The realities of adulthood

Today Calvin and I went down to the bank to see about getting some kind of loan to cover his fees for the EMT class that starts on August 25. As far as education goes, this course is a bargain. It’s only $830 dollars. With credit cards and home equity, Mr. Pete and I could swing that for him, but we want Calvin to feel some investment in this program. If he knows that he is on the line for paying back the money, hopefully he will have added incentive to study and pass the course.

For those who don’t know (because I sure didn’t until we started looking into it) some hospitals offer these intense EMT courses. The one that Calvin is taking will be 4 months long and it will include classroom instruction and a lot of hands-on training. For a guy like Calvin, the hands-on is more important than the bookwork. Calvin has always learned best by doing.

So we went to the bank and learned a few interesting things. You cannot get a student loan for less than $1000. Isn’t that interesting? So the banker (who was very helpful and very good natured) suggested that we look into a student credit card instead. That way Calvin will have the cash he needs and can also use the card for other expenses if they arise. But since Calvin doesn’t have a credit history, we went ahead and applied for both with me as co-signer on the loan. We should know by Saturday on the loan, and within two weeks for the credit card and of course we have the option of accepting or rejecting both of these options.

So at 19 it seems Calvin has quite a few monthly expenses. He will have car insurance at $130 a month (which I hope that we can lower soon), $50 for health insurance and I’m going to guess around $20 dollars for loan or credit card payment. As he lives at home I can only see this putting a crimp in his social life unless he can get more hours at work or get a job as an EMT this January when the course is over.

This area of Ohio is inundated with EMTs! So I don’t expect him to find a full time job doing that at first. In fact one of the guys he is a lifeguard with puts in 20 to 30 hours as a lifeguard and then 10 as an EMT. That may sound discouraging but at least he is gaining experience and I think that will make him even more apt to be hired when he finds an opening. If Calvin could get a similar situation I think he could do that for a while. Time will tell.

In the meantime I am encouraging him to pick up his textbook and get a jump on the studying. I sure hope he takes my advice!

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