Our son has spent £48k in a space of 18 months ?? This was a gift for him to save. Husband says it’s fine he’s young but I am so pissed off I’ve told him to move out in a month go find a place with his idle friends

[YourOpenShaker]

As the title suggests, I’m really struggling with this.

In 2023, after our eldest son graduated from Oxford with an engineering degree and secured a very good job, we gifted him £50,000. He turns 25 this year. Part of that money came from his grandparents and it was always intended for him. We were incredibly proud of everything he had achieved.

Not long after starting work, he decided to quit his job as he couldn’t be bothered aha wanted to travel. He said he was young and wanted to experience life. We asked what his plan was and he told us he was going to Australia to travel and work. We accepted that.
It turns out he did not work at all. He travelled, drank, spent freely, not just in Australia but across Asia as well. When he came back, he told us he was doing online tutoring. We later discovered he had quit that too. Then he went to South America and carried on travelling. I had assumed he had at least been saving some of the money we gave him, but he has now spent the entire £50,000.

I am absolutely furious. I do not think I have ever been this angry or disappointed. It is not just the money. It is the lying, the lack of responsibility and what feels like a complete disregard for how privileged he is.
His cousins were given similar amounts and have used it wisely. One, who is younger than him, has already put down a deposit on a house. I know comparison is not always helpful, but it is hard not to notice the contrast we have failed as parents.

My husband says I need to calm down, that he is young and this is what young people sometimes do. He asks what we expected. Maybe there is some truth in that. But I still thought he would show some maturity, or at least some awareness of the opportunity he had been given.

There is further inheritance from his grandparents due to come to him in the future and right now I do not even want him to have it. He seems to have no real concept of money or how fortunate he is. He says he does not want a proper job and seems content drifting along. His uncle, who is an art dealer and runs auctions, has involved him a little in that world. But this is a bright, capable young man who once worked incredibly hard and now it feels like he is doing very little with his potential and will never really suffer consequences because there’s always someone there to help him.

Found out that he ran out of money when he was in South America and wanted to go travel around America too last summer so his father , my husband sent him 9k and told him to not spend it all he did and he was asking him to buy his flight tickets too to come back home. Some kids don’t even get to see that type of money!!!

I am just so deeply disappointed and unsure what to do next.

I have said he needs to move out find a place with his friends and leave us alone!! My husband thinks that’s selfish he’s still our son and has now been looking at flats for him, two of his friends are looking at flats/house shares around London too and yet again he is saved, he just always seems to get lucky. I’m sick of it.

My daughter too spoilt rotten. Is in her final year at Durham very smart studying law but ever so spoilt spoilt spoilt has no ambitions no goals just existing. Our other son another one that wants to just “chill” he’s doing his alevels this year he’s very bright , maths physics economics and predicted 2A*s and an A he will achieve that or even over achieve but no ambition at all.

It is our faint as parents I can’t even blame anyone else just wanted to vent

OP you haven’t failed as a parent, don’t be hard on yourself, it maybe has been an error of judgement handing him that amount of cash (as you had an idea what you wanted him to spend it on), he has obviously been careless and went mad with it….BUT

I have 3 teenage children, I’m a single parent and I don’t earn much and I’d absolutely love to be in a position to give them a fortune to go travelling and see the world before settling into work/home/family life.

Life is far too short, my best friend passed away from cancer at 22 and she had spent her last 3 years before diagnosis travelling the world, her mum has always said it gave her great comfort knowing that she made the best memories in her very short life.

I know your son is an adult, but I would be feeling equally gutted if my children did that - gift or no gift.

Spending some of it on travel is fine, but to spend all of it knowing there is more to come just feels highly disrespectful to the people who saved so he could spend it without a care.

Life is short, and experiences matter.
The taxman will take it if you don't spend it.
It was a no strings gift.

I get all of that.
However, being honest, I wouldn't be impressed with my kids in similar circumstances. I just feel sad.

I think it's your husband who is the issue. Your son is young and irresponsible but things will improve once he moves out and starts working etc.

From the flip side, although not such an extreme example, DH sold his house and lived off the money to move across country to live with me in his early 20s. Gave up a decent paying career too. His parents complained that he was throwing away his hard work. There was a fair bit of guilt tripping and judgement about doing it all for a "girl".

But he needed to freedom to properly set his life up the way he wanted to.

DH was either unemployed or casually employed for a bit whilst self-teaching himself the industry. A few years later DH entered a lucrative career. A decade on, we now own our own home outright in our early 30s. We have decent savings and pensions. DH earns more than his parents could have ever imagined. I'm a SAHM and we have a lovely lifestyle.

I guess my point is, DH's mum (and to a lesser degree his dad too) thought it was completely, utterly foolish to stop and get off the life path he had started on. He'd done so much hard work. He was wasting money. He was risking getting off the housing ladder.

I can forgive them because they want what's best for their son. The bit I can't stand when they now complain that he's had it too easy. No. It wasn't easy. He had to take a risk, uproot the "safe" plan of life his parents had. And the fact they never commend that or even acknowledge that he did well is irritating.

So yes, it is annoying about the 50K. But it is his money. You don't have to support him financially anymore, but you should still support him emotionally. Having a parent believe in you and back your play is underrated.

My son (13) has just started getting into F1. I think I might have seen your son, does he post about his content planning and how much he earns from tiktok ect aswell?

is be gutted aswell that he had so much money to secure a comfortable future and its gone. Have you spoken to him about it? You can't stop any further inheritance obviously. Does he seem happy?I
I know it's probably not much comfort but at least he seems to have great memories from his travelling and has managed to forge a career from it.
I don't know much about influencers but I'm assuming he's earning enough to live off and the perks like travel ect sound great. He's still young, he's always got engineering to go back too.

At 16 they have plenty of time to focus on school /college and have a part time job. Earn money, go out and spend their hard earned money. The best time of my life was when I had a supermarket job at 16, made brilliant friends had a blast, whilst at college and got a job on my cv. What's a kid at 16 going to do all weekend if not working? Don't tell me they sit and study all weekend 😂. Work ethic is a good thing and very good for socialising at the same time.

Your son has it right tbh.

If there’s a way to avoid the corporate world and having to constantly climb the corporate ladder, one should pursue it. I’m a decade on from where your son is and I’m absolutely bloody exhausted with it. I wish I had the skills/contacts to quit and join the gig economy - be a creative, or a travel blogger, or whatever.

I’ve been working since I was 14, starting off doing shitty part time jobs. None of the kids similarly doing those jobs was rich. We worked our arses off for very little pay.

Would I have done those jobs if 50 grand was on offer? Of course not. People will naturally take advantage of their situation and your children are no different. They have grown up rich and so they expect more money will be coming down the line. I doubt your son spent his uni years eating pot noodles or working in crappy retail or catering jobs as many of us did.

I haven't read this whole thread but is it just a humble brag that no matter how spoilt and lazy these kids are they'll never be able to actually fail

This all sounds very Vincent van Gogh! Unfortunately one of the things that push VG into numerous mental breakdowns was the pressure and expectations of his very judgemental parents who viewed him as a tearaway and total failure because of his inability to conform into a steady career, despite various misguided attempts financed by them. Eventually, he found his own way in life. The rest, as they say, is history.

WTF? You think the son is being pushed into mental breakdown like Van Gogh?

No 16 year old is focused on school all weekend. A job is great experience and earning your own money is also a great experience.

Hi . Not reading thread but just want to point out how identifiable your son is from your post and why I would delete it if I were you.
good luck

You said it better than I could!

Prospective employers are also more likely to take a graduate on that has had working world experience, and it doesn’t get any better at teaching work ethic than the retail jobs most 16 year olds are likely to work.

You’re giving loads of really overly identifying details about your kids on here OP, it’s not very sensible at all.

Yes you sound jealous. You sound angry that he's been lucky enough not to have to work hard, in the way you presumably did, for what he's got. You talk of being sick of it that he lands on his feet despite not living his life the way you'd choose for him to live it. Totally 💯 jealous is exactly how you sound.

I don't deny that you want the best for him, but you seem to want to control how that happens and how he gets there and seem very frustrated that you can't. It's you who needs to grow up, cut the apron strings and realise your DS is an adult now, so you need to stop treating him like a child. You have no parental control any more, which in his 20s is how it should be. So stop trying to dictate how he lives and throwing your toys out the pram when he doesn't comply.

Asking him to move out is one thing, especially if he's living with you rent free, but telling him to leave you alone is something else. You sound like you want him away from you partly as revenge but largely because you can't deal with your own emotions. If I was him I probably wouldn't bother contacting you again.

He's behaving like a young person because he is a young person. He's completed his studies and has had some fun, with what was his money the second you gave it to him.

Now he's forged a successful career for himself and instead of saying well done for his success, all you can do is think about how it makes you look to others and what you wanted him to spend the money on and what career you wanted him to have. Me me me. Well, he isn't you and it's time you recognised that. He's his own person with his own life, his own beliefs, his own wants and needs, his own hopes and dreams.

You're a middle aged person acting like a toddler.

So he’s spent £2-3000 per month travelling, which is alot of money, but good life experience.

All your kids are academically able but not streetwise. Maybe they’re burning out, and need a break.

Going forward, stop enabling them. Don’t give them money when asked (or a limited allowance).

I’d be annoyed too, but you and your DH don’t sound very sensible, so I don’t know why you expect your kids to be 🤣
I expect to give a similar amount to my DS when he wants to buy his first property, but I’d make sure it’s legally ring fenced so that, if he moved in a gf and then split up, we’d get the money back and be able to give it again.

He met a girl over in Australia, she has moved to be with him here, works in a cafe, lovely girl but now he wanted her to move into our house for a few months and my husband is all for it but I am just sick of our son not knowing the value of things id like him to learn something.

@YourOpenShaker your son isn't a child. He is a man. He needs to earn his own money and pay for his own flat. Encourage your husband to close his wallet. By all means, help DS search for a flat but he should definitely NOT fund it.

If DS wants to live with his GF, they need to live as adults in their own home and be self funding.

Currently, despite ALL of the advantages you've given him he is stuck in the 'failure to launch' stage. If he doesn't snap out of it soon, he'll slip into wasting his life. And he isn't going to do that unless he has to struggle. We all have to at some point.

I would be gutted too op but what is your son saying about having spent all the money? Does he have any regrets? Probably not from the way you describe him.

Your son wants to use his money and time to have experiences and enjoy his youth.

Others want to save their money and use their youth to build something sustainable early.

Both are valid choices, but when young people put immense pressure on themselves early on, which anyone graduating from Oxbridge has done, they often feel the need to blow off steam and decompress once they've achieved their goal.

You gave him £50k as a gift. He spent it. Whether it was "wasted" or not is now down to his opinion.

I want to preface this by saying that I would feel the same disappointment you do if I were in your position. However, you gave him the money and he chose to spend it. Life won't always be this easy for him. He'll learn the hard way.

Did you teach him the value of money? Not sure gifting a massive sum of money without purpose (eg house deposit) was a great idea.

He’s had a privileges life so has no concept of working hard for money. Thank goodness he didnt spent it on drugs or gambling! At least traveling would have brought him memories.

i agree with you though, it’s time for him to live out and find out about life. And NO I wouldn’t let additional inheritance reach his hands until he proves he’s mature enough.

So many graduates desperately looking for work, he just flushed his down the loo!

Rather than being so melodramatic loo at what he did with it - he travelled, grew up, experienced different cultures nad nejoyed HIS money.

He effectively had global education which he will have lerned from. Yes blowing 48k is a lot but that sort of trip is never going to be less than 20-25K now adays.

AS to failing as a parent - no. He boradended his mind he did not stay sititng at home, in a dead end job playing on the x box.k

Travelling in my youth was the best decision I ever made. I can assure you, I'm successful now. Don't fall out with your child over it. He will live his life how he chooses. Judging him will just keep him from telling you things. If you intended for him to spend it a certain way you should have given him those stipulations.