How to Convince my Parents to Let me Buy/Build a PC

[HyerJohn]

Hi! I'm a new member, but hopefully I can get some help with this. I am a 15 year old heading into my sophomore year of high school, and I want to build a PC. I primarily use my current computer, a slow, laggy 2013 'gaming' laptop from Lenovo, to play games with friends and do homework (during the school year), however, they are opposed to me using the computer more than 3 hours a day during the summer, saying I need to "go outside and play with your friends" during the hot Texas summers. I have gathered a list of parts, watched many videos on how to build a PC, but my parents won't let me build one with my own money that I have saved up. They say that me being able to spend the $1000 I have saved up by running a dog-sitting business for the last 2 summers is a reward for "getting my **** together", which everyday when my Dad comes home from work says that I have done  by keeping my room clean, helping my mom around the house, and doing anything asked of me.

 

Please help with this! I have told them it would be a learning experience, that it is a goal I have worked towards, nut nothing has worked! 

[sof006]

I know this is the answer you're not looking for but its the answer your parents will give you.

 

You're 15, you're not to spend your money on something like that until you're old enough to understand the value of money.

 

At your age I was exactly the same, not understanding why I "can't do that with my money" as there was plenty of things I wanted and knew I had money to spend but wasn't allowed to. I am 21 and have my own job and I totally understand why my parents wouldn't allow me to spend the money I had put to the side. Yes it was my money, no I wasn't allowed to spend it because I wasn't deemed old enough (mature enough) to spend it on something sensible. 

 

That is unfortunately the situation you will be in, wait till your birthday/christmas and ask for one as a present instead of spending the money your parents clearly want you to save and not spend on a PC.

[Hiebly]

tell ur dad he can play solitaire on it

[xentropa]

Tell then you want ro do somethig productive, like programming.

[Gale]

5 hours ago, sof006 said:

You're 15, you're not to spend your money on something like that until you're old enough to understand the value of money.

I know parents mean well when they do this, but it's the completely wrong way to approach this. You are not teaching a child anything by not letting them spend money they worked for, you're just obstructing them.

 

He earns some money, that's a good start. Instead of forbidding him from spending that money at all, they should teach him how to budget. Maybe they could tell him that he can buy one part for every X amount of dollars he earns. That way he can balance spending vs earning; it would also teach him patience.

 

My parents were exactly the same, they flat out didn't trust me because I was young instead of teaching me. I wish they would have actually taught me about personal finance since my high school didn't. It's not like I turned out to be homeless or a criminal, but I would have matured much faster.

[Energycore]

6 hours ago, HyerJohn said:

Hi! I'm a new member, but hopefully I can get some help with this. I am a 15 year old heading into my sophomore year of high school, and I want to build a PC. I primarily use my current computer, a slow, laggy 2013 'gaming' laptop from Lenovo, to play games with friends and do homework (during the school year), however, they are opposed to me using the computer more than 3 hours a day during the summer, saying I need to "go outside and play with your friends" during the hot Texas summers. I have gathered a list of parts, watched many videos on how to build a PC, but my parents won't let me build one with my own money that I have saved up. They say that me being able to spend the $1000 I have saved up by running a dog-sitting business for the last 2 summers is a reward for "getting my **** together", which everyday when my Dad comes home from work says that I have done  by keeping my room clean, helping my mom around the house, and doing anything asked of me.

 

Please help with this! I have told them it would be a learning experience, that it is a goal I have worked towards, nut nothing has worked! 

Maybe you can convince your parents if you only use a fraction of your budget. A good gaming experience can be had for $500, even less so if it's for homework.

 

It seems like your parents are concerned with you blowing all your savings at once. But you don't have to, and honestly shouldn't. College is expensive yo.

[Energycore]

6 hours ago, HyerJohn said:

 

Here's another idea: perhaps your laptop is slow because it's become bogged with unwanted software or system configurations? If you can give us the model number or specifications for it, we may be able to tell you whether you can make it run faster.

[sof006]

4 hours ago, Gale said:

I know parents mean well when they do this, but it's the completely wrong way to approach this. You are not teaching a child anything by not letting them spend money they worked for, you're just obstructing them.

 

He earns some money, that's a good start. Instead of forbidding him from spending that money at all, they should teach him how to budget. Maybe they could tell him that he can buy one part for every X amount of dollars he earns. That way he can balance spending vs earning; it would also teach him patience.

 

My parents were exactly the same, they flat out didn't trust me because I was young instead of teaching me. I wish they would have actually taught me about personal finance since my high school didn't. It's not like I turned out to be homeless or a criminal, but I would have matured much faster.

I still agree with parents. They don't want him to spend it as they'd rather he put it towards something else. They might not have an issue with him spending some of the money but ideally they probably want him to save it and then spend it on something that will be useful later in life. Put it in a savings account so it builds interest, help towards education or a house etc.

[scottyseng]

I kind of feel for the parents, but at the same time, I think three hours limit on the PC is a tad extreme...

 

I myself regret building a gaming PC ($500, 2500K, some HD radeon GPU, hard drive, and 8GB ram) for my cousin who was also around 12 at the time. He then got addicted to upgrading his PC (New CPU, GPU, SSDs, and numerous cases). He's also heavily addicted to gaming, to the point where he's going poor in school now. I know it's not my fault for how the owner uses the PC, but I still can't help feel guilty since I helped convince his parents to build the PC for him. Now I'm having to his parents change the wifi password and disconnect the internet to his PC so he does school work before the PC...He's approaching 16 and I'm heavily worried about his high school grades. He doesn't seem college ready at all.

 

I myself though, I got my first PC when I was 11? It was some HP prebuilt because I didn't know PCs well at that time (I didn't have much time on the internet either). As I got better at PCs, my dad pushed me to learn Revit and AutoCAD to blueprint for him, Office for invoicing, and I went on to learn the Adobe suites and more Autodesk stuff. My parents let me do what I wanted with my money, and I took art as a hobby alongside the PC stuff I have. I've also gotten into photography and music production as well.

 

It can be a positive or a negative thing depending on the responsibility of the person.

[mikat]

just buy a pc that is cheaper, because to your parents, a 500$ pc is a lot more reasonable than a 1000$ pc

[Albatross]

It will probably suck for you but either respect your parents decision or ignore them and spend your money how you want. There is a reason they do not believe you need a PC nor to spend more than three hours on it than you should. I personally say save your money man/listen to your parents.

[thekeemo]

Go used so you dont blow it all?

[arnavvr]

What's the point in building a PC if your parents are going to restrict the amount of time you can use on it anyways?

[Clyne]

Or maybe you could just get a cheap upgrade for your laptop, an SSD will suffice for a upgrade in performance.

I had a slow 5400RPM drive in my HP laptop, replaced it with a Sata 2 Intel X-25M SSD and it was a major improvment.

[Kobathor]

On 6/24/2016 at 7:12 PM, sof006 said:

You're 15, you're not to spend your money on something like that until you're old enough to understand the value of money.

I'm 16, I've been building my computer since I was 13. My dad lets me spend the money that I earn almost however I want. Just last week I spent $100 on a pair of Shure SE215's. Why? Because I wanted them. In my opinion, if you're 15, and you're earning any sort of income that isn't allowance from your parents, then you're mature enough to spend your money on things you deem valuable.

 

I put money into savings, but I also have an amount that I choose with which I can spend on (almost) whatever I want. I have spent hundreds on my computer. I've spent around $300 on just peripherals. When I was 9 I spent $200 of Christmas money on an iPod touch! I fully understand how to spend money and save money responsibly, I've been doing it since I was 12. I've never had the thought of "I cannot spend money on (X) because (X.)" Maybe it's because I've never tried to spend money on anything ridiculous, but I digress. Just because they are young does not mean they are stupid. 

 

Some things- yes, you must tell your kid "no" if they ask to buy something. But if they're making their own money, they're saving responsibly, and they're conscious with their spending, then why not let them spend hundreds on their computer?

[Guest]

15 hours ago, scottyseng said:

I kind of feel for the parents, but at the same time, I think three hours limit on the PC is a tad extreme...

 

I myself regret building a gaming PC ($500, 2500K, some HD radeon GPU, hard drive, and 8GB ram) for my cousin who was also around 12 at the time. He then got addicted to upgrading his PC (New CPU, GPU, SSDs, and numerous cases). He's also heavily addicted to gaming, to the point where he's going poor in school now. I know it's not my fault for how the owner uses the PC, but I still can't help feel guilty since I helped convince his parents to build the PC for him. Now I'm having to his parents change the wifi password and disconnect the internet to his PC so he does school work before the PC...He's approaching 16 and I'm heavily worried about his high school grades. He doesn't seem college ready at all.

 

I myself though, I got my first PC when I was 11? It was some HP prebuilt because I didn't know PCs well at that time (I didn't have much time on the internet either). As I got better at PCs, my dad pushed me to learn Revit and AutoCAD to blueprint for him, Office for invoicing, and I went on to learn the Adobe suites and more Autodesk stuff. My parents let me do what I wanted with my money, and I took art as a hobby alongside the PC stuff I have. I've also gotten into photography and music production as well.

 

It can be a positive or a negative thing depending on the responsibility of the person.

i been playing on my pc since i was about 7, wasn't really a pc enthusiast til i was about 13/14, im now 17, have sort of good knowledge on computer stuff (networking, programming, hardware.. etc) and im really now bored of games , i still play daily but its because i don't go out or have anything else to do really (i suppose your cousin is doing the same) but just hope that eventually he gets bored of them or feels like learning more stuff like i did, hes still got time.

and the school part im sort of very similar, i sleep til around 2-3 am every day and sleep at school, somehow still manage to pass (i say somehow bc i dont know how, haven't done homework since freshman year, now becoming a senior) .i'd say you should let the parents worry about that, but he should be alright, you changing the password could be doing him good as well as doing him bad, he could hate you because of doing so, or he could learn how to "hack" the network and get acces no matter how you see it.

 

And just a personal opinion, its not your fault.

[Clanscorpia]

7 minutes ago, PeloyGeek said:

 and im really now bored of games ,

Lol same  I spend most of my PC time now researching on my PC 

[scottyseng]

10 minutes ago, PeloyGeek said:

-snip-

Yeah, I've always been a creator type of person, video games never interested me much...I always wanted to make them instead. I also spend my time on my PC programming or learning new software. For sure though, if I hadn't have gotten my first PC back in 2007, I probably would be far less tech literate than I am now. I think my regret with my PC in my middle school years is not starting to program back then.

 

Yeah, but the parents keep bugging me I need to teach him about college / school, etc. I get that I want to help him out, but it's hard to help someone that you know doesn't want to do it. Definitely changing the password is a double edge sword. Though if he actually does learn how to hack a wifi network, at least he's learning something. lol. I told his parents how to change the wifi protection to WPA-2 AES and to use a long password to make it really hard to bruteforce. I have a feeling he's going to try to illegally tether on his phone though. I hope he cleans up his act though, otherwise he's going to struggle through college having to start at the bottom.

 

Yeah, I'm also upset because we did a PC build for his friend and he tried to con me out of money (I put some of my old parts into the build) so he could buy new PC parts for his PC. He lied to his parents he had paid me but he ran off with the money...it made me look bad because the parents thought I was trying to con them (because they thought I was paid already yet I was asking for the money). His parents never found out what actually did happen to the rest of the money that was supposed to go to me for my parts...they ended up having to pay me out of their pocket.

[Z-Gaming]

16 hours ago, scottyseng said:

I kind of feel for the parents, but at the same time, I think three hours limit on the PC is a tad extreme...

 

I myself regret building a gaming PC ($500, 2500K, some HD radeon GPU, hard drive, and 8GB ram) for my cousin who was also around 12 at the time. He then got addicted to upgrading his PC (New CPU, GPU, SSDs, and numerous cases). He's also heavily addicted to gaming, to the point where he's going poor in school now. I know it's not my fault for how the owner uses the PC, but I still can't help feel guilty since I helped convince his parents to build the PC for him. Now I'm having to his parents change the wifi password and disconnect the internet to his PC so he does school work before the PC...He's approaching 16 and I'm heavily worried about his high school grades. He doesn't seem college ready at all.

 

I myself though, I got my first PC when I was 11? It was some HP prebuilt because I didn't know PCs well at that time (I didn't have much time on the internet either). As I got better at PCs, my dad pushed me to learn Revit and AutoCAD to blueprint for him, Office for invoicing, and I went on to learn the Adobe suites and more Autodesk stuff. My parents let me do what I wanted with my money, and I took art as a hobby alongside the PC stuff I have. I've also gotten into photography and music production as well.

 

It can be a positive or a negative thing depending on the responsibility of the person.

Hey man, i was exactly like your cousin. I went to school and only thought of what game i would play when i returned home and what i should do in X game... at the age of 16, i quit gaming on my own, cause i thought to myself that i didnt earn something from it. I didn't study, but i didnt play either, so the addiction wore off (if i can say that). I'm sure your cousin will do the same thing at one point, especially when he gets a girlfriend who will drag him around... I am 18 now and haven't played any serious game since then. Well, i do have plans for college  but that is entirelly up to me, and i think i can deal with it + the amount of homework i'll have. As far as the money spending think goes, i used to get 5euros/day to eat luch at school, and because i wanted to save, i ate something that cost like 50 cents, and now 2 years after, i am planning a 2k euro PC build, to get me through all 3.5 years of university (plus gaming, recording and rendering (like everyone does nowadays :/) ). Kids that are able to save money and not be reckless should also be able to spend it the way they want. 

[Mr.Meerkat]

I'm 16, my parents are supportive of me doing anything productive or that would help to lead me somewhere. They know I want to get a computing degree so they allowed me to build my computer with my own money (back in 2014 when I was 14 ) as they knew it would teach me the inner workings of a computer as my father has a computing degree (and has programmed computer modeling and physics software for his company...which he holds the Patent for...hee hee hee) so he saw the benefit of it plus my 2008 lappy was dying so you know .

My parents are also supportive in my getting a PPL as they know I've always wanted to become a pilot (still wanna become one since I was 5) and they have agreed to pay 50% of the fees as long as I drive myself to the airfield which is a 2 hours drive away (bye bye edinburgh flying club...now I have wait an extra year ).

 

I'm only saying this is so you can see that money isn't the biggest problem (well this depends on the situation you're in) but whether your parents can see how it will benefit you. I was a computer enthusiast since I was 7 years old, I fixed PCs when I was 12 (this includes completely rebuilding a pre-built). I can now go down to my local PC repair shop and get a job there if I wanted as a saturday job.