To not buy this video game? DS12

[Whoopstheregomyinsides]

DS12 wants a specific game which all his friends just bought with savings/ birthday money. He wants me to loan the money and he'll pay it back- my suggestion was through jobs. He said he would but hasn't come to me with a list of jobs he'll do, which is what I asked for to make him think a bit about the loan. Just keeps asking for game. Do I buy it and tell him what he needs to do? Or do I, as currently thinking, refuse unless he proves he will work to get it. He has no concept of saving money FWIW and blew all his birthday money and every tenner he's had here and there, ever since his birthday
Friends have bought it with their own money or 50/50 or gifts for birthday
What should I do to not be queen bitch but also make him put a teeny bit of effort in?

Wait till he has written the list and completed all the jobs then get it him?

I was thinking chores on a repeat basis like dishwasher for a few weeks etc
Or ask him to do one set of housework with me tonight to show he means it about helping?

So he's pay it off quicker the more he helped kind of deal?

Don't buy it until he has earned it by completing agreed tasks!

I would make him earn the money before he gets the game (because if you buy the game and get him to pay you back you'll never see that money ). But I would help him with the list or make the list for him - if he's not doing some of the jobs already, he probably doesn't know what they are (or more likely, since he is 12, thinks they are done by magic)

Definitely don't buy it for him.
You're not the bad one here. He needs to learn about money. He blew his money when he could have saved it.
So he needs to earn the money first and then buy it...
Help him with the list though as others have said he might not know about which chores need doing.

He absolutely thinks things happen by magic

Use it as a lesson in how to save?

DS1 is useless with money and can't save it if it's left up to him but when I started doing his pocket money "virtually" ie on a spreadsheet as though it was a virtual bank account, rather than giving him cash, he's been able to save much easier as I help him divide it up into spendable and savings, and then he physically can't touch it.

You could do this with a real bank account and standing order for pocket money too, I just find a virtual one works for us.

So anyway - first provide him with:

• Somewhere to put money that he can't get at it and spend it
• Some (preferably visual) way to see the money building up towards his goal of the game.

Then if you want, offer him the opportunity to speed things up by doing some jobs which will get him a few coins towards the total so that he can see that trickling in as well.

I would highly recommend a chart that shows how his money has grown over time, rather than one which just shows the current state of his money, but either works.

What's the game? Is it really expensive or something?

£50! So expensive to me

Don't buy it until he has earned it by completing agreed tasks!

Otherwise you are choosing, as his parent, to teach him how to get into unmanageable debt for frivolous nonsense. Hardly a great lesson!

I agree that he should do the jobs first. He needs to make the connection between earning and having. This is how you teach it.

A £50 game I would be making him wait until Christmas.

I’d do the list of jobs and what they are worth. I wouldn’t make a child come up with a list of jobs.
Does he get any weekly/monthly pocket money at all? You might want to consider setting that up. He will never learn if the only money he handles is birthday/Christmas/random gift money.

He has a debit card thing - Go Henry which I think I'll "pay" him for jobs on then he can go to bank and withdraw the cash and hand it over so he "sees" the money and feels it leave him
Jobs list underway