thousand dollars for a year could cost you roughly $270.”

“So I’d pay $1,270?”

“Close enough.”

“That’s stupid.”

Dudley smiled. There were moments in parenting when years of effort produced a sentence so beautiful you wanted to have it framed.

“Yes.”

“So I just pay it off.”

“Yes.”

“Then why did we need the math?”

“Because now you know why.”

Doug thought about it. He got paid every two weeks, so his solution was simple.

“I’ll just use my paycheck to keep paying the card down.”

“Good.”

“And then I can keep using it?”

“As long as you’re not spending money you don’t actually have.”

“Right.”

“And you should really—”

Betty walked into the room. She had been listening, and she knew the signs.

Dudley had started with APR. Soon there would be statement dates, utilization ratios, grace periods, credit scores and possibly a brief history of revolving consumer credit. Doug had asked one question. Dudley had seventeen years of material.

Betty walked past him.

“Your father says pay off the credit card and don’t be stupid.”

There was a pause.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome.”

Dudley looked at her.

“I was explaining it.”

“I know.”

“He should understand how credit works.”

“I think he does now.”

“I definitely do.”

Dudley was not entirely convinced, but he let him go.

A few days later, Doug needed clothes for school. This was not a financial education exercise. He needed clothes.

He had a job, but his next paycheck had not arrived yet. The new credit card was sitting there with available credit, which now looked considerably less appealing than it had a few days earlier.

He asked Betty if she could help.

“Sure.”

“How much?”

Doug told her.

Betty sent him the money. There was no lecture, amortization schedule or promissory note. Dudley was not consulted, which was probably for the best.

When Doug got paid, he sent the money back promptly.

Betty mentioned it to Dudley.

“He paid me back.”

“Already?”

“Yep.”

Dudley smiled.

“Good.”

That should have been the end of it, but Dudley thought about it for a while.

They had loaned their adult son money. He had needed something, he had asked, they had helped and then he had paid them back. Nothing had gone wrong.

No lesson had been formally delivered. There had not even been a spreadsheet, and somehow Doug had behaved exactly like the responsible adult they hoped he would become.

This was suspiciously easy.

Dudley and Betty had spent years raising children. Now they were discovering that raising adult children was a different job.

Doug and Barb did not need another operating system. They were building their own.

Dudley and Betty had money now. They also had experience, mistakes, scars and a frankly unreasonable number of opinions. They could share those things, answer questions and help when help made sense.

Someday the requests might be bigger: a move, a wedding, a house, a job that required taking a chance, an emergency nobody planned for. Maybe grandchildren. Maybe something they could not imagine yet. All of those things could change Dudley and Betty’s financial plan. The point of the plan was not to reach age ninety-five with the largest possible number. The point was to use what they had built well.

Later that week, Barb called. She wanted to tell them something completely unrelated to money.

Dudley listened for several minutes. Then he saw an opening.

“So, while I have you, have you thought about—”

“No.”

Dudley stopped.

“I didn’t even ask yet.”

“I know.”

Betty laughed from across the room.

Dudley looked at the phone.

“Your brother called me for financial advice.”

“Good for Doug.”

“He found it helpful.”

“I’m happy for him.”

“I explained APR.”

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Dudley waited.

“But no.”

“Okay.”

He let it go.