Our son has spent £48k in a space of 18 months ?? This was a gift for him to save. Husband says it’s fine he’s young but I am so pissed off I’ve told him to move out in a month go find a place with his idle friends

The money was given to him. It was his. Thats how he chose to spend it. If he wasn't free to spend it as he chose then you should have paid it out directly to whoever or for whatever was acceptable to you and been clear about it.

if you have spoiled them rotten and created entitled and financially irresponsible people then since you don't have a time machine you can't change that. What you can do is accept your part in this and make changes going forward.

Split it into what you can control and what you can't.

You aren't in control of what he does with money he inherits from others but you don't have to give him your money.

Maybe he has to fall flat on his face with nobody to bail him out in order to learn.

Your children have to unlearn what you've raised them to believe which is going to be hard for them but its either that or continue to finance them their entire lives.

Of course kick him out. And no more money. Put it in trust or something until you and his dad die.

He needs to struggle now. To see what real life is and to learn how to cope as an adult. He's got a brilliant education behind him. He will be able to manage at the very minimum, the basics.

And you need a very serious chat with your DH about how your children, despite having high intelligence and great educations, are going to fail in life if some pretty drastic action isn't taken. He for one needs to step back and stop enabling these adults and prevent them from wasting their lives.

Travelling around the world sounds like a pretty good way to spend the money to me but he now needs to get a job and start his career.

Does he make money from the Tik tok thing?

I got a comparable amount at a comparable age and was told it was ultimately expected to be a house deposit, so I just parked it (then stuck in an ISA over the course of a few years) and continued as normal with my job and life when though technically I had access to it and nobody could have stopped me doing otherwise. I think it's absolutely possible to be sensible with that kind of sum in your 20s if expectations are set.

Not to the tune of 50k

I bought my first flat when I was 23
with a 10k deposit and a mortgage. I’ve since travelled all around the world on sabbaticals, breaks between jobs, career breaks, long holidays. Africa, Asia, lived in two parts of Europe for 6 months. All the time my flat generated an income whilst I was away and doubled in value over 10 years. A very sad individual indeed!

But who gave it to him? His parents are the reason he has no concept of money. It seems really unfair you’re now telling him he has to leave and saying on here how disappointed you are in him.
I don’t mean to sound harsh but you and your husband have created the situation.

I honestly doubt OP is middle class and afford a 9k instant transfer.

This exactly. You haven't failed as a parent. He has an Oxford degree. Your daughter's at Durham, They may be a bit flighty and irresponsible now but they'll settle down. Bit of tough love and cutting off the cash pipeline will sort it.

It should have been given in a trust with restrictions on what it could be used for…it never should have been handed to him. Your husband has to stop bailing him out but that’s a separate issue.

Well, that's the thing.
Op's son knows there's more money on the the way and it seems that asking hos dad for £9k (and them more...) as a one off isn't a big deal.
Mind boggling for me, but it's how some people live.

YABU, you gave a young man in his 20s a shit ton of money and he spent it. Shocker.

At least he spent the money on memories he will never forget.

If he was lazy and unemployable it would be different but he has an engineering degree from Oxford. He has plenty of time to earn decent money.

He doesn’t have the money for a house deposit, he will have to pay extortionate rent for a while and live in the real world. His choice. I bet he doesn’t regret a thing.

I think teaching young people about the value of money and the reason to work hard starts from childhood. Something seems to have gone awry here. I listened to the book ‘Psychology of Money’ recently and might be worth a listen. It could help you see this in the wider context of how money has been talked about in your family, society and social groups your son belongs to. And therefore why this happened. It happened in a particular context and it’s useful to try and understand.

I personally tend to agree it was totally daft to gift a young person so much without very specific agreement about what it was for. I would have thought deposit on a first property. But a bit late for that now.

I have a dd at Oxford and nobody she knows ‘plays hard’ , there isn’t any time.

I’m not sure you can spoil your kids and then complain they are spoilt.

However, a gift is a gift. Once you give the money away it’s up to the recipient how they spend it. It would be nice to think, travelling the world should hopefully have have given him invaluable education and experiences and made him a more rounded human. Unless he was burning it in front of homeless people while spaffing champagne like an Eton tory rich boy.

Personally I’d rather see my kids experience the world at 23 than be a cog in someone’s machine and weighed down with a mortgage before they’ve had a chance to travel.

Throwing him out seems disproportionate. Supporting (maybe not financially!) and encouraging positive next steps would be better.

Is he actually making money from social media? Anything close to £50k yet? I suppose if he's made a social media career out of travelling you could look at it as he invested the money in building a career. It's a pretty short lived, insecure and vacuous career but it's his choice I guess.

Don't give him any more money - then he'll have to get a job. He might regret spending the £50k when he has to pay rent because he has no house deposit; he might not regret it because he has memories he regards as priceless, but if he think he's spent more than enough on having a good time - which he certainly has - don't enable further freeloading.

Exactly this and according to posters on here apparently he learned far more during travelling than his degree

Really

Sitting about most days rat arsed and doped up probably in any old bar with a load of other rich kids, great learning experience.

I think 25 as an absolute minimum age to hand out a large cash sum. I was given money saved by my grandparents when I was 18 or 19, a much smaller sum (£1000) but it was a long time ago, in the 80s. I spent the lot far too quickly on clothes and living expenses (as I also stupidly left home even though I was doing a course in the same city). Honestly I was such an idiot . So hopefully your son has had some great experiences, and will be more financially sensible as he gets older.
Engineering at Oxford is intense, maybe he did feel burnt out and needed to do something joyful for a while,

I think there is a certain type of person that is called to long term travel, and they seem to absolutely cherish it. It would be a nightmare for me, but I can appreciate that for others they make lifelong friendships and memories!

It’s probably time to cut the apron strings and stop funding him all together. Any other gifts should be conditional if you feel strongly about how it should be used. He is free to refuse the gift if he doesn’t want to spend it accordingly.

It sounds as though you and your husband have a lot of money. Have your children grown up watching you both work hard? My parents have always been extremely generous with money (always offered, never requested), and I’ve always been grateful and sensible with it because I saw how hard they both worked for it.

The only other thing I’d say is that I think you need to remove your expectations of your children, and stop projecting your wishes for them onto them. I understand their potential, and it seems to you to be wasted, but this is their lives to live. They need to make choices for them, and find their own way to happiness (however that looks to them).

So you could say, he invested the 50k in setting up a small business as an influencer?

This generation is different to mine. Typically they don’t graft. They do the bare minimum or slightly less, they act selfishly, they don’t respect experience or wisdom. The world “owes them”. Many of them see the world burning down ecologically and want to enjoy it while they still can. Many of them genuinely don’t want a traditional job, relationship or family.

So your son would have worked pretty hard at Oxford. But he would also have played hard too. It is a fabulous experience and real life seems like a let down afterwards. I absolutely don’t blame him for wanting to travel.

Will he regret frittering away all that money? Maybe. We all have regrets. If he knows there is more to inherit, then he probably feels quite safe. With a STEM degree from Oxford he won’t be unemployable.

I think your fury is misplaced. He didn’t do what you would have done with the money; he didn’t appreciate your hopes that he would buy a home and settle down. But few men in their early 20s want to do that. They crave adventure and who can blame them?

I would let this one slide. And for gods sake stop your dh bailing him out any more!

Its really come to something when people think its appropriate to slag people off for being sensible, buying property, saving well, getting a job. We are completely fucked as a country with these attitudes.

Such a middle class luxury and privilege to just 'worry about all that later'.

Does your husband come from a well off background where this kind of stuff is normal?

Do you live a lifestyle where 50k would actually make a difference to you, or is it money you’d have available anyway?

Did your son have full choice about his studies!? Exams, career path, uni etc.?

Just not true.
My dds got control of their money at 18.
They know thats all there is til we pop our clogs (!), so they have been sensible.
Dd1 has added to hers over the years and I think dd2 will do the same.
Dd1 is currently looking for a permanent graduate position (she has a temporary one atm) and dd2 is deciding whether to go to uni.
What they do is up to them, but working hard is non negotiable when you aren't born with a silver spoon/have industry contacts 🤷‍♀️

I think you have to try to move past your disappointment for your own sake.

But yes absolutely he needs to move out asap and start standing on his own two feet. He’s got a degree, he’s healthy, he should be supporting himself. Don’t frame this as a punishment but as a totally normal life stage you are expecting him to undertake willingly. And of course he will always have a bed and a meal at your house but this should be for visits, emergencies or pre-agreed for a finite amount of time (like if he’s between flats for a couple of weeks or waiting to work abroad). It will be for the best for all of you- including him.

Quickest way to realise the value of money is to run out of it and face the consequences.

And yes don’t make the same mistake twice, if it’s your money don’t give anything to your younger children. Either wait until they are 30, or in a solid job and want to buy a house etc, then transfer directly to the solicitor!!