"I got a small inheritance from my grandmother, and my dad INSISTED that I needed to use it as the down payment for a house. "You're a fool if you don't invest that money in a house for yourself and your kids." I'd run the math over and over and didn't think I could really afford it—we were stretching it thin in our apartment, and not only was the mortgage payment (including taxes and insurance) going to be more, but I knew our utilities would go up as well and there'd be repairs and such down the line. But every time I tried to talk to dad about it, he said 'just do it; you can't miss this opportunity, and we'll figure the rest out.'"
"So I bought the most affordable house I could find near decent schools, and for a few months things went well... and then the maintenance costs started catching up, kinda like I thought they would. So the next time I talked to Dad, he asked how things were, and I said 'Well, it's been fine, but now it's summertime and our utility bills are high and I'm struggling to make ends meet. I could use some help figuring this out.' And that SOB, from the comfort of his million-dollar home on a golf course, said 'Well, Sasstoreth, maybe you need to think about whether you can really afford that house.'"
Like that makes a lot of sense now.