DS 17 cannot budget

[SeaSnakes]

DS 17 is rubbish with money. He gets paid fortnightly between £350 - £400. He’s currently trying to save to go on holiday. We have suggested he puts X amount away as soon as he gets paid to save up. We have offered to help by either transferring the money to us and we’ll keep it safe for him or if he prefers to draw out cash and similarly we’ll keep it safe.
He keeps refusing our help as he wants to do it himself- fair enough but he just ends up spending all his money on take aways and FIFA/ X box, taking his GF out etc.
Not to drip feed, it may / may not be relevant but he is quite an immature 17 yr old who struggles with simple tasks and authority. We (his Dad and I) believe he has ADHD but he’s always refused any intervention.
We’ve sat down and talked about costs and tried to simplify budgeting but also emphasise the importance of not living beyond your means. He says he understands but it’s like in one ear and out of the other.
He recently got one of those silly tin money boxes from pound land that you put money in but can’t get out again. He drew cash out and put about £200 in then a few days later opened it with a tin opener because he realised he suddenly had no money in his bank account and wanted to go out 🙈
any advice on how to help him learn how to budget?

😂

Well I wish it was that simple

You are giving very mixed messages, and you and his dad need to properly work out what you pay for and what you don’t, and what he needs to pay for.

you can’t say he has to buy his own clothes and then you pay for a load of stuff. It is confusing us, never mind him and you

have a think and then stick to your rules, once you all have them clear.

right now he has more disposable income than most adults do, and many of us are financially struggling and would love to get a hand out of free clothes and free spending money for our holidays

Why isn't it that simple ? I understand he is 17 and has Adhd but why are you buying his clothes that he didn't ask for ? If he wants to go about in primark clothes let him ! You can't say you want him to budget and be better with money then buy him a load of sportswear.

Exactly.

If he gets to call shots over such simple things it's no wonder he doesn't have any sense of responsibility.

I get the impulse and inability to organise as my ds has autism and struggles with this.

But he certainly doesn't get to dictate parenting to me. Not even now he's 18 as he can either live here with discussions on rules or move out. And he knows what side his bread is buttered on

Set some setting some boundaries and sticking to them would be a good idea.
And charge him a percentage of his earnings even if you keep it to one side.
Don't make excuses for him. All my boys have asd and I am there to guide them even if they don't like it at times. And allowing them to fail is part of that. Infantilising him will do none of you any favours in the long run.

My dad stopped buying me clothes when I turned 16, then he provided a weekly bus pass and £1 for school lunch. Okay it was the early 90s but principle's the same. Then he told me at 18 I'd be paying rent so I moved out.

So while I was still kind of financially stupid I still had to fend for myself and I just think if you don't do it when young then they become adult babies.

Please don’t enable his behaviour by giving him money when he hasn’t got enough for
his holiday.

my partner has adhd and is shit with money. His mum constantly bailed him out and enabled a weird reliant behaviour. He knew it wasn’t right so would lie about his spending and being in debt and she would only ever say it was between her and her son when I asked her to stop enabling his behaviour.

You won’t be doing him any favours in the future with a light touch on budgeting. Start taking dogs money and his share of the bills/food. Whether you need it or not is irrelevant. You’re teaching him
rwsponsibility.

If you want to help him learn to budget then let him prioritise his own spending. If he'd rather spend disposable income on gaming than on going on holiday then that's a legitimate choice. He'll soon realise that each pound can only be spent once.

Unless you make up the shortfall and let him spend each pound more than once. So stop subsidising him, and make him pay something towards board.

honestly we should just be done with this one, op's clearly either spineless or relishing in her son still needing her to baby him, i mean why the fuck are you buying him nike stuff christmas was like less than 2 months ago, you dismiss every suggestion because he's neurodivergent and that's apparently an exuse to be smug and tell you you don't need his cash, honestly even if you did force him to pay rent i wouldn't be putting it into a secret account i'd be pocketing it just for that attitude

OP this thread is pointless if you keep enabling him.

You are enabling him. Stop it or he’ll never learn.

Let him run out of money and don't bail him out. Sooner or later, he'll want a holiday (or driving lessons, a balloon flight) badly enough to save up.

Give him a notebook to write down all his income/outgoings. Its private, just for him, no peeking unless he wants to talk about it.

It might help to have a pin up picture on his wall of the desired object/ holiday.

Well if working in a fast food restaurant is giving him £800 a month spending money then he is living his best life isn’t he ! Maybe suggest that he starts paying for some driving lessons because there aren’t going to be many times in his life that he has that amount of cash to spend on himself.

Help him to set up some direct debits to go into saving accounts, holiday fund, phone costs,driving lesson fund if you can. Also definitely ask him to contribute some of his money to household expenses. But ultimately he’s a teen , a young teen, with a lot of money burning a hole in his pocket and all you can do is stand by, watch, grit your teeth and never ever bail him out when he is skint until he shows more sense.

If you have just ordered them then you can send them back and get a refund.

he doesn’t seem to understand you can’t have something if you can’t afford it,

You've taught him he can spend all AND have it all, because Mum and Dad will pay

can’t seem to think things through or realise consequences

Sounds like he inherited that gene.

Education or TRAINING . Not working

If he isn’t in education, he needs to pay real rent. That is how he learns to budget. It doesn’t matter if you need the money. You can put it in savings for him.

Having access to his full wages for frivolous spending is giving him a completely false sense of money.

Thars not what it means, its only recommended. They absolutely can be in work. They claim until 18

Not true

The government website says otherwise.

www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school

Agree. Sit him down and talk to him and tell him if he saves 200 a month he'll have 1200 in six months and you'll add xx pounds (if you can afford it). Then say we aren't going to remind you again, we are now leaving it totally up to you ,and then walk away.

What you need is a time machine. My DD with ADHD has been taught financial natural consequences, both good and bad, since she was old enough not to eat pocket money. We'd go to the shop, she'd want something, every single time, "you have 6 quid in your savings DD do you want to spend it on that?" She would decide one way or the other. If she wanted something a few days later, "you don't have any left DD, remember you bought X" and we'd talk about worth and happiness and whether short term stuff was worth it. She's now a saver (although impulsive everywhere else, it hasn't cured her ADHD!).

You keep doing things like lending him money, buying clothes when he isn't saving, trying to baby him. One holiday with next to no spending money will teach more in a week than any amount of chatting will do in 17 years. But you have to say it and mean it, "DS, I will not be giving you spending money for the holiday, if you go without, your friends will be annoyed, GF will be annoyed and you will have a crap time. That's your choice." And mean it.

He needs to be dumped in it to get it. And have better boundaries. Stop lending, stop enabling.

You bought him a car before he passed his test? Blimey OP it's not just him who's bad with money!

Why should the OP give extra money to a teen who has the wherewithal to save £1200 in six months and can’t be arsed to contribute to the family expenses pot? If the OP has that to spare they should be saving it on their own account.