to make DS pay for his own cleats?

[CheerfulYank]

DS is newly 15 and has been working at an ice cream place this summer (we’re American so he is out of school from the end of May until the first week of September). It’s only open through Halloween so he just has a handful of paychecks left (if he doesn’t get another job through the winter, which he might as I think he’s gotten pretty used to spending money!)

The reason he got a job (most kids in his year haven’t yet) is that he wants to go on an expensive band trip next year. I told him he’d have to get a job and make half the money (or at least show that he was putting forth the effort) because we couldn’t afford to pay for the whole thing. He agreed and got the job.

The issue is, he’s saved nothing. He buys snacks and drinks almost daily, protein powder, bought a custom color baseball glove for $200, and has bought 4 or 5 hats that cost upwards of $50 apiece, as well as various other stuff (t-shirts, various teen boy stuff).

He came to me today and said he needs new cleats for football that’s just starting up. These cleats are anywhere from $100-$200 and I just don’t have it to spare this week, nor are we likely to in the next few weeks.

With school starting soon DH and I have got all three of them to buy for (he has a little brother and sister, 9 and 7), all of their school supplies and odds and ends, parkas (we live in a cold climate so solid winter gear is a must).

Tonight I told him if he needs the cleats soon he’s going to have to buy them himself. He acted completely shocked and like I was being utterly ridiculous.

Am I? I feel bad. It’s just that we have paid a ridiculous amount for sports stuff in the past few years…wrestling camps, baseball camps, batting gloves, baseball gloves, cleats for two sports and wrestling shoes, the fees for three sports themselves, mouth guards etc, and everything has to be “the best”. As well as all this protein powder he thinks he needs and a gym membership that’s $50/month. DH grumbles about it but I have just always felt that this is what you do when you have kids, you pay for their passions and opportunities.

I can’t pay for the cleats right now regardless as I just do not have it, but AIBU to have him buy them? Should I pay him back for them later?

He’s our oldest so I’ve never dealt with any kind of teen/money stuff before.

Now is the time to talk to him about budgeting and priorities. He needs to learn about what needs to be paid for first (mortgage, debts, bills, basic food and transportation, savings for annual and irregular expenses) and how to decide what extras are affordable with what's left. Plus available money being shared around everyone, not just him.

He's one of five in the family, so if he wants the best equipment to do several sports and to go on expensive trips, he needs to pay a lot of the cost himself, or else his siblings will be going without or the family will be getting into debt and neither are an acceptable solution so he can have everything he wants.

Haven’t read all the detail but it seems to me:

• Your son wants to live the lifestyle of someone whose family has $XYZ


• Your family does not have $XYZ

Therefore, your son’s lifestyle needs to change. There is zero chance that gym membership is necessary for his sport, he can quit gym and instead run / do push ups etc. If he hasn’t paid up for his music trip then what is he doing buying expensive crap? Paid hobbies are a nice ‘extra’ if you have the cash. You don’t have the cash, neither does he, therefore some of his hobbies need to stop.

A big argument about all this now will get you a much nicer son later. Take him through your household budget, explain that he is asking for more than is available to him, and he’s going to have to face the fact that he’d like to be richer than he is. That doesn’t mean he’s deprived or hard done by, it means he is just like everyone else.

Thanks, that’s a really sensible way to put it. :)

The situation has deteriorated a bit…once he knew he had to purchase them on his own (I said I’d be willing to pay him back), he suddenly found a pair for $26 that seemed acceptable.

However he then proceeded to tell me he wants to join fall baseball and said he needed $120 to register by today, and furthermore he is not going on a planned 3 day trip to see my parents because he’ll miss the first day of football practice (which half the team will be missing as everyone is trying to wrap up summer stuff before school starts).

He hasn’t been to my parents’ house since February (they live over 300 miles away) and has seen them each separately this summer for about a day when they came here.

He kept saying that none of his friends have to deal with this and how he can’t believe we don’t have any money and why don’t we ever have it and blah blah blah. It honestly made me feel like shit.

I told him he IS going to see his grandparents and he’s not going to have an attitude while he does it or there will be no football or anything else.

I just don’t know where the line is. Obviously you should support your kids and their passions and goals, and if he works really hard a scholarship is possible and I want the best for him. But surely there is a line where you say we’re not scheduling the entire family’s lives and finances around one person's sports, right?!

Thanks for listening. I’m just ranting, I know. I feel pretty low about the whole thing.

I did use that line today when he was having a go about having immediate access to $120 for fall baseball. “My money is a finite resource!” 😉

My 16 yo DD has a part time job and our agreement is we pay for things she ‘needs’ so that would cover all sports equipment and fees plus a reasonable wardrobe of clothes. If she wants new jeans when she already has 4 pairs, she pays for them. She also saves half of what she earns. This was my suggestion and it has surprised me somewhat that she’s adopted it but she enjoys seeing her balance grow and knowing she will have a good amount to put towards a holiday after she finishes school. What she does with the other half is up to her and we have the thud of a parcel landing on the doorstep almost weekly from her online shopping exploits but that’s the reward for her hard work.

I think it’s unfair to move the goalposts on your son without notice. You need to be clearer about your expectations and agree on a % he will save towards the trip. But I don’t think he should suddenly have to pay for uniform items. I wouldn’t be buying the best of everything however, especially at 15 when he’s likely still growing. My 14yo DS knows he doesn’t get the top of the range stuff until it will last more than a season. But I happily buy my daughter $250 boots because she’s had the same shoe size for 4 years.

I think you can negotiate this . Offer to pay up to half. It's not your job to simply buy stuff for his sports- he needs guidance on how to be responsible with his money and take some pride in providing for himself.
I'm not worried about 'no notice' - if he feels it's too late to save money then I'd expect he do extra chores around house or source another job to help fund his half.
Who cares what other kids are doing? Most people are on debt - do you want him to grow up to be most people?

I'm interested in how many people have said they'd just pay for the cleats.

I'd have offered to give him the cost of the basic pair (a $26 contribution) and if wanted to upgrade to the luxury option, that's on him- either he pays out of his own money or has them as his Christmas/birthday present.

Good luck with the grandparent issue. I do have empathy with both of you about that one though- we arrange our holidays and weekends away around known dates for sports as much as possible, but it just dominates so much and makes it harder to see folk- we're mostly reliant on family coming to us these days, but the actives mean a lot to the kids so we do our best to accommodate them.

Yes, we do try to get around things that mean a lot to the kids, but in this case I seriously think there is only a week or two this year that DS has not played some sort of sport and refused to compromise about any of them.

Football last autumn rolled right into wrestling camps and then wrestling season and that overlapped with baseball…and then more baseball…and now football and apparently more baseball.

I’m trying to save up our pennies so we can go on a vacation a year from now (none of mine have ever been on a plane or seen the ocean) and when I talked about really trying to scrimp and save so we could go, his immediate response was “well I can’t, I’ll have baseball”.

I have a new 15 year old and although I'm UK, I feel that most 15 year old boys are similar in that they don't ever really think ahead or think of anyone but themselves in the short term. Similar to toddlers!! They are very self absorbed.

He has probably got used to have a disposable income and won't think ahead to plan or save.

I only have one child, we both decided this for a number of reasons but one of them being the general expense of teens that no one warns you about. We also have a very expensive uniform which has to include football boots too, as well as the football boots he needed for his team and given he grows like a weed, we've gone through 3 pairs last season alone.

Are his old ones good enough to sell to put the money towards his new pair? My Sons were around £60 a pair x 3 but sold them for around £30 as they were grown out of without much wear and tear.

Personally I think essentials fall to the parent to buy, including equipment needed for hobbies or school. We set an amount for general clothes and trainers too and he has the option to upgrade with his own money, e.g. I say he has £50 to spend on trainers and he will either choose a pair upto that or recently he added £40 and got some Nikes he wanted.

If I was you I would pay for the boots.

Moving forward, you need to start money training. Keep it simple, e.g. amount to spend, amount to save and teach him his spends are to last last till next pay day. Once it's gone, it's gone. Savings are so important but 15 year olds don't care so its important to make it habit as soon as.

From the age of 14, my Dad always took half of what I earned. I hated it but it meant coming to birthdays and christmas and anything extra I wanted to do, the money was there saved up and he would give it me back as needed.

I agree that the cleats should be paid by parents, as this is springing it on him last minute. However I would be making it clear there are consequences if he doesn't save enough for the trip. Since you can't actually back out of the trip then there needs to be a different money related consequence. The natural consequence of you having to fund his half of the trip cost is that there's less money for the family, so he should gets less spent on him. You could spend less on birthday and Christmas gifts for him and get only the most basic, safe version of sports equipment.

I don't understand your problem, he took the job at quite a young age to pay for a band trip. He either saves and goes or doesn't and misses out. That's a great life lesson right there. Why are you getting involved leave him to it. With regard to cleats I'd say it's unfair to decide he has to pay . If u genuinely don't have the money and that's the case for all your children then you need to explain that so he has option to pay. If you are still funding yr other dc hobbies then yes you should pay.

Time for a lesson on budgeting. What family money comes on and goes out. And an explanation that every time you have to put your hand into the pot then there is less for the trip.

If he wants to go to college later this problem is going to be his too. Better to set expectations early.

At this time the others don’t have any hobbies. They played softball and baseball earlier in the summer, a six week program, but their equipment and fees together were less than he is expecting for a single pair of cleats.

I’m involved with the band trip because as I said, we will have to pay for it regardless.

The reason I said he’d have to pay for them if he wanted them this weekend is that I wasn’t aware he needed them and don’t have the money right now.

I’ve told him I will pay him back a reasonable amount or deduct what he spends on them from the trip cost.

That would be a great big fat NO from me to the baseball. He's doing enough sports and sucking up enough of the family finances. How can you stand that attitude from him? That 120 would make a great start towards the family vacation fund. So would that 50 dollars a month he's spending on the gym. He can run and do push ups. Not to mention those two hours every time you could be doing something you want to do instead of sitting around waiting for him.

Its ok to say no to him. You seem a bit scared of saying no. Your younger children are seeing all this going on. Are you going to treat them exactly the same when they get to his age? Unlimited family money spent on their sports and hobbies, leaving you, the people who earn the money, going without?

Its a really bad lesson to teach them, that their interests are paramount and more important than everything else. You and their dad are working yourself into the ground to pay for it, and look at what you're getting in return. They get all this spent on them despite their attitude and lack of helping around the house.

If you do treat the younger ones differently when they get to that age, there going to resent that. It'll look like favouritism.

I’m not afraid to say no to him, actually :) My “no” when I really mean it is the stuff of legends among some of his friends; he just told me today that they’re still talking about the absolute bollocking they heard me giving him over the phone recently for calling me with an attitude while I was at work.

I think the sports stuff has just got out of hand because we’re surrounded by people who absolutely do think it’s reasonable to spend thousands and thousands of dollars and hours of their time on this kind of thing. Since he’s my oldest, it’s the first time I’ve gone through any of this and it’s hard to navigate. Even on this thread, some think I’m wildly unfair for not paying for the cleats and seem to think that paying for sports is just another part of parenting, no matter how expensive or time consuming.

We had a half decent talk tonight and he did apologize. I told him we’re not going to spend hours in the gym with him and we are going to decide a set budget for sports and equipment and he’ll have to make that work or pay the difference.

We’ll see how it goes. He wants to stop in the morning on the way to my parents’ house and get his cleats (he is paying for them but I will reimburse him some of it) and I said that will depend on his behavior and attitude in the morning.

thanks all.