Can't be bothered to cook for son

[palmtreesands]

We only have limited fridge and freezer space so him buying his own shopping is not an option.
Dh eats at work and I like to take a massive salad to work among other things and pick so don't eat again in the evening.
Ds comes home from work expecting a home cooked dinner and I find it such a headache, if I haven't cooked or we've eaten I out as we sometimes do he expects their to be ingredients to make himself something to eat.... their often isn't and I am racing up the shop to buy him something to make but as I said food has to be included in his monthly contribution otherwise he'll come back with shopping that we don't have room for.
Aibu to let this stress me out so much, I'm hot and bothered and don't want the headache of feeding him but he pays £400 a month to live here so expects there to be food to eat and I can't be bothered with the hassle of always making sure there's something in when we don't have family meals.

Reduce his board (I hope to god beer isn’t included), tell him to get his own ingredients and he can cook for himself. Food has priority over beer, the people who store beer in the fridge can keep less beer in the fridge and restock the beers more frequently.

You are over thinking this, it isn’t your job to problem solve, so stop doing so. You are doing this boy no favours by acting like his maid.

Surely he can just pay a bit less and sort out his own meals? He is an adult and would have to be doing that if he lived in his own place anyway.
Does he like things like soup or ramen/pasta?
He could easily make himself a sandwich and some soup, we always keep something like that in the cupboard just incase we get our shopping a bit late and need something quick to cook.

My son had a beer fridge in his sitting room which doubled as a table.

We went on FB marketplace bought a second hand fridge freezer for the garage, beers, wines, sodas, milk go in there along with spillover fresh foods. We only keep milk and wine in the kitchen fridge. The bottom half is frozen food for making up a meal.

I'd be tipping out all that beer @palmtreesands

The fridge is full up with their beer and snacks so I barely have room to put any fruits and vegetables for myself let alone meat and vegetables.

This must be a wind up thread

Pretty much yes, picky tea in the summer. I don't fancy a hot dinner in the summer nor do I fancy cooking one.

Nor do I, and nor do millions of parents. One of the big pros of when DS leaves is that I won't need to think about dinner Every Single Night.

But my responsibility now (or his father's if he was on the scene) is to provide either a meal or the ingredients to do so for my hungry, growing teenager.

I love it when my adult son is home for a bit, as he loves to cook. I tend to get the ingredients and he'll cook for us all.

Do you really need lots of beer in the fridge? You only need to have one evening's worth chilled at a time - they'll soon learn to put one in when they take one out.

What would your DS like? Obviously he wants dinner but would he be happy to cook for himself? Shop for himself or ask you in advance to shop for him? You should reduce his rent a bit in this case.

I don't eat rubbish, I eat fruit and yogurt for breakfast and cold meats and salad or sandwiches and wraps for lunch and picky bits during the day fruit, nuts and crackers.

Hot meals don’t equal rubbish.

Your diet doesn’t seem nutritionally balanced OP.

The competitive under-eating on Mumsnet is fucking wild, and depressing.

Not poor lad, working adult

I think it is perfectly reasonable for a young man to want a cooked dinner after a day at work and you sound like you have extremely unusual eating habits. Who the hell only eats a massive salad, that's insane.
You absolutely do not need to cook for him, although in my family, we enjoy taking it in turns to cook for each other. However, you must provide him with adequate space to store his food shopping and the facilities to cook.
If I was him I'd be frantically saving every penny to move out asap.

So, in a nutshell he pays you to provide food and he's happy to cook it if you don't want to. You also don't want to provide it .... just reimburse him the money he pays for food then, ask him to pick it up on the way home.

He's both.

Anyone under 40 is lad to me.

😂

A roof over his head. A bed to sleep in. Warmth. Beers and snacks with daddy. Up till now a step mother who cooks for him even night because he won't settle for less than his single solitary hot meal when nobody else in the house is wanting to eat hit food. Just because he's been to work and she has tits.

By the way, £400 is fucking peanuts. It's 2024, not 1994.

Space to store and cook food is a basic requirement of any lodgings. You’re being seriously odd here and pretty mean.

I still dont understand why OP can't ask the men to remove the beer from the fridge, or at least clear one shelf.

This is just ridiculous. You can’t be serious.
Grown arse adult and you’re going out in the evening after work to buy stuff to cook for just his dinner?

1. stop
2. reduce his rent by whatever you’d included for food
3. let him deal with it
4. including moving his beers if needed 😆
5. stop stop stop

You are doing him no favours running around after him. Not even his father is bothering to do that

Oh and 6. Stop doing his laundry cos I bet you’re doing that too!

Or better still, not bother to tell them the bleeding obvious solution and leave them to it?

Op you can't have it all ways. Make room in the fridge for him. Food comes before beer. Take the beer out apart from maybe a couple of cans. As others have said reduce the money he gives you . So he can get his own food bits and cook for himself.

Either you provide him with the food you charge him for or you stop charging him for it and let him buy his own.

You can't refuse to let him buy his own food, charge him for you to buy his food, then not buy him food.

It's incredibly humid where I am and I can't cope well either. It's been like this for a few days now. If you're too hot, you're too hot. It's not difficult to understand that everyone feels different.

Poor little sod 😥
I hope he knows that not all mothers are like you.

Could he not get one of those small fridges for himself maybe ? Then he can either get some food or you can shop for him . He needs somewhere to keep his food safely!

Tbh as has already been said...if you won't cook, buy food or allow your son to store food you need to stop taking £400 off him a month. Poor son.

Dying to know what @OneSparklyPeachDreamer has been banging on about 😂

As pp have said, at least reduce what he pays you. He's not some random lodger off the street, what a horrible situation.

@Fiddlemetimbers
It was a genuine question. I am aware of the cost of living.