There is something special about the first car you ever buy, and that is doubly true if you have memories of working on it with your father.

What would you do if years later, you found the exact vehicle from your childhood for sale, but you had to buy it right away and you had the money but it was supposed to go to your new baby’s college fund?

That is what happened to the guy in this story, so he spent all the money he and his wife had to purchase the vehicle without asking, which made her furious.

AITA for using money we “earmarked” for our 6 month old’s college fund to buy back the exact 1972 Ford Bronco I owned as a teenager?

So how to begin with this…I realize that on paper I am totally in the wrong, but when you dig deeper into my motivations I’m hoping its more of a grey area that anything else and maybe even I did the right thing.

Let’s get into the details.

When I was a teenager my dad bought me a classic 1972 Ford Bronco. It was my true passion and I don’t recall a memory from high school that somehow doesn’t involve that truck.

Plus my dad and I would spend hours and hours working on it together and we went through that especially father/son rough patch when I was teenager it was always that Bronco that brought us back together.

This would be devastating.

I made a huge mistake and sold the truck when I turned 19 and my dad died of a heart attack two months later so while not logical, I’ve always felt a karmic connection between the two events.

We had a baby in early February. She is our first and the light of my life.

Staying home with the children is a real blessing if you can make it work.

My wife is doing well but she’s back at work and she’s realized that she hates all the day cares we’ve tried and really wants to be a stay at home mom and plus she’s still very hormonal from delivery, lack of sleep and breastfeeding so she’s having a rough time and is angry a lot. I guess I need to say this.

Two weeks ago I was driving through our town’s warehouse district and saw a Bronco that was pretty beat up but resembled mine.

Wow, what are the chances?

I stopped just for nostalgias sake and the owner came out and let me take a look inside. My dad and I had glued a wheat penny under the dash as sort of security measure so I just sort of checked and goddamned if it wasn’t MY BRONCO!

I asked him if he’d ever consider selling it, he said actually someone was on I-25 as we spoke from Colorado to buy it for $21000.

That seems like a very high price for such an old vehicle.

I freaked out and asked him if I could buy it right then and there for $23000. He said if I could come up with the cash, yes. I had been procrastinating setting up a 529 so I had $12000 in savings that my wife’s parents had given us.

I maxed out my credit card to Venmo and my mom bought down a check for $4000 and I drove away in my old car. It was like a dream come true.

This was financially irresponsible, not to mention that he didn’t talk to his wife first.

Like a literal dream come true. It needs a lot of work I can’t afford right now but it’s mine. Like in my driveway mine. Again. I can’t even describe what a joy this is.

My wife and her parents are furious with me. They feel I was deceptive, that a “real” man would have sacrificed anything and everything so my wife could go stay at home with his kids and that’s setting aside that they gave us the money for a college fund.

It wasn’t only his money to spend.

My point is my daughter is only 6 months old, we have 18 years to set up a college fund of her.

But this Bronco means everything to me and if I wouldn’t have acted it would have been gone forever.

Still, this was very immature.

Now it can be that same connection between me and my kids. To me it’s the literal meaning of happiness.

Like I said on paper–jerk…whole story–grey area. How do you guys see it?

AITA?

He was way out of line. At the very least, he could have called his wife to ask for her thoughts on the deal before making the purchase.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about this story.

It really just doesn’t make sense.

This is inexcusable.

How can he even think it is a grey area?

It is hard to believe someone would do this.

Wow, this guy is beyond selfish.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a frugal woman who saved up the cash to buy her first home, only to be called out by the neighbors for “bringing the value down.”