Son has spent all his birthday money on fried chicken and doughnuts

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My 13yo confessed earlier that he's been taking his bank card out each day and has been buying sweets, drinks, fried chicken etc for him and his friends for the last few weeks. Only today he ran out of money.
He's spent about £150. We had no idea.
I thought DH would be really cross when I told him, but he just sighed and said that it's a lesson he needed to learn.
I had no clue he was even taking his bank card out. He's only had it a couple of months so was clearly giddy on his riches. Idiot!

Please tell me that other kids have done this? Im a mixture of cross, sad for him, and quite bemused right now.

I did this when my nan gave me £1000 she had saved for me when I was 18. Spent the whole lot on food, taxis and alcohol. Had a great time. It's his money to spend op.

Sounds like a nice kid and I bet he enjoyed it - which, after all, is what birthday money is for. Why the fuss and angst?

Bless him. Loads of kids do this! Don't give him any more cash until the next birthday and then he can choose if he does it again or if he fancies saving for something bigger. It probably took some courage to confess to you, and there are worst things he could have done with it. Tell him he's had some fun and now he has to make do with no money for a while.

I have several savings accounts, one is the old fashioned 'passbook' type, the fact it is difficult to take money out means it doesn't get touched as much.

Exactly the same thing happened with my 14 year old - he spent £200 on Greggs, sweets, KFC etc in the space of 2 months until he ran out of money. I was so upset at the time but we have used it as a lesson and over time it has become a bit of a running family joke which he can laugh at as well now and his siblings have bought him some Greggs crocs for Christmas. It’s disappointing but hopefully lesson learned

Imagine how your dad felt.

Don't sweat it too much OP. I'm convinced most 13-16 year old boys are morons! (my ds is about to be 15). I'm amazed they make it to adulthood tbh - my ds & a lot of his mates seem lacking in basic common sense most of the time. My ds has spent the same amount on clothes/shoes without us knowing. But typed in the wrong address of course (because he's a moron) 😳🙄🙈🤷‍♀️😆

Good for him I am sure he enjoyed every last bite!! In reality none of us need our coffees, take outs and pints but they just make life a little bit nicer! Yes there are better things he could have spent 150 on but at 13 there are definitely worse things as well.

I think kids have to go through this. Mine were quite young and had some cash for holidays. I needed to put the tent down and it was raining so I said they could go to the arcade. I told them when they had spent £5 each to come back as I think that’s more than enough to be spending on slot machines. They had their whole spending money on them if about £20 each. They came back showing me all the tat they had got from the machines and then I had realised they had spent the lot. They then couldn’t go to the gift shop afterwards. they must have been around 11 and 8 years old though.

My eldest rarely spends her money. She’s autistic with no learning disabilities and never really wants to buy anything. Now and then she gets sweets on her way home. She used to keep her card in her phone case but then when I was checking her bank one night I noticed she had spent £10 in the Nisa. Turns out that her friend had no money but persuaded her to go the shop and buy them both loads of sweets. I had a chat with her and she said she was being kind. But I did then tell her maybe not to carry her card with her as fitness sometimes get into a habit of doing this. She stopped. More recently she’s had her card but onto her Apple Pay now but we’ve had no more unnecessary purchases. Just sweets now and then. She’s often saved up quite a lot of money.

My younger child now 10 is terrible at spending. She wants everything. I keep her card on me and let her use it when we are out and I am supervising. We use the HyperJar app which is good for checking. But made the mistake on not refreshing it between shops one day and she got to the til and her card was declined. I just told her to leave one thing if she didn’t have the money. She wanted to borrow it from me and pay me back but I said she was only allowed to spend what she has and not borrow. No idea what she will be like when she’s older and gets her card on her Apple Pay. She has managed a few times to save for expensive items though from birthday and Christmas money and chose to add a savings jar to her hyper jar account so she is getting better.

We discovered our teen son bought expensive (for a teen) necklaces etc. for his then girlfriend. We had a good talk 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

Its quite sweet that he was so generous with it.

At least it was his money. My ADHD boy years ago, I think he was 15 at the time? Anyway it was his first time shopping alone. With a bank card. And I got a ping on my phone for… I want to say the equivalent of 1000 pounds. Phone him over and over again and his phone is dead. And he burst in to my room beaming with delight and says ‘mum! I went into Saks fifth Avenue!’ And I look at him and he’s wearing new trousers and his old one is in his hand. And he’d ripped the tag off. That was that. He had taken it to a shop assistant and they had rung it up while he was working out how to ask how much it was. When I showed him how much he spent he started shaking.

I still think back and wonder if maybe I had gone to the manager or been really pushy could I have faced returning it when I knew it had been worn.

That was the worst thing he ever did. And now they are at uni and a few people he knows have been brought home for draining a years worth of bank allowance on gambling ect and also not attending lectures and stuff, I wonder if I can still claim he’s the worst child in the world. I should have had a bank account for him like you guys, although I’m not sure we had them in my country back then for kids. I remember someone telling me to get a credit card for him and thinking that would be like setting the house on fire

Ahhh I think we have all done this in some form or another! A good lesson to learn now rather than later. I'm not sure about taking the card away as that kind of feel like it undermines the lesson, maybe get him a savings account too with no card and put some money into both.

I've just remembered that Ds 2, who likes to save his birthday and Xmas money, asked if he could pay fir his friend to go on the school trip last year. £350! He said he knew he could afford it and it was what he wanted to do. I said no as it felt wrong for so many reasons but I also felt guilty about saying no as I knew he just wanted his friend to be happy.
He won't share chocolate with me, mind!

My teens have two bank accounts. One I give them weekly money into. One I control.
DS eats his money weekly!
DD buys some sweets occasionally, but builds up bigger sums to go shopping or transfer to her savings account.

I give them £5 a week.

I think teen boys are just empty stomach’s that want to be sensible, but are hungry!!! 😂

I agree with your DH, it’s a lesson learned, and at a good cosy to be honest. I would maybe be having a chat with him to ensure he’s not being taken advantage of though - good friends wouldn’t want you spending loads on them all the time. Do these friends also regularly buy him treats? Or is it just him buying for them?

Ah sorry op, just seen your update that it’s a close friend who would also buy your boy things too. In that case I think it’s just c’est la vie to be honest. He’s been a bit daft with his money - who hasn’t been at some point? Next time he’ll maybe be a bit more sensible. I would be telling him it’s his money, and not going on at him or anything. Like with the jogging bottoms, he’ll maybe think ‘I should have had a few less takeaways and then I’d have my new jogging bottoms!’

Teenagers are always doing daft and reckless things. All normal.😉