Teen spending habits?
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Teen spending habits?
| Mon, 07-17-2006 - 1:46pm |
How much do you attempt to influence how your kids spend their own money? My 15 year old has had a job for a little over a month. He really wastes his money (in my opinion). Most of it goes to DVD's and video games. On Thursday, he got a $489 paycheque - and then later in the day he got a $400 government rebate cheque that everyone in the province got. It was ALL gone by 6:00. He spent $30 on a birthday present for my 7 year old DD, bought a new DVD player for about $100, spent a little on fast food -and ALL the rest on games and movies. On the one hand this is terrible financial management, and I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to encourage him to make better choices. On the other hand - it IS his money, so I don't know how far to push that!

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We've never had to convince either dd how to spend or save thier money. It is understood that they will always be required to save at least some of thier money, whether it was received as a gift or from earnings.
My 18dd saves 10% of her paycheck, gives H some money for insurance and me some for her college account. The rest is hers to do as she pleases. She pays everything up front before she wastes any.
16dd, when she was working, saved about 70% of her check. Since we supply most of her needs, she really only needed pocket money for movies, etc.
Any way you could step in and just set down some guidelines? For instance, does he intend on getting his license? Maybe you could motivate him to start saving for a car? That's what both dd's have done with thier money - we opened a joint account and thier savings went into it; we named it "Car Account" and kept the savings book in my glovebox so they couldn't have access to it without me knowing.
Or, does he have plans for college? That's another motivator. My nephew is a computer video game junkie and he goes to the EB Games store and trades his old games in for new ones that have been refurnished as a means to save some money. Maybe your son could start his own little business doing trades as a means of spending less actual money and instead do some trading with his buds.
I think I would try to find a real strong motivator for him to save his money, but make it mandatory even if you can't find one thing for him to use as a long term goal. Sit with him and figure out what he needs in regards to pocket money, what video game budget per month is reasonable for him and work from there. Help him to see the value of saving at least a portion of his earnings. I know that there are many books to help teens learn about handling money responsibly which offers tips on saving money, investing money, etc. I'm sure it's at your local book store.
best of luck
Once my kids had jobs the allowances stopped. I wasn't all that into allowance to begin with because outside of the allowance they were always nickel and diming me anyway. But once they had jobs, there was no allowance. I'd stop that right now.
My 16dd has tourettes which carries with it the manifestation of things like OCD, ODD, and ADHD, so I know where you're coming from in regards to your son being difficult. It is a real battle when you want them to do something that makes sense to everyone but them!
Set down a guideline and stick with it. If he quits his job, oh well. It's his loss = tell him that since he is capable to working, the allowance will still not be available if he quits his job so it's really not a well thought out plan and will still not solve his problem. Restate to him that he MUST save at least a portion of his income and that's final. It's so hard to be consistent with an oppositional child, but you can do it. It may take a while, but he'll 'get it' eventually. My dd has a really hard time sticking to the rules, but when we're consistent she eventually understands and gets with the program.
best of luck - what a pita.
I have a 'spender'. If he has $1 he'll spend $5! It's a BAD 'gene' or something! :)
When he got his first job, we sat down with him. Talke about how he pays himself first. We alloted $20.00 per week he could have from the paycheck. Then the rest went into the bank. He didn't have ATM card so withdrawing was a 'pain' so he wouldn't do that. Plus, we explained how the account would grow an dhe could buy something realllly neat with it.
We (sort of together, but mostly we(parents) decided that he coudl buy ONE item of around $100.00 that summer. Rest had to go into savings.
This summer he is 18. WHole new rules since legally we can't control his spending. But we DID sit down with him and show him how he has been spending like crazy and what will happen if he doens't have enough $$ to get thru the school year. (he's off to college end of next month). It was a pretty good eye-opener for him.
WHen he was younger we had 3 jars. 1 jar for 'charity' (they could pick any charity they wanted, Church, Ronald McDonald house... etc), another for SPENDING, and the third for SAVINGS. We divided it as a % to each. Since his allowance was quite small amt in each jar wasn't much. So we allowed a greater % in spending because it takes FOREVER to save for a movie when you can only put in $1.00 a week for spending! ;)
Those are just a couple things we have done with our kids.
A spread sheet with expenses, how much earned, how much spent, what categories of spending... make it visual and they get it idea better.
Also something that REALLY helped my spending son... He wanted a $35.00 shirt. I asked him, "You will have to work 7 hours to earn enough $ for that shirt. If you are willing to work 7 hrs for the shirt, go ahead and buy it. If you feel 7 hrs is too much labor for 1 shirt, then think again before you buy it."
That seemed to help with comprehension of work=money=spending for him too.
GOOD LUCK
I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but I don't tell either child (12yo DS and 14yo DD) how to spend their money. They each receive $25 a month for allowance to spend however they see fit. Since neither child is of employment age, I give it to them for the express purpose of having their own pocket money and for them to see how quickly a buck can disappear.
DD learned the lesson fast. When it came to her wanting something, and I'd ask her if she had enough money of her own to pay for it, often she didn't want it bad enough to spend her own funds. She is quite a saver, saving most of her money all year so she can buy really great Christmas presents for everyone in December.
DS isn't getting it yet. He spends his money as fast as he gets it. He often asks for an advance on his allowance and he is nearly ALWAYS refused that request. I tell him he absolutely can't spend money he doesn't actually have. That is one of the budgeting points I am trying to drive home in a big way because I am terrified of him getting out on his own and getting his 1st credit card. THAT is a scary thought, considering his spending habits so far. Around September/October I will start reminding him that the holidays are coming up and he doesn't have any money for shopping. Only then does he start putting money aside.
That said however, the fact that your DS spend nearly $900 in a single day would make me worry too, and unfortunately I don't have any btdt advice on that.
My DD is 17 and has been working since the beginning of last summer. I don't give her an allowance any more, but I do give her money for lunch during the school year, since i give it to the younger kids and I also will buy her some things. She has too many clothes already (like her mom) but if she needed something like a coat, I wouldn't expect her to spend her money on that. When she wanted a class ring last year, I couldn't believe how expensive they were and there were so many styles, so before she picked one out, we discussed the price and her father, she & I all contributed to it. She is pretty responsible and she has to pay for her own car ins. ($150/month plus gas) so after that, I don't really tell her what to spend money on. At the end of last summer, I think she had saved $1000 because she was thinking about buying a car. Then it ended up that her grandmother gave her an old car. I'll tell you though, she was shocked when she had to come up w/ $700 up front to pay for car ins. But we had told her over and over that it was up to her whether she wanted her own car cause she could borrow mine, but that if she did get one, her insurance would cost more plus she would have to pay for gas, so her complaints fall on deaf ears.
I don't know exactly what to do in your situation since I haven't had it. I know it's exciting for kids to get their first paycheck. If you go from getting $20 a week for an allowance, to getting hundreds, it must be very exciting. Is this a one-time thing that he blows his money, or is it going to be every week? It doesn't really matter much now, if he doesn't have to buy anything, but I just see the consequences for the future if he doesn't learn how to control his spending. I am a lawyer and I just see a lot of adults who have to go bankrupt due to credit card debts. I'll see someone who makes $20,000/year paying $500/month for a car loan so they can get a fancy car and I look at them like--what are you thinking? You charged up $100,000 on credit cards and how did you ever think you would pay that off? Now of course, it's a lot harder to go bankrupt too.
The only thing I could think of is to tell him that if he can't be trusted to save some of his money, you will have to put some of it into an account in your name that he can't withdraw the money from. And if he quits his job, he will only be spiting himself since then he won't have any money to buy any videos and you won't be buying them for him. If he thinks about that for a while, he might see that it's better for him to have $50/week (or whatever) for spending than to have no dollars. Good luck.
Is he on any meds for his ADHD? Just curious. I have a 16ds with ADD and we have some of the same problems with money.
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