Son demanding expensive items which I can't afford

[Uncomfortableinmyownhome]

How is best to manage these situations? I'm a low earner (school support staff) and my husband is currently off work sick so money is very tight. We can pay all of the bills , food etc and do have some left over for days out / to fix the car etc but we aren't flush with cash and it's important we save some for emergencies.
We live in an area where my 13 year old sons school mates families all have more money than us, they have 2 working parents on good wages.
They get spoilt rotten with all the new consoles, games , subscriptions, expensive clothes and trainers and very expensive bikes bought for them throughout the year , not just birthdays and Xmas. I know this as we are all friends.
My son does get everything he requests, but has to wait until Xmas for a console for example whereas they just get bought one anytime. I buy his clothes off vinted whereas they get taken to jd sports and get £500 spent on them. I have to save up for larger priced items so he may have to wait a while but I always try to best to make sure he has the same or similar to them.
His current obsession is a new bike. Him and his friends go out biking every day. He has a £500 bike which I fully expected to last him until adulthood . That was a really expensive purchase for us. He'd had it for 18 months.
According to him, his friends have a new bike every 6 months and one of them is was £2000 and one was £4000. Ive seen these new bikes as their parents have out photos on social media. I think spending that amount is absolutely ridiculous and I wouldn't be spending that even if I was a millionaire.(up to them what they want to do with their money)
He's telling me they are laughing at him because his bike is rubbish. Which is funny seeing as we bought it off one of them and they were telling us how great it was (it's retail price was £1000 and we paid £500 for it) He is now begging me for a new one which is £1000 . I cannot afford this , not even for Xmas.
He knows our financial pressure but can't seem to accept it. He keeps pushing and pushing and causing arguments about it. I've told him we would have to go without food for me to save up for that for him. What does he expect me to do? I only warn just over £1000 a month and inl work full time!! We have another child aswell so not fair to just be spending that on one of them.
I don't know if this matters at all but he does have adhd with asd traits and he desperately tries to fit in. He also is very impulsive, especially with wanting to buy things and he doesn't seem to be able to accept no is no . He thinks if he asks me about it over and over again I will eventually give in and say yes.
He is making me feel like shit regarding our financial situation. We are also in the process of separating, and when that is sorted money will be even tighter, I will have to claim universal credit to top up my wage

I’ll bet that those who do have £2/4k bikes have got a cycle to work scheme at their company. Often get them discounted and pay over a year / two years with tax & national insurance benefits. I still wouldn’t do it for my teen but saves them paying it upfront.

Really hard but I think you have to change your mindset of spoilt rotten as if he picks up on it he’ll be bitter- I went to a school where there was a huge range of us situation wise- I adored horses and worked in a stables and got free rides and always always wanted a horse. There were two girls in my class who were loaded and jumped internationally and I’d say I had my parents’ ear bent over the amazing places they were going and that they’d gotten a new horse, we saw pictures of this amazing outfit etc etc. My parents would just nod along and every so often say ‘wow that sounds cool!’ I think if they’d done the ‘well for some’ or ‘they get too much’ I’d have had a different way of thinking. You can’t afford what they have, he just needs to know that nicely. (But such a hard lesson for both of ye!!)

He needs new friends, these wankers are where the pressure is coming from.
It's approval he wants not a new bike.

Kids can be shallow sometimes but this is extreme.

He gets everything he requests...?

Sounds like you made a rod for your own back long ago and now he's beating you with it.

I've got 4 teens and work the same job as you. I'm also a single parent.

No means no. I can't afford it is pretty self explanatory.

Talk to him about getting some proper friends rather than the nasty kids he is hanging around with.

https://www.newboldhope.com/buying-things-article

I found this article useful when managing the expectations and fixations of my nd dc.

I think you respond to the emotions behind it - talk about how it's hard to not be able to have the things his friends have. Reaffirm that it isn't possible because you don't have the money and ask how he wants to handle it. Does he want help working out how to tell his friends to back off? Help finding different friends? Does he want to get a job himself and save up?

He waits for Christmas and birthdays and gets what you can afford.

He's absolutely not the only kid in that position (and he'd get even less if he had siblings)

I went through this with mine, who couldn't understand why others went abroad on holidays had had lots of new things when they did not. At around the same age as OPs son, I actually sat them down and talked them through the family finances in detail. It took more than one session. I showed them income and necessary expenditure, savings for Christmas and holidays, emergency fund etc. I always told them that if I had the money to spend, I would spend it on them (and when income increased, I did).

We established an 'all in it together' mentality and when they were a bit older and I was unable to get to the cash machine, I had no problem giving them my card to draw quite substantial amounts of money from my account. They knew that if they took money for themselves, they would suffer because it was all our money.

I stumbled into explaining money to them this way, but on reflection, I think it was good for all of us. They grew up being able to handle their own money - even though like most, they were impoverished students needing handouts.

Who's the parent here?

Something a lot of parents don't teach their children now is saving and working hard for something.

He can get a paper round, cut lawns, wash cars, save birthday/Christmas money etc.

Best life skill you can teach them.

A) you don't NEED all the latest rubbish to fit in B) it doesn't come easily - you have to work hard.

I think it’s difficult for children to really comprehend budgeting and the cost of things, however surely he is aware that £1000 is a lot of money! Your DS will appreciate the life lessons regarding money when he’s older.

I had a very well off upbringing but we never got presents costing £1000 unless it was a milestone birthday! We also never got presents or things we wanted throughout the year, we had to wait until birthday or Christmas. We weren’t spoilt at all and it taught us the value of things and made birthdays all that more special because we had to wait for what we wanted. Also never heard of a £500 shopping spree - to me that is insane!

Well - he can demand away! If you don't have the money, he can't have the things he wants (especially unnecessarily expensive things) - if he wants stuff like that he will have to go out and earn the money.

My children are adults now, but when they were younger they understood that money only went so far.

He's very lucky he has what he does.
Seriously, it may be 'annoying' for him, but he's lucky he has a home to go to where food is on the table and clothes and possessions.
Seriously, think to yourself what you've provided for him, it is more than enough, tell yourself that and obviously* *tell him that.
Don't let it get to you, and don't give in to him.
If he doesn't stop hounding you, I'd be inclined to show him some documentaries about kids and families that don't have enough food on the table and have unstable housing, it is deeply unfair as you know, but what you are giving your son is more than adequate and he needs to know.
The fact that you buy him toys and clothes is great, but it is absolutely normal that children have to wait, especially for expensive things if they get them at all. He isn't deprived in any way.
His bike is fine.
Also, talk about bullying and why people do it, don't sink in to the fact that they have more and what they think. Maybe tell your son, that bullies are that way because they are lacking integrity or dissatisfied in life, maybe their mum and dad argue at home, do a bit of basic psychology, but only do so, so your son takes things less personally. Because of his age, he might not absorb that, but I'd try.
However, do not give in, he isn't lacking.

He needs to find a way to make his own cash, whether that be washing cars, walking dogs, gardening, anything. Hopefully when he realises the effort it takes to make £20 the message will start to sink in that money does not grow on trees. Stand firm and tell him he needs to fund this himself.

You seem to have explained your situation to him, you are doing the best you can, do not give in to this pressure, its a common trait in teenagers especially to want what their friends have, and they always think the grass is greener, just say No, dont justify your reasons anymore, life does not revolve completely around one person, ADD or anything else, he can still understand no, our second son has Aspergers he understood no just like the others!
You are doing all you can!

No is a full sentence OP. You’ve explained and explained and as you say even if you had the money why would you spend all that on a new bike when the one he has is great? (and was expensive enough!). They aren’t friends if they are laughing at him over his bike, but I’ll doubt he’ll see that. He will soon get bored though. Tell him ‘we aren’t discussing that anymore, I’ve said no and that’s it’ next time he brings it up.

My son has ADD/autistic
Totally get the constant asking you describe.
I sat mine down and told him sometimes I will say no to his requests. Be it for safety or financial reasons. Constantly going on won't change my mind. Period. We agreed together that for those situations it would be a "hard no"
So now I just say "that's a hard no" he accepts that and stops bugging me.

£1000 is a LOT of money! My son wanted a gaming pc which costs around the same. I said hard no, if you really want it you will have to save up for it. When he realised how long that would take he soon dropped that idea!

So not full time then

Just keep it short and factual - sorry, I can’t afford it at the moment. It would be nice to buy everything we wanted but real life isn’t like that. End of, no further discussion on the subject. If you carry on asking I’m going to get very annoyed.

It isn't that your son can't accept it. He doesn't want to accept it. Kids want what they want when they want it. Unfortunately life is not like that. I'm afraid my answer would be, if your bike isn't good enough we'll sell it and then you get to walk.
Peer pressure has always been around, kids can be cruel but as the adult it's your job to teach that no means no. "Keep pestering and you will lose other privileges, IE devices, TV privileges etc."
You will always come across families with greater disposable incomes, and others who struggle to get from paycheck to paycheck. You have to live in the limits of your income, because going overboard just to please your child will only result in a spoiled child and heartache and debt for you.

The onus needs shifting from the monetary value of things to him being able to see what he really wants and/or what he needs. You are not doing him sny favours by putting yourselves under such pressure. And yes I do know its hard but can be done.

He's telling me they are laughing at him because his bike is rubbish

The answer to this is he finds new friends. Have a proper conversation about this.

If that were me I would be out every evening training on my bike so to rip the piss out of them when I can beat them on my "rubbish" bike.

You can't get blood from a stone. You can't afford it. It doesn't matter how many times he asks. You need to keep repeating no, we can't afford it. Have you considered getting him involved in community work. My friends son works with her in the food bank and his attitude has certainly changed.

If you work full time on NMW you'd get £1600 a month OP?

One of my neighbours has a 12 year old son and as soon we we moved in, the boy had put a flyer through our door with his price list for jobs like car washing and lawn mowing. Could your son do something like that maybe?

That's definitely a good place to learn what necessity is.
I also have volunteered and I'm dismayed at times of the contents of a weekly parcel and it's not a week's worth of groceries.