How do you persuade your kids to be moneysaving too?

pollypenny

How do we make our kids MSERS?

Failed completely! DD has blown every penny she has earned and that which she has not earned! Am at the point of being totally fed up with her. But still worrying, of course!

Farway

pollypenny wrote: »

How do we make our kids MSERS?

Failed completely! DD has blown every penny she has earned and that which she has not earned! Am at the point of being totally fed up with her. But still worrying, of course!

They do learn eventually, my son was like your DD, he had huge debts and all the worry to go with them, but he eventually realised that spending what you do not have is a mugs game

Now he has his own family it is him being me, telling them to switch off the lights etc when not in the room

lilac_lady

When my son and family stayed with me for 2 weeks between moving house I had to count to ten a lot as they NEVER switched off a light, stayed in the shower for 20/30 minutes and threw away food that I would have converted into something else.

I had to keep quiet to preserve the good relationship we have but it wasn't easy.

Ps - my electricity bills were much higher proving that the little things like switching off lights and taking shorter showers help reduce the bills.

luxor4t

Eliza wrote: »

..... If I make suggestions I feel like a nagging mother or mother in law and it makes no difference.

Liz

Farway wrote: »

OP, be careful how you go, or you could end up seen by them as "interfering mother in law"

They are adults and, even though you want to help, they have to make their own choices & reach their own conclusions.

I wish my own MiL had realised this - she had an opinion about every little thing & it was inevitably the opposite of mine, even down to how to tie a shoelace!

vic_sf49

I know you feel like you're nagging them, but it sounds like they need it, or maybe even a stronger shock tactic. If they are in serious risk of losing their house, ask them straight out how they're going to cope if that actually becomes reality. Or just come out and ask them how much they're in debt. Ok, so you might not be their favourite person for a while, but are they the sort of people to hold a grudge?

A few more questions to consider:

If they did have to sell / move, would they be looking to you for financial help with the relocation? Would that place you in an awkward position? Are you able to help? Would not being able to do so cause a bigger family divide than any 'nagging' you're doing at the moment?

Point out that renting is often more expensive than having a mortgage, which will mean they'd have to budget more tightly anyway. Not to mention the initial outlay when starting to rent, and that they'd also have to sort out removals etc.

If people ask for help then the skills can to taught, but like other posters have mentioned, the reluctance to admit debt is often down to embarassment or not being able to see a way out of it.

I was never sat down and taught how to manage my money or the best ways to save; I think I just absorbed it from my parents. They never nagged me and I have no kids, so I can't fully understand your position. I have however been persistent with a few friends and their spending habits, all of which ended happily ever after.

pollypenny

OH and I had to count every penny until youngest child left uni. I wonder if that is why DD has become such a spendthrift.

We helped her with a deposit and with home improvements, but I am so worried about her lack of job security. We cannot end up paying her mortgage or letting her lose the house.

lilac_lady

pollypenny wrote: »

OH and I had to count every penny until youngest child left uni. I wonder if that is why DD has become such a spendthrift.

We helped her with a deposit and with home improvements, but I am so worried about her lack of job security. We cannot end up paying her mortgage or letting her lose the house.

I've helped my family out by giving them money (gladly) but have now shut the purse because I feel that there's a fine line between being appeciated and being taken for granted.

Any money I have will need to see me through the rest of my retirement.

Hopefully pollypenny's daughter (and our families) will be able to juggle financies the way we had to when we were younger.

organic_wanabe

I wish I had an answer - but needless to say, I don't! However, I sometimes worry that my 'canny' ways might turn my DS (18) into a spendthrift.

He is fairly good at the moment. He has just left school and will go to University in October. As soon as his exam leave was over I suggested that he go out with CVs to find a job saying I would not support his social life at university. [I am, however, going to pay his fees - he going to an English University even although we stay in Scotland - and will pay his accommodation and give him an allowance for food, as I don't want him to get into the habit of thinking that debt is ok. However, we will have to make certain sacrifices to do this.] He was fortunate that he found a job straightaway, and he is also carrying on with a morning paper-round that he has done since he was 14.

He has now managed to save over £6,000 and when he realised this, he turned round and said 'Do you realise that you have managed to spoil my last real Summer by making me take a job.' He wont listen when I say that it is always useful to have a 'nest egg' and that the money he has built up will cushion him for the next 3 years if required. I pointed out that he was going away soon with his friends for a holiday abroad and that, if he had not had a job, he would probably have spent a lot of the time just lying in bed. The one glimmer of hope I had was when I said that if he felt hard-done-by then he could always hand in his notice, and he replied that he had made a commitment to the company to work until mid-Spetember and so would follow it through.

I guess it is time for me to back-off and hope that he realises that I have been trying to help as best I can. Sorry to get off-topic.

Savvy_Sue

pollypenny wrote: »

We helped her with a deposit and with home improvements, but I am so worried about her lack of job security. We cannot end up paying her mortgage or letting her lose the house.

I am not sure how any parent would be 'letting' an adult child lose their house: we all make choices, and our choices have consequences. If they haven't learned this before leaving home, how do they learn it if we say we 'can't let' this, that or the other happen for them?

organic_wanabe wrote: »

[I am, however, going to pay his fees - he going to an English University even although we stay in Scotland - and will pay his accommodation and give him an allowance for food, as I don't want him to get into the habit of thinking that debt is ok. However, we will have to make certain sacrifices to do this.]

I don't know what the Scottish system for loans is, but I feel that student loan debt is a very different thing to other debts. And Martin agrees.

Mine have learned that their loan goes so far: DS2 knows that it will just about cover his 'normal' living expenses at Uni, but it won't fund his expensive hobby. This is good: he makes choices when he's home (and presumably when he's away too) about what he can AFFORD to do, and he uses his savings to fund his hobby - up to a point. After that point, he stops spending on it.

DS1 is living on his savings from his 6th form and vacation job while he tries out self-employment. He knows when that money runs out, he'll need to find a proper job, and I've suggested that it may take longer than he thinks! But having student debt hasn't led to him living on an overdraft / his credit card.

Obviously it's your choice, but I am not sure how parents making sacrifices so that their student offspring don't 'get into debt' helps either side.

organic_wanabe wrote: »

He has now managed to save over £6,000 and when he realised this, he turned round and said 'Do you realise that you have managed to spoil my last real Summer by making me take a job.'

:rotfl: Assure him that he has several more 'real' summers while he's a student!

roy_harper

luxor4t wrote: »

They are adults and, even though you want to help, they have to make their own choices & reach their own conclusions.

I wish my own MiL had realised this - she had an opinion about every little thing & it was inevitably the opposite of mine, even down to how to tie a shoelace!

Hands up, I tend to warn my grown-up kids about pitfalls, and they see it as nagging, and one day I bought myself a fridge magnet to remind myself to back-off.
It says: 'EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION'.
:rotfl: