Board money from ds

[Biffsboys]

I will keep this as short as I can . Ds1 paid board money until he moved out , we needed this money at the time . There is 10 years between ds1 and ds2 .
ds2 has just started working and we are taking board money from him but saving it to give him it back .
I think when he moves out we should split it with ds1 since he didn’t get anything back dh disagrees .

When DS2 is his age, he may also have a good salary AND have benefitted from getting some money back, which is completely unfair.

I can’t believe your husband thinks his way is ok. It has the potential to cause huge issues within your family. Give equally or give none.

Agree.

DS2 will get TEN whole years less time with his parents around than DS1, that's the cards he's been dealt. Maybe the money will offset all the ways he's been disadvantaged compared to his big brother.

When we were kids my sister was the golden princess and was in many material ways treated better. The fact that my parents did not treat us equally spoiled my relationship with my sister and there is still a tension between us after all these years. Do not treat your children unequally. It will come back to haunt you.

If there is an age gap between the boys and DS1 is on a good wage, why don’t you treat him as an adult.

Imagine that over the next 12 months you manage to save £6k. Have a conversation with DS1 along the lines of “one thing we wish we could have done is give you some money to start out into adulthood to make that transition easier. You evidently didn’t need it - you’ve done amazingly! - but we still wish we had been able to help out more. We’re better off now than we were and we have £6k saved. Would you rather we have you and DS2 half each? Or would you rather it went to DS2?

Don’t frame it as ds1 getting half of ds’s money. Gift them an equal amount “just because” because you love them equally.
What if ds2 earns more than ds1 at the same age? Using the argument that ds1 doesn’t need the money is risky and pretty weak imo.

You absolutely should not take from one kid and not the other! Are you mad?

Just do the same as you did with DS1 and don't save it to give back.

Hate this idea of taking it then giving it back. So infantilising and patronising. If you want/need them to contribute, then get them to contribute like the adults they are. If you don’t, then don’t, but talk to them about saving. Why would pretending to take it teach them anything except that their parents are still in charge?

Totally unfair to do this, you either need to split or don’t give any back. How can your DH think this is fair and won’t cause a big kick off.

This is a very intelligent way to frame it. Your DS2 pays exactly as DS1 did and you use it. Then what you and dh can put aside from your income will be divided btw the children.

No! If he wants tp give it to ds2 he will. But he shouldn't feel pressured to do so. Just give equally to your children without saying that it comes from ds2 board money- which it doesn't since you will use that and the savings will come from tour salary.

I agree with you, I wouldn’t tell either of them where you have saved the money from though. Halve it equally and be straight up with both of them that it is a gift to help youngest get set up with his independent life and as you couldn’t afford to do the same for eldest at the time you are offering the same now in order to be fair.

I shouldn’t imagine it will be a life changing sum of money and being fair to your children when it comes to gifts is more important than your eldest “not needing it”. Otherwise you will cause resentment.

16-19!!! Most are still in school at those ages! Taking board at that age is ridiculous! She thanked you for saving money for her…yeah I can see that she would, but I can’t see what that taught her about the real world!?

It's beyond me why earning adults shouldn't be expected to pay their way for the food and electricity etc that they consume. Good way to raise entitled freeloaders.

No it teaches them that they had to pay board and that you saved on their behalf. My 12yr old is capable of saving. That’s something they could do themselves. There’s lots of ways someone learns that life has costs, my parents never charged me and I’m well aware that life has costs. I also have never had debt.

DS1 shouldn’t be punished for working hard full stop. It’s grossly unfair and your dh should not favour one over the other. DS2 may go on to great salaries too.

You sound very privileged, it is very, very easy to be ‘good with money’ when you are privileged for sure.

“Here you are, sweetheart! No, of course you weren’t really contributing to your family! We were just pretending. Obviously you weren’t
grown up enough to understand about saving, so mummy and daddy took charge of that for you. We didn’t tell you because of the special pretend game we were playing. You were proud of contributing to the family? Oh, bless your little cotton socks! No need to worry about that!”

No, it isn't.

I may have been privileged in some ways, but I’ve had to work very hard to go to where I am. I worked since I was 14 and saved. Worked all through university too. I didn’t grow up on benefits but I grew up through two recessions, my mother retrained when I was a child and worked hard. They did their best by me and my brother…funnily enough my brother was shit with money for absolute years…so it’s not a one size fits all I suppose. He earns more than me now though…go figure.

I wouldn’t phrase it as you have on this post.

This is a better framing;

1. He’s paying you board.
2. You are choosing to give him X amount of money he moves out.
3. As a general principal I would give both kids equal financial support so yes I would give the same to DS1. He is older so it stands to reason he will be training better than DS2 for many years. You shouldn’t penalise him for that.

Of course he’s on a good salary now - he’s 10 years older! Give them both the same or don’t do it. You never know how things will pan out for your kids financially but you can choose to treat them equally.

Absolutely.

Your DH is very wrong.
My parents did this - took my board but repaid my youngest sibling with their board when they left home. It caused a lot of bad feeling when everyone found out about it.

Or you could see it the other way round - first son had 10 years of undivided attention from his parents whereas second son missed out on that time when it was more valuable in the formative years. It’s likely they’ll both be at least middle aged at least before their parents die - most adults of that age don’t have daily interaction with their parents that they would be missing out on in the same way.