WWYD: Son and Money

[ClamFandango]

DS (15yo) gets £60per month allowance, from which he pays for his phone contract (sim only: £6), and all non-school uniform clothes plus socialising, snacks etc.
He is not good at saving, although we encourage him to save £30 per month - so that it doesn't all get spent on snacks and small things. On top of that he will usually ask for money from family for birthday and Christmas, and usually gets given about £150 in total each time. He tends to save up for a bit and then blow the lot on a big ticket item (usually equipment for his music hobby, clothes or gifts for friends).
He recently bought his sister a v generous birthday gift, and a valentine gift for his girlfriend. Then he dropped his mobile phone and it broke - repair cost barely less than replacement (with secondhand reconditioned phone), so he spent £200 on a new secondhand phone, which cleaned his savings out and we had to advance him £60, which wipes out his next two months' savings (so his allowance is down to £30 per month, which is generally earmarked for phone contract and snacks at school).
This morning he was sad that he won't be able to buy his best friend a birthday present next month, and got very defensive when I suggested he was angling for a further loan / more cash from us. I said he wasn't getting any more money from me beyond the allowance, less the loan he already owes, and he had to learn to save more prudently.

We could afford to give him something to buy the friend a present, but the purpose behind the allowance is to teach him budgeting. We feel so mean saying "tough luck - you've spent up and that's it. Tell your friend you'll get him something in a couple of months' time". AIBU to take this stance?

DS is 15. He gets £60 a month and we pay for gym membership (£10 I think) and phone sim (£10) on top. We buy his clothes. We tend to top those up when he's growing out of things e.g. I gave him £100 to go shopping a few weeks ago because he needed some new jeans and some t-shirts (he didn't spend it all, so I got some change).

The £60 covers socialising, friends birthdays etc. and anything he wants to save up for, but it's very much up to him how he spends it. We have mobile phone insurance with our bank so if he dropped his, it would be covered, though he would be expected to pay the excess.

I get that you want to teach him to manage his money, and pay the consequences for breaking the phone, but in terms of your WWYD, in your shoes I would have given him a bigger loan to be paid back to help out with the phone so he wasn't wiped out for the next couple of months.

I'm intrigued how you know people comment on "how stylishly he dresses"? Was that one of your friends or one of his?

You're clearly being told by everyone here YABU.

I'm like loads of PP: 17 Yr old gets £50 a month, but we cover phone (& repairs), Xbox subscription, all clothes, friend's birthdays, if he sees his gf for a day out & we bought him a year's cinema pass for part of his Xmas. All pretty normal.

Personally instead of pushing the savings - which I agree is sensible - I'd be offering to buy a decent protective case for his phone up to the value of £30.

Then he won't need to spend £200 on new phones when they get broken.

If you can't afford it then you can't afford it - it's not an easy allowance for a teen to manage clothes and socialising on, but that's immaterial if that's what's affordable.

YANBU to make them live within their means, budgeting is a life skill and you'd be doing them no favours if you let them spend more than you can afford to give them.

Get a job. They are a lot more careful with money when they know they have earned it.

My daughter worked very hard throughout her exams and still managed to hold down a small part time job and external clubs. She knew that she couldn't do homework on Saturday afternoon as she was in work- so she made sure she had time over the weekend to fit it all in. She took extra hours in the summer when she had more time.

Now she has her 'own' money, she is much more responsible with it.

Gosh that's harsh !! Id never expect a 15 yr old to save 50% of his allowance !! Give him the money for the friend's present, don't be so mean

You need to make sure the new phone is covered by your home contents insurance tbh. It's pennies and would have avoided all this.
I agree with the other posters that at 15 you should still be buying his clothes. He's still a child.

The carelessness with his phones is very annoying. Destroying 3 smartphones in a couple of years is really shitty of him actually.

Overall you are being a bit harsh though, I think give him the option to earn £20 for his friend's birthday with some chores he wouldn't normally so.

It’s really easy to smash a smart phone if you don’t have a decent protective cover on it.

I am SO tempted to reply to each individual message not getting the point about the "savings".
My fault for using the word "savings" I suppose.

It reminds me of a thread recently where someone thought that investments in the stock market were not savings. Savings were cash in a building society account, set aside for emergencies.

I should have just said he gets £60 per month to spend and left it at that.

Anyhoo, we have agreed with him that the £60 loan towards the replacement phone is repayable over 4 months, so he will have £45 for the next 4 months, which he is happy with as it will enable him to buy the gift for his friend (budget £10).

I used to get £50 back in 2005 and even then thought that was tight! Similar expectations on what it would cover as well (clothes, phone, socialising).

Like PP have said, better use of money is to buy a good quality cover. We bought DS2 (adhd, forever dropping phones) a bomb-proof one at £50- worth it's weight in gold. Doesn't stop him leaving it on a pavement in Greece on holiday 🙈, but hey, ho!

Obviously my friends / relatives. Now you can imagine that he dresses like an old man, and that all the young people must secretly think he's a dweeb. You can think what you like. I know he looks amazing.

He also helps me pick out clothes and is the only person I trust to tell me truly whether this or that pair of shoes is best with a given outfit.

I love the use of the word ‘dweeb’, I haven’t heard it for ages!

OP states clearly this is what she can afford, that child has repeatedly smashed up expensive phones, and that he get extra when he eats out, and is called a "tyrant".

Now I know where all the spoilt brats are coming from.

Don't you insure all your phones??

You’re not be unreasonable. If he wants to spend all his money that’s his choice. If you give him extra he’ll get used to spending on the ‘never-never’ and not be great at budgeting.

I would, however, take him out once a year to buy clothes.

So he gets 60 but you pressure him to save 30.

so he has 30 a month then pays phone bill? So he has £24 a month for clothes, snacks and outings?! YABU. That’s not anywhere near realistic with current COL and inflation.

its not about what pocket money you can afford it’s that IMO you are expecting him to fund things I think a parent should fund. At 15 clothes can be expensive coz of size/adult taxes. I think you should pay his phone bill and not pressure savings. It’s not enough to save. I work and earn a relatively good wage. I don’t have money each month to save 50% of my wage, buy clothes , go out and replace a phone. So why do you expect your child to do this on not much at all?

My daughter had £100 a month but this didn't include her contact lenses, transport or phone contract which we also paid. She used it for make up, nails, cinema, Nandos etc

So really nothing has changed, you still give him the bare minimum in life. Poor kid.

@asdasdasdsadad that is what you must give the Foster Child. That is what SS deem appropriate for a 15 year old.

Very unreasonable - I can’t believe that your 15yo is paying for phone, clothes and basically everything (apart from underwear, school uniform and PJ’s!) and you are also expecting him to save 30 a month!

Please buy the friend a present on his behalf and review this arrangement. Perhaps he can get a paper round to help but this is totally unfair.

its not about what pocket money you can afford it’s that IMO you are expecting him to fund things I think a parent should fund. At 15 clothes can be expensive coz of size/adult taxes

This.

I can't get my head around the clothes at all. Clothes are hugely expensive and sometimes need replacing with no notice...ie a pair of trainers breaks underneath, a coat is lost or stolen in school or whatever.

Our teens (16 and 14) don't get any regular allowance at all 😱 But we pay for their clothes, phones, xbox monthly subscription, gym membership, clubs, whatever they need. They then get adhoc money given them on top for outings, socialising etc.

It's actually not cost-effective, if you buy reconditioned phones, to insure them.
Premium is around £70 per year, plus excess of £75 = £145 per year, against a replacement cost of £160. So you'd have to be smashing your phone every 15 months to break even (granted, my son is almost breaking phones at this rate, but we live in hope that he will learn to be more careful!)