To ban cooking for teenage boys

[Boysfood]

I have 3 teen ds 15,17 and 19.

They cook all the time. Breakfast lunch , I make dinner they then cook in evenings and when getting home. My electric bill is too high.

I’ve asked them to have cereal or toast or instant porridge etc for breakfast. Sandwiches etc for lunch and snacks to be something that doesn’t need cooking. We always have these type of things available but they ignore me and start cooking. I can’t remove the oven etc and they often do this when I’m out or in bed. Only 19 year old works so I can charge him more rent to cover his share but others still in education and I don’t know what to do .

Take the internet router everytime you go out as a consequence? Buy a padlock for the circuit breaker box and cut off the power to the oven when you go out.

Ignore the people on here who are being dicks, if you can't afford for them to cook several hot meals a day its not a basic human right they are entitled to. There's nothing wrong with cold food.

No it's paying extra for the electric rather than giving it to them Either way she's earnt it not them

If £37 a month max is a 'massive amount' when you're raising 3 teenagers then you're a bit fucked, especially when you've reduced their pocket money and increased their contribution to the house to cover it.

I can eat again an hour after dinner, and frequently do. What I wouldn't do is cook another meal. I'd have something additional. But not a whole cooked meal.

I’m sure the children are spending more than £37 a month providing much of their own food. I’m sure that more than covers the increase in bills. Which £37 sounds nonsense anyway since no one is running a hob for an hour to make pasta let alone two!

What job is 19 yr old doing? If it’s a manual trade type role he could be burning lots of calories, I always smile if I’m in Aldi behind teen workman buying lunch as they are usually buying so much food.

”padlock for the circuit breaker”

this cannot be serious…

I’d rather not give pocket money than give pocket money and ask for some of it back to cover food/bills.
my dds haven’t had pocket money since they were 15 and could thus earn it themselves.
I’ve never restricted food though amd consider it my duty as a parent to provide every morsel of food they eat. I don’t buy much junk food though, if they wanted that, they would have to buy it themselves.

Plus oven constantly for brownies AFTER the main meal is cooked.

You're very unusual then. And in any case, they all pay towards the bills via contributions from wages or deductions from their pocket money. I'm pretty confident that those amounts will cover the hypothetical £37.

Indeed. Perhaps cut the water off at certain times so they can't have wasteful showers. They can easily take their washing down to the river, that's what people used to do.

What not wasting energy?

With a bit of planning and communication, this could be done, but at the moment it sounds as if OP is irritated by them cooking at the same time as here. This is why I'd be delegating more of the cooking to them generally

Thechaseison71

but if you say to someone I’m going to give you less money because you’re costing me more essentially that’s a payment they’re making to you.

Hot food is not a luxury. You're obviously not living on the breadline if your cold options are fresh fruit, avocado, nut butter etc - boiling a pan of pasta is cheaper than those options.

Sounds like they can’t do anything right.

If you’re struggling to afford the electricity then look at other ways to save it.

The last thing I’d want to do is stop my DCs from cooking.

No, the £37 figure I came up with covers the extra oven and hob use for all of them per day. They won't be using two hobs and the oven for an hour each per day will they?!

Much, much cheaper. Maybe get a rice cooker as well (or one of those multi versions that seem to do everything).

How naïve. I tried that with mine, they took the piss, both of them. So they had a set bedtime until after GCSE's

They're 16 & 19 now and the younger one has a 'bedtime' in that about 10pm i give her a nudge to get ready for bed/ get/off the computer on college nights, but she's allowed to read until she's ready to put lights out.

The 19yo has a set 'bedtime' of midnight, but he's disabled and i need him in bed so i can go to sleep, otherwise he'd be awake all night.

Even were they not disabled (they both have AuDHD, DS has other stuff going on too) setting a bedtime for a school student is not weird and controlling.

Why have kids OP if you’re not going to feed them?? Could you not cut down on stuff like your clothes, make up, hobbies, socialising, holidays etc to buy the food they want and to pay for the oven being on? That should be the priority, no? @Boysfood

Are you a growing teenage boy with high caloric needs?

If they're active, they could be needing around 3000 calories per day.

Are they overweight?

Harsh to say it but if my kids were being told not to cook hot food cos I couldn’t afford the power, I would be taking this as a me problem.

Fully aware energy bills are horrendous and yes, an air fryer will help, but your anger at them is misplaced.

Not the point of the thread but no. You can remove devices and set a 'quiet' time limit for a 15 year old but it's not appropriate to set them an actual bedtime!

You'd think.

So she should stop pocket money all then if she's so skint she can't feed her kids properly.
If she gives the under 18s £40 a month each and reduces it to £20 then she's saving £40 per month from her outgoings, which offsets the additional energy cost. See?