Apple Inc (AAPL)

[Jim is Jim]

degackz: understood, but part of my thinking is that I don't want to spoil the child with the latest greatest computer right before going off to college -- besides, she might choose a college that requires/includes a laptop... trying not to have her expect/feel entitled to anything... for example, she turns 16 soon (she is very young for a HS jr.), but no car... in fact, I've told her we will never buy her a car, while she lives at home she is welcome to borrow one of ours if we're not using them (and I know they will be safe, reliable and insured)...

Did I mention that the iDaughter now uses (when the iWife wins the fight over the macbook) a 6-yr-old G4? So anything I buy right now will be a big improvement from her perspective.

When I graduated from HS, my folks gave me a used portable manual typewriter and a dictionary... I bought a used bike and built my own stereo (except speakers)...

I don't think I'd be a bad dad foisting a lightly used 1-1/2 year old laptop on the child... if it isn't good enough, she's welcome to buy her own (as she did her own iPod and Playstation)... I'll be using the new one to manage my finances and make sure I have enough money to lend her when she needs money (at prevailing interest rate -- just as my parents charged me when I borrowed money from them in college)...

Jim
(is aka Scrooge Dad)

PS. AAPL and my other investments have done so well the past couple of years that I donated my cardboard box under the freeway overpass to a homeless family who lost their home to fire, and I moved on up to a plywood and tarp shack down on the banks of the San Luis Rey River just upstream from the migrant worker camps... also have ditched the sterno for TJ Swan and MadDog 20/20... hizzonnner