When my oldest son was in high school, we needed him to have a vehicle to transport himself and his younger brother around to their many activities when we were at work. A good friend of the family is a car dealer, so we would go to him and get a relatively inexpensive vehicle, and he always gave us great deals, which was objectively confirmed several times, as you will see.

It seemed that our son would have a vehicle for 9 months or so, and then it would get totaled in an accident. This happened 3 times, and none of them were his fault, and fortunately, no one was seriously injured in any of the accidents.

Of course, we would make an insurance claim. Each time, we got more from the insurance company than we had paid for the car, thus confirming each time that our friend had truly given us a great deal.

Our friend and we developed a running (though admittedly somewhat disturbed) joke. We called that our son’s trade-in plan – get a car, keep it for 9 months, someone totals it, collect more from the insurance company than we paid for it, get a better car. Thankfully, his luck only ran in threes, and he retired his trade-in plan after the third accident. Clearly, we do not recommend that trade-in plan to anyone!

Bill Poole

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