Re 17 year old DSS

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17 year old DSS lives with us full time he a good boy and he a fully integrated member of the family before anyone accuses me of being the wicked step mother

He turns 17 in May and Dh and I (family finances so joint decision) have said that we will buy him a car and pay for his insurance for his birthday and Christmas presents this year we will obviously get him a few extra bit but the budget is blown by the car.

Our budget is circa £5k for both and we have been looking at what option we can get for a car. DSS wants a VW up which all seem to be more expensive than our budget and he is now just moaning about the fact that he doesn't like any of the other cars this has really annoyed me

He gets £135 a month allowance and on top of that we pay for his phone £56 month and in non covid times gym membership and give him money for lunch at college. Again in non covid time we pay for him to do his hobby which is an additional £129 a month.
Our cleaner has recently left and I said to DSS did he want to do it and I would pay him the same £14 an hour as he will need to run his car etc. ( I'm not talking about the toilets) but the other jobs and he said no

We also have 2 dogs and i've offered to pay him to walk the dogs a couple of times a week so its one less thing for me and Dh to do. Doesn't want to do it

I feel like he is a spoilt brat . Dh is bloody fuming and told him that he needs to stop buying crap with his saved pocket money and he is going to have pay for his driving lessons and provisional licence.

I'm now feeling a bit mean but he is just so spoilt and has literally no idea about the value of money (which is our fault) and was saying yesterday he will take his car to be cleaned once a week instead of doing it himself

How would you deal with this and getting to stop being so bloody lazy!!

There's nothing like a job for getting teens to appreciate the value of money. I noticed that you are looking for the jobs. This is proof that his allowance is too high imo. My 17yo gets £80 pm, phone, school dinners and car insurance paid for. She finances savings, clothes, going out, petrol and cosmetics with her allowance and wages. She found and applied for her job (barista) as did her brother who worked in retail in Sixth Form.

He's a spoilt brat but you clearly spoil him.

That's super spoiled.
I think you guys are really generous

Why should you clean his skiddy toilet bowl but the little princeling is too good for it?

And paying for someone else to clean his imaginary car every week????

He 👏 needs 👏 to 👏 wake 👏 up 👏 to 👏reality 👏

I would just give him the 5k. That way he can either find something within the budget or save from his allowance to add to it.

We too had to ask our parents to just stop handing money to the grandkids willy nilly a few years ago. They never ran out of money so weren’t learning budgeting.

We are generous with them, and they probably are a bit too entitled- but they have been expected to work from age 16. Our motto has been “we will help you, if you show us you are helping yourself”

Thinking back dd used to pay her own gym membership out of her allowance when she was 17. She is training to be a professional dancer and saw it as something she had to budget for.

@TeenMinusTests it's a Rio. I love driving it and I've been lucky enough to drive all sorts of nice/expensive vehicles over the years. You can also get 3 adults in the back. I think it's a 1.2 and DD is gutted if she doesn't get 50mpg out of it. My dad is more leaden-footed and has only been doing shorter trips so doesn't do as well as DD.

I have managed to get a double bass in it but it was a bit awkward. I am one of those crazy people who rocks up to car showrooms with a boot full of instruments, but in my defence, if they don't fit in, I can't buy the car. Sorry I can't remember who asked about the keyboard, but I'd take the box with me to try (saves wear & tear on the instrument).

Jesus your DSS is being very ungrateful and is going to have a shock in the real world. My DD is in year 13 and I pay for her phone £35 and she gets an allowance of £40 per month.

I also bought DD a car (VW Polo) and paid for insurance BUT she was very vocal how grateful she was and plus I can afford to do this.

Time to claw back OP, at the minimum when I am at work and it is either school holidays or DD is at online school I expect the dishwasher sorted and washing machine emptied. So if your DSS is still getting a car then this needs to be on condition of chores and not paid for. Time to sit down and ask how is he paying for lessons/petrol etc. It is one thing giving your children nice things but the moment they take it for granted then I would not be happy. Time for your DH to toughen up and have a serious chat about the cost of everything.

Honestly this needs an extra option of everybody sucks here. He’s a spoilt brat but that’s the outcome of your decisions.

£135 a MONTH pocket money? Plus phone contract? Does he do any chores at all? I’m guessing not. You offer to PAY him even more to do chores like cleaning or dog walking? Yikes.

How will he learn the value of money if you don’t teach him.

He needs a reality check. Has he never helped with cleaning before? Cleaning was something shared by the whole family in my house. I hoovered and cleaned the bathrooms, every single week. My brother cleaned the kitchen. My sister had to mop and dust, etc etc. No one moaned, it was a normal part of family life just as sitting at the table to eat was.

£56 a month phone contract? I’m an adult with a well paid full time job and my contract is £10.

£135 a month allowance, at 16? I don’t have that much disposable income after paying for my bills and food. Is he one of those people who, if going to uni, will also have this huge allowance and won’t understand why his housemates need to turn the heating down I n winter, as they can’t afford extra bills?

He is very very spoilt. This is not preparing him for real life.

Mal Thanks.

[quote Malbecfan]@TeenMinusTests it's a Rio. I love driving it and I've been lucky enough to drive all sorts of nice/expensive vehicles over the years. You can also get 3 adults in the back. I think it's a 1.2 and DD is gutted if she doesn't get 50mpg out of it. My dad is more leaden-footed and has only been doing shorter trips so doesn't do as well as DD.

I have managed to get a double bass in it but it was a bit awkward. I am one of those crazy people who rocks up to car showrooms with a boot full of instruments, but in my defence, if they don't fit in, I can't buy the car. Sorry I can't remember who asked about the keyboard, but I'd take the box with me to try (saves wear & tear on the instrument).[/quote]
That’s an excellent idea to take instruments with you. Digital piano has no box as such, just a hard case. Plus the stand of course.

Take back the offer he's entitled.

@Malbecfan we did similar, took the pushchair with us to make sure it'd fit in the boot of any car we buy!

I have a 17 year old.

She gets £40 a month (doubled to £80 if she does all her chores). Plus £10 sim for her phone.

She needs to feed the cats, walk one of the dogs. Hoover a room a day and clear up after dinner.

You’re spoiling DSS, no wonder he’s demanding and lazy.

The people I know of this age that want an up and then when they start physically looking at them they realise the ones in their price range have been written off or are a bit tatty so have worked down to Ibiza’s, corsa’s, aygos/c1 territory. It’s a shame the Fox was so damn ugly in comparison.
A quick search looks like they are in your price range which adds to the frustration, but they aren’t the ones you’d want to be sinking 5k into.

As a side note the Kia and Hyundai’s mentioned above by a op are more insurance friendly

He needs a reality check. Hold firm on the car budget, if he wants an Up then he needs to make up the difference himself. You've given him options to get it which he doesn't like. Hold firm and if he still bangs on, withdraw your very generous offer. Pay for the lessons and get him through the test and then leave him to get on with it and find and buy his own car out of his own money. He may feel hard done by, but that's tough. You are very generous parents clearly in a good financial position. He needs a reality check about life in the real world.

My own DDs paid for their own lessons and each got about £2k from grandma for their first cars and had to pay their own insurance. One DD wanted a Polo and put the extra in herself. Our financial situation at the time meant we couldn't give them all this ourselves. You are far from being mean parents!

I don't really get the rush to buy the car anyway. He's not even started lessons and might be a completely rubbish driver with no hope of ever passing!

I have teenagers and the eldest turns 17 in the next year.

You give him a massive allowance! Ours get £50 a month plus we pay for phone (a lot less than yours. .maybe shop around for a better deal?) Plus we contribute to gym membership but the teens pay some of that too. We pay for hobbies and essential clothes. The rest comes out of their allowance.

We are going to buy driving lessons for their 17th birthdays but no way would I be buying either of them a car if they had your DSS attitude.

My honest opinion is that he's been spoilt (materially)'and I would pull the plug on the car and get him to save up. Maybe go halves on it once he's saved a decent amount and changed his ungrateful attitude.

Ooh dear, spoilt entitled young man. I think the rot has probably set in now, but you can still put in boundaries, starting with the budget.

I'm a female and I saved up for my own old corsa as a first car when 17, paid for insurance and I did this whilst waitressing part time going college. I took really good care of my car and drove it for 6 years before it finally died (it was 10 years old when I first got it anyway). My mindset is that, money doesn't grow on trees, you have to work for things. This is why I'm a adult that has never relied on anyone for anything and never had trouble holding down a job.

Your DH and you are raising a spoilt entitled little man that will become a burden overtime. My parents never paid for these stuff and I'm grateful they didn't because I wouldn't have been in this position today if I didn't gain that mindset. I also married a man who comes from a similar mindset that we work hard and never rely on anyone. If I were you, I wouldn't buy him a car and save that money for something else in the future once he becomes a responsible adult for instance to get him on the property ladder. This will mean more in the future than a car. Let him save up for his first car. He doesn't need to drive a 5k car as a first time car anyway as he isn't experienced where he will scratch and crash it plus he isn't going to look after it nicely since you buy these things. He isn't going to value it. He needs to learn the value of money and he won't if you keep allowing yourselves to be sponged off like that.

Our youngest passed his driving test 2 months after his 17th birthday, we payed for his lessons and test, we did buy him a car but not until his 18th birthday, (it is an oldish 2007 corsa 1.0 engine) we also taxed, serviced and insured it, all together aroun £3000, he absolutely loved it and still does, he really appreciated it and in fact 2 months later at Christmas said he didn’t want anything for Christmas as the car was more than enough for both, obviously we did get him Christmas presents too, he never got any pocket money growing up but we would always buy anything he needed, he is a very grateful young man

When my son was this age and in college I gave him £50 pm and paid his phone of under £20 pm. I also gave him bus fares if he had to go to the other campus. When he started to learn to drive I bought him a block booking of 10 lessons for his birthday and the rest was on him so he got a part time job. When he passed his test he got use of my old car until he saved enough for something he wanted. He paid his own insurance.
He cleans the house because he lives here and it is the responsibility of everyone to keep it clean and that includes the toilets and bathrooms. No one pays me when I clean the loo so I don’t see why the rules should be different for him.
You have spoilt him and made him into what he is. You are now going to have sulking and entitled behaviour until you shake things up a little and stop being a mug.

I'm shocked at a 17 year old not doing any housework.

Why?

Yeah, I wouldn’t label him a good boy either. He sounds like a grasping entitled idiot with no concept of the value of anything.