16 year old and money towards keep

[Faithope]

Hi, so DS has a well paid job for his age-he has a salary of £10,244 a year and last month took home £950. We ask for £300 a month, I do everything for him as in washing his clothes, ironing and putting away and cook his food.
Now my issue is, he has an issue with how much we ask of him to pay. I have broken it down and shown him our outgoings each month and his £300 hardly scratches the surface of what we pay out. I have explained to him that when I was 16 (20 years ago) that I had to pay my mum £250 a month and didn't earn near as much as he does. That's the reason he needs to pay towards his keep is because he is now classed as a working adult and if he was out in the real world, he wouldn't have a penny left after paying rent, bills, food, mobile etc.
He has no idea how to handle money-last month he spent his entire wages in 7 days (all I have seen is a pair of trainers, he got his ear pierced and bought a hoodie) and had not even bought his nan a birthday present. He then asked us to pay his bus fares to work 3x!! I did but told him it was a loan and that he needs to manage his money better next month.
He's been working for 4 months now and each month is the same.
How else can I explain to him that money has to last the month?

As with the OP I lost the child benefit when she left college.

My daughter takes home about £700/800 pm and she is paying me £15 per week. I have told her I am increasing her keep when her next pay rise comes through in February/March.

Actually OP I think you have taught your DS about money too late.

DD7 will soon be buying laptop/tablet with money she has saved for a year or so. All her money she got for birthdays/christmas she kept. She counted it rather than spending it.

She also has money on paypal from selling some of her old clothes on ebay and "earn t" money helping at her uncles business.

Still better late than never OP

Just one last thought (I've already shot my mouth off a LOT here .)

I think you mentioned that your son's friends are still in full time education, so not getting a salary like your son. I wonder if they are expecting him to treat them to McDonalds, beer, or whatever. It might be fun for your son at first, but perhaps if it becomes a pattern, it's not so nice. Him being only 16, he might not know how to stop it once it's an expectation.

If you are taking some money off him and insisting he save some, he can legitimately look at them and say, "I can't. I don't have the money. My mean old mum has taken it away from me!" Much easier for a 16 year old than saying, "No, I don't fancy buying you cigarettes." They will all accept it. They live at home with mean old parents too.

How could I teach him about money before he had any? He knows he has a savings account and when his great grandfather passed, he was left £300, he put that in the savings. He assumed, even until the age of about 14 that the cash point just dished out money. He didn't know how it got there. I explained that while I am at work, my bosses pay me and that money is the money that comes out of the wall. When I was on benefits when he was small, I had to got to the PO to get my benefit-again he thought that it was a never ending pit! I guess him being any only child up until a year ago, he didn't need to think about money as we did everything for him. Now he works and has a vast amount to play with, he has no idea how to handle it. I don't think I have failed him, I think now he has the money, he has to learn how to manage it. I am trying to show him but being a stubborn know it all 16 year old, it's pretty hard.

Faithope it's a bit late now but as others have said maybe you could have introduced budgeting earlier.

When the boys were small one thing I did was to have cash physically in front of me and plan the food shopping and count it out. Same when I took them on holiday, I would say there is 600, 1000 (whatever it was) we need some money for the taxi to get us to the airport, lets put that away, we want to go on the zip wires - that's 20 pound each, lets put that to one side ......and so on.

Same with their birthday money. I had/have the mantra save some, spend some so they would put some in their savings and have some to spend, even if I thought it was crap - it was their money.

Chili why are you paying for her holiday?

Sorry OP I was pulling your leg after you got criticised by a few on here.

DD7 seems to have learned about money early on.

However my DSD13 blows money left and right, whenever she gets it. She whines she can't save ever and will not be happy that her little sis managed to save so much.

You're doing the right thing OP, hopefully your DS will soon see sense.

I don't think anyone has critized the OP. They have just had different opinions and expierences and said how they would do things.

"Mean mean mean.£300!!!!! Id get it if you were saving it for him in the future. He's your child fgs! "

There's one criticism of the OP, flip!

faith
Would you consider charging him less but doing less for him? £50 a week but no washing/ironing/cooking etc. I think that might teach him a bit more.

Fair enough Yonic I didn't have time to re read every thread on my phone. Generally though I thought it was mainly swooping opinions. Even if we disagree with op it's not a critism of her.

hmm, I think certainly in the early part of the thread it was a bit nasty, insinuations about DS being treated less favourably as he wasn't DH's biological son for one! but agree it's much more measured now!

OP there is nothing wrong in expecting someone who earns money to pay for the food they eat / water/electricity they use. I don't charge my DS for board as such, just what he actually uses. He does contribute towards our weekly shop and electricity for his computers/showers. He earns £900 per month, he has £200 train fare to get to work and we had him save £250 to an ISA every month (both paid for on the day he gets his salary), so that makes £450. We deducted that from his wage so he has £450 left - we put that into thirds - so 1/3 for spends, 1/3 for emergencies/unexpected expenses (eg birthday presents) and 1/3 keep. So he pays us £150 per month, which I think is fair. We are also making sure he saves a reasonable amount by doing this - if he stopped saving his keep would go up from the third rule so he is happy to do this. It is a special house deposit ISA as well so he knows he will have something to show for it when he is ready to leave home, when he will hopefully be able to budget and stand on his own two feet as he is used to contributing to a household budget ! Alternatively, he could live her for free but buy his own food, which believe me would cost more than £150 per month !

I don't think there is anything wrong with charging your DC "keep". I don't think anyone outside of the family can decide what should be a fair amount, that should be down to personal circumstances.

Our DS1(20) is earning £14,492 at present, at the end of this month it rises to £18K. He is in the Army so lives away. Out of that he pays for his food and board and then has a lot of money left over. He puts a substantial amount in a savings account at the beginning of the month, and whatever he has left at the end goes in too (he wants a new car).

Before he joined the Army 6 months ago, he had a P/T job, we didn't take "keep", because we knew he only had a small salary, but he was sensible with his money and he would buy stuff from the supermarket if we needed it, helped out round the house, gave his brother lifts etc. However, we did teach budgeting and feel that is the most important thing.

When DS1 was in Phase 1 training and they got their first pay packets, most of the recruits had no idea of what to do with this large amount of money that they had access to. They bought iPhones, PS4s, XBox ones etc and had no money a week after pay day.

Going back to the original point, DS1 was home for Christmas, I don't know how much electric or gas he used and I care not. I do know the food bill went up, I know I could have done with a cow in the garden for the amount of milk and youghurt we got through, boxes of cereal were gone through on an almost daily basis. I had forgotten how much he actually eats. If he was living at home, earning the money he is on now, he would be contributing around £300 because that's almost what he pays to the Army for his food and board, which is 3 meals and no cleaning!

Flipchart -

you ask why I pay for my DD's holiday. I charge her keep and that pays for her share of our holiday. You don't charge keep but you make your DC pay for his/her holiday.

Both pay for their holiday just by a different route.

I am trying to keep up here lol I didn't realise me asking for some advice would have so much interest but thank you all as it has really opened my eyes on the whole savings issue-but I am not backing down from him paying keep just because someone calls me mean ;)
So the way we are tackling this is-He will pay keep of £250, he will have to save the other £50 in his savings account and match it each month.
As for the bus ticket issue-he uses public transport a lot and would benefit from having the card as he would make a saving. He doesn't just use the bus to go to work, when we pop to town we get the bus.
The suggestion of asking less money from him to do more around the house-The problem I have here is that he gets to the weekend and is shattered. He goes to work 8/8.30-5, not including the travel to and from (for example to left for work at 7.30am this morning and won't get home until 6.30-7pm). He will have his dinner then the headphones go on until 10pm when we all go up to bed (I think he stays on the ipod until 11 usually which I allow, any time after that and I tell him the wifi will be switched off if he does it again). He does do the litter tray if DH is at work on a 12hr shift and as I am pregnant, I don't do it (on DH's orders) and he will empty the bin on collection eve. I wash up and I wash his clothes. I don't hoover or polish his room. I have asked him to take the bedding off so I can wash it, he puts new one on. To me, he does do his bit but as I said, I am at home so feel very odd making him do it after a hard days work. I wouldn't expect my DH to come home and cook his own dinner after doing a 12 hr shift and I am at home. So I shouldn't expect it from DS. I don't want to be labelled a slave as well as mean

Sounds fair, OP!

chili tbh though i wouldn't dream of asking him to pay the full amount of the holiday price not on an apprentice wage.

Flipchart - My daughter isn't an apprentice though. Like I said the money covers holidays. It works for us.

I often look ou for your posts TheFairyCaravan (not in a weird stalkerish way, honest!). My DS hopes to join the army as a junior soldier in September. We will be making sure that DS understands about budgeting well before he goes.

It will help (I hope) that DS has had a bank account with regular modest pocket money for many years. He has learnt that the things he really want have to be saved up for.

Gnome DS1 went back to camp yesterday . He is half way through Phase 2 now. He is having the time of his life, although when he is on exercise and camping out next week he might change his mind. I have never seen him so happy and confident.

We all miss him dreadfully, especially DS2, but I couldn't be happier for him. I know joining the Army was the right thing for him, he was made for it.

Good luck to your DS.

I am all for teaching the value of money but you are kind of throqing him in at the deep end. If this is his first job of course he is going to to blow the lot quickly - it's exciting and new and not many kids woukd be able to resist the urge to splurge.

However, he is just 16, not an adult. You are responsible for him and that includes putting a roof over his head and feeding him and ensuring he is cared for. Could he not just refuse to pay you and then what? You can't 'chuck him out' - as a child he would become the responsibility of the local authority. He has the right to be looked after until 18.

I suspect him having all this cash does grate a bit if things are tight and wpuld grate even more when he runs out of money only a week in. In your situation I would sit down with him and treat him like an adult if you want him to behave that way. I would take maybe 20pc of earnings per month and put them in savings for him and tell him that you are doing so. You could stop putting your own money in savings to help with household bills. Tell him that you will provode a roof over his head and his main meals but make it clear that he will need to buy his own snacks, drinks etc. He will also beed to ensure he has money each month for travel or else he will be walking. Suggest that for a few months he either buys a monthly travel pass or hands cash to you to keep safe for his essentials so that it is safeguarded.

Also, if you want to prepare him to be independent ensure that he does his own laundry, cleans his room and also draw up a rota for him to cook a meal per week and for washing up etc. It's not all about money. At the moment he is living in a strange limbo between being a child and being an adult but it is too much to expect him to be a grown up all at once. Let him enjoy his youth.
Also, you should be really proud of him! He is sticking with a job that is proving pretty lucrative! It's more than many in their early 20s can achieve! Encourage him and provide an incentive for him to budget and save.

I am immensely proud of him, I cried when he got the apprenticeship as I knew how much it mean's to him. I am always encouraging him and make sure he know's that we will have him live at home for as long as he wants to. As I have said before-he does his bit and is working so hard that what he does do is enough. He can cook if he wants to.

I think that from the way you have phrased it op, he isn't paying enough. Break it down, and insist he pays his share. If he is old enough to be bringing home 950 a month, then he is old enough to pay, and no, at 16 he isn't a child anymore considering that many 16 year old girls are mothers.
I would suggest you be firm with him. I have no idea how, but perhaps a dose of reality is what he really needs.

Thank you TheFairyCaravan DS is off on his Insight course next week.

Good luck OP

Sorry chilli I couldn't keep up with whose child is doing what on my phone.