17 year old & bills

[Winniepoobear]

My son is 17, he has an apprenticeship, and earns £300 a week. He goes to college once a week, then 4 days at work.

He pays nothing towards the household, (i dont expect him to at this age) he pays £40 per week for his driving lesson, but he gets most things paid for him .. things like his mobile phone contract, gym membership, spotify (family plan) internet, netflix etc etc .. we lift him from his place of work 4 days a week (18 miles per day) and he gives no money for diesel. He does NOTHING to help around the house, although he shares walking the dog with his 15 yr old sister (he does this 3 x a week) He basically has £260 a week to spend on what he likes, with no responsibility whatsoever.

My husband an I have been talking about him taking responsibility for some of these bills (mobile phone, gym membership) when he gets to 18, but my husband is quite reluctant to do this, as when he was younger, he never paid towards household expenses, but as i said, he didnt have a gym membership or a mobile phone that his patents paid for him...

I grew up in care and when I got a job aged 16, I had money taken off my wage each wk to pay towards things in the home I was living at, to try and teach me how to live. When I was 17 I had to move out & was given a council flat and bang straight into paying electricity, gas, rent etc.

AIBU to expect my son to pay for his own gym membership and his own mobile phone bill? I really feel that he needs to learn that money doesnt grow in trees & he needs to start show some sort of responsibility, direct debit for gym membership and mobile contract ..

Am I too harsh ... he turns 18 in 4 months.

My 17yo is similar. £640pm from job one, £384 from job two and is at college 2.5 days a week. She gets on the bus to college and to job one which is free where we are (South Yorkshire), but job two requires a taxi there and back at £20 per week which we pay for. All her other bills and expenses are paid for by us including phone bill but no gym membership. All social activities she pays herself, which tbh aren’t often as she doesn’t have time.

She offered to give me £100 per month which I originally said no to, as I don’t need it. What I’ve asked her to do is place half in a savings account, and save the other half for if she goes out/sees friends etc. She’s saved a pretty decent amount so far as she’s also not spending much of her social half either. Then for the £100, I put this into an ISA for her (she doesn’t know), which I intend to give her back once she’s ready for moving out. Once 18, she will earn more so I’ll up this to £130 per month to the ISA. I can’t see me asking her to pay for her upkeep, as it just comes out of the monthly pot anyway, and this includes her driving lessons.

Also OP, don’t forget he will have his trust fund when he turns 18 so if you’ve paid in even a small amount (like I did), it should be enough to afford a decent little car.

he gets most things paid for him .. things like his mobile phone contract, gym membership, spotify (family plan) internet, netflix etc etc .. we lift him from his place of work 4 days a week (18 miles per day) and he gives no money for diesel. He does NOTHING to help around the house, although he shares walking the dog with his 15 yr old sister (he does this 3 x a week)

My question is... Why ?

I voted YANBU, because I agree he should be paying for his living costs, but I actually think YABU to not have sat down and had this conversation with him when he was starting, not waiting until he is 18. I also think he should be contributing a reasonable amount of 'housekeeping' as well as paying for his phone / gym / etc. I suspect a 17 yr old who is doing physical work most of the day is likely to be eating a lot more than the rest of you, for example.

My son used to pay a little bit of keep at that age. He was working as a waiter at 5 Guys and the deal was 20% of his wages (excluding tips) per week. It was normally about £15 😂 We paid for everything else including mobile/netflix/spotify. It was more to get him into the habit of having to pay something.

I would expect him to help around the house and put a good chunk of that money into savings.

It’s a difficult one, my DH and I have been having similar conversations about our DS (19). He doesn’t pay any rent, food at home, or pay for his phone contract. He will pay for his contract once the current deal has finished, but I don’t want him to pay rent. He travels by car a lot as we live rurally and the petrol costs a fortune. He also had to take finance out a newer car due to lots of issues with his run around. So once the car finance, petrol and insurance are taken into account, he doesn’t have that much disposable income each month.

I would keep paying for everything whilst he is in education until he is on a proper wage.

I agree with others that he should be going more household tasks.

You sound like a great parent.
I think give him a warning that come 18, phone and gym are for him to pay.
I think the sooner kids understand how much things cost, the quicker they are to appreciate the importance of work and doing well.
My children all had part time jobs and it really gave them a dose of reality when I stopped handing them money over.
Working for it gave it far greater value than when it was the Bank of Mum!

Trust fund?

Yes, he eats me out of house and home! Always eating .

@Winniepoobearhis child trust fund will mature at 18. My daughter will have about £7k which she plans to leave where it is if she hasn’t passed her test by the time she’s 18. Any child born in 2008 will have a trust fund which you will have had the opportunity to pay into.

Kids in the UK born between 2002 and 2011, I think, were given a child trust fund by the government. I think they got £250 or £500 which hopefully will have increased and some parents will have added to them. They can have access to them at age 18.

I would've had him paying all of his own personal expenses and paying board as soon as he started on that wage. He should be doing his fair share of chores too. He is not being prepared for adult life.

He is working and attending college, pays for a couple of things himself which are his driving lessons and haircuts, he is saving for a car, walks the dog, keeps fit at the gym, does the dishes every night. He’s only 17, no harm in having him pay for more or doing more around the house but I think he’s doing fine.

My son is also 17, nearly 18 and working as an apprentice 4 days a week and college one day a week. He’s just passed his driving test, has bought his own car with the money he has saved and paid for his own driving lessons. He’s pays me for his phone bill (he doesn’t know that I save that money for him for his future). I don’t expect him to pay housekeeping until he’s earning a proper full time wage but he does put half his earnings into his savings for his future. The majority of his ‘spending’ money is spent on tools, he’s got quite an amazing lot for his future work as he’s hoping to go self employed in a few years. I’m just glad the money he is earning is been spent wisely.

I had no idea... we adopted him when he was 4 n half, will that matter. I will definitely look into it for him as that wud be great to put towards his car or insurance etc, thanks for that info.

He should definitely still have one, but if he had a different name before you adopted him, it may be in that name. You should be able to find it using one of these

https://findctf.sharefound.org

https://www.gov.uk/child-trust-funds/find-a-child-trust-fund

So he earns over £1000 a month more like £1300 and you don’t charge him anything 🙀🙀

his phone and gym he can pay and ideally a little something rent - whether you save it and give it back to him or use it

Netflix etc is part of house and him using it doesn’t cost more

@Winniepoobearall children born during that time will have one. Adopted or not, it is legally his and no one will be able to draw it down but him. You may have to do some digging given the circumstances, but it will be there. My nephews parents never paid in but he still drew £2400 last October.

Sorry but having some “grown up” responsibilities doesn’t happen overnight. You should have started a long time ago.

My parents always said that when I was working (more hours working than hours in education) that I would pay rent depending on the amount i earned. I was paying for own phone at 16, paid for my driving lessons at 17. Teaching responsibility is extremely important. At the moment your son has no responsibility, including getting himself to work. I think it is time to start putting things in place. Including talking about savings.
Your husband will think i am mad, but my 7 year old does more than your child. In the sense of he has more chores to contribute to the family home (puts the washing machine on, dishes every night, loves to hoover, helps with weeding, cooking dinner 50% of the week with me), he has £2 pocket money a week and is saving part of that every week for bigger things. Chores are quite simply how we all live, so kids need to be taught that they are a part of life and it isn't negotiable. My 3 year old does chores too like setting the table.
So I agree with you, or your son will never leave, be reliant on a partner and expect then to replace his parents, or won't cope!

My wife and her sister were the same. Their mum and they split the housework every morning before they went to school and then work. They learned chores and what needed to be done to maintain a nice home. Now, years later as adults, they have lovely well kept homes.