Son and his money!

[Happyhorse222]

Good Morning,

Need some advice on what others would do with the following:

DS- 21 in a trade earning £480 a week paid weekly- sometimes more if he works a Saturday. We told him to pick a bill to pay so he covers the wifi and water bill.

Me/ dad cook for the entire family in the evenings (we really enjoy it as a couple), so whilst he knows how to cook and helps us occasionally I still do all the family meals so he only has to buy extra snacks for himself that he wants outside of my normal food shop.

He is up at 6am finishes at around 11am- does come home and clean/tidy up, does his washing etc but that's by the by he should be doing that at 21 anyway.

Unfortunately after a year of work he has only saved £750. Told us he is spending on food at work- taking gf out etc.

He wants to buy a house and absolutely can by late 20's if he saved. But he isn't. He is regularly out of money before the next Friday. He keeps saying he wants to but just doesn't!

Husband is saying he will be telling him from Friday he is to pay us £200 rent a week, which leaves him £280 per week for his own spending.

This money we would be taking in rent will be going into our savings account to save pretty much on his behalf and give back to him.

I haven't been in this situation before and would obviously like to help him save but I also don't want to baby him. My other kid has saved birthday/ Christmas money religiously and has a frigging budget sheet per month with her job and I gave them both the same upbringing so it's driving me insane he keeps saying he wants to do it and then not doing it, but I am also blue in the face from the MULTIPLE conversations/ suggestions we have made and had for him to save.

He has 0 to pay for so is this a reasonable way of doing something he will thank us later for or are we just teaching him we will sort out any problems he has and never have to do it himself. Will be taking the bills he pays back into our finances should we charge the rent instead.

Aghhhh parenting!

It sounds like your children chose to save the money you didn’t charge them. OP isn’t asking whether she can simply charge rent, she’s asking about forcing her son to save the money he would otherwise be spaffing on market rent.

You were subsidising your children’s saving, OP is currently subsidising her son’s takeaways. Totally different situation.

I call bull

Could he set up a pay day transfer from his current acct to his savings acct/ISA?

What a nasty comment! You should be ashamed of that last paragraph.

Does he have meetings with your accountant? Maybe you could arrange for him to have a goal setting meeting with him/her or they could recommend someone. He may be more receptive to someone who isn't a parent.
At his age he should be paying decent board too but that is up to you.

She’s talking about the next few years … not when he’s 50! Likely be a while before he’s earning £100k 🤣 and foreman don’t earn that anyway!

YANBU

When my son started his first FT job at 18 and was living at home rent-free he was told the rent-free part was on the proviso he saved a minimum of £600/mth into long-term savings. I suggested an amount for short/medium savings too but left that bit up to him. I think he was on £24K/yr then. He did exactly that. He moved out with his GF at 21 and they manage their rent and bills fine between them, not so easy for him to save much though so we give him money for that instead of the free rent now.

There was no way I was going to let him get used to having a really high disposable income on a low salary and not get on with adding to his savings and understanding how to budget.

Op says he gets up at 6am and finishes work at 11am so it sounds like he works 20-25 hours a week. Presumably, he could up his working hours and his salary if he needed to.

Then he should be doing that now … he’s 21

Maybe he will when he starts saving and has a goal in mind.

Doesn’t sound like according to the OP

My sole takeaway from this is I’m doing the wrong job.

5 hours per days for that money is fantastic.

Have you seen OP's update?

Yea that's completely fair. Agree about dropping the bill.

When i was 21 I was earning 1100 a month, saving 600 and paying 100 to my mum.

How would he ever learn to budget? Most DC learning with pocket money or a monthly allowance.

He could try to get a second job and save the money he earns from that. 4 hours a day work is very little for an adult with no caring responsibility.

Yep, he doesn’t save 🤣🤷🏻‍♀️

The post where OP says he's asked his parents to take £200 a week from him and save £150 for him?

… and despite this he still hasn’t upped his hours

let him live whilst he is young, he’s earning well and he’s only young so his prospects will only go up from here, there is plenty of time

I guess that's his personal choice...

Seems to me, maybe the best thing you can do in the long run is, next time he says he hopes to buy a house soon say, "I don't think that's going to happen, considering the way you handle money now. Would you like to sit down and make a budget?"

This he probably shouldn't do in his current job. He only finishes early because his boss drives them very quickly to do the job in short hours. DP used to have a job like this where they were paid by the metre and he might not be able to rely on early finishes to work elsewhere in the afternoon.

What if they get a tricky job that takes longer? What if their manager finds out they're working short hours and gives them more work? What if, by working quickly, they're doing poor quality work so get pulled up on it? What if, as happened in DPs case, this team are creaming off the easy metres that a lot of can be done quickly but leaving the fiddly bits to someone else who ends up working longer hours for less money and they complain its unfair and gets it changed?

But it sounds like he's realised his spending is an issue so hopefully his plan to get his dad to help him save up works and he can get used to his new smaller but still very generous leisure budget.

You might struggle to open a savings account in his name that you control, he's an adult. I have a relative who has a mild learning disability and their parents had to hand over financial control at 18 despite the 'child' preferring their parents overseeing the account.

I think most parents want their children to have a happy settled future (it's certainly what we want for ours) but once they're adults you have to take a step back and offer advice but not take over their personal or financial decisions.
I agree with charging a reasonable amount of rent/board but not nearly 50% of his wage (we paid mum 20% of whatever we got whether it was wages or job seekers when briefly unemployed) you could do that and show him exactly how you worked it out (e.g the gas, electricity, water, and council tax are this much so your 20% will be this much) whether you choose to put that towards the bills or into a rainy day fund is up to you.