son eating me out of house and home

esalad

Hi all

I am a single parent with one child still at home a teenage son who is at college.
My problem is that I am struggling to feed him and myself. Though I am very careful and shop cheaply , cook at home etc he can just eat right through a weeks shopping in two days.

He is not overweight and I realise he is growing but for example he gets a free breakfast at college and I give him his family allowance every month for lunches which are fairly cheap at college. When he gets home I cook which he sometimes wastes half of whatever it is then comes down once I'm in bed and raids the fridge. There is always bread for toast or sandwich stuff but he will help himself to pizzas, pies etc which I have ready for the following days.

Over Christmas he helped himself to chocolate bars my other half bought me without asking and if I buy orange juice he will take the whole carton in one sitting. If I confront him he says he didn't take it :mad:
Today again he has swiped the pie I had ready for my lunch probably last night within a couple of hours of being cooked a huge pasta meal.

I a now having to hide food in my room in order to get something it sounds ridiculous but there it is.

Confrontation goes in one ear and out the other. He is well behaved generally apart from the normal teenage laziness.

wiogs

esalad wrote: »

Hi all

I am a single parent with one child still at home a teenage son who is at college.
My problem is that I am struggling to feed him and myself. Though I am very careful and shop cheaply , cook at home etc he can just eat right through a weeks shopping in two days.

He is not overweight and I realise he is growing but for example he gets a free breakfast at college and I give him his family allowance every month for lunches which are fairly cheap at college. When he gets home I cook which he sometimes wastes half of whatever it is then comes down once I'm in bed and raids the fridge. There is always bread for toast or sandwich stuff but he will help himself to pizzas, pies etc which I have ready for the following days.

Over Christmas he helped himself to chocolate bars my other half bought me without asking and if I buy orange juice he will take the whole carton in one sitting. If I confront him he says he didn't take it :mad:
Today again he has swiped the pie I had ready for my lunch probably last night within a couple of hours of being cooked a huge pasta meal.

I a now having to hide food in my room in order to get something it sounds ridiculous but there it is.

Confrontation goes in one ear and out the other. He is well behaved generally apart from the normal teenage laziness.

Have you asked him why he lies to you? What is behind this?

A good proper sit down talk is the next step. Not talk at him but get a dialogue going.

Money_maker

esalad wrote: »

When he gets home I cook which he sometimes wastes half of whatever it is then comes down once I'm in bed and raids the fridge.

Well leave the half in the fridge with a note on telling him to finish it first!

FatVonD

Teenage boys eat a LOT.

We have the luxury of 2 fridges, one he can help himself to anything from, the other he knows contains food for meals. It works most of the time (unless the free fridge is empty.) Could it work for you if he had a shelf/cupboard that he knows he can help himself to stuff from?

I like to use the teenage laziness to my advantage (and to cut down on the mess) by having some ready-to-eat stuff in the 'free' fridge, if there is a pack of sausage rolls to hand he won't bother to heat up a pie. If there is leftover chicken in there then he's not cooking something else.

Re the orange juice, mine does exactly the same but I don't mind (I like to think the vitamins balance out the unhealthy sausage rolls!) I just buy lots of it, I think the value ones are only 65p each (he likes the apple juice too) and taste just as good as the branded stuff.

lazer

Remember that men in general need more to eat than women, and teenagers seem to need even more.


So if you are expecting your son to eat the same amount as you, he will be wanting more - men generally need 500 calories more - which is the amount of calories that can be in a small dinner!


In terms of the OJ - buy multipacks of the small ones and then he may only take 1.


You need to set boundaries with him - tell him what he can and can't have

GBNI

What age is he? Could he get a job and help contribute to the household?

esalad

FatVonD wrote: »

Teenage boys eat a LOT.

We have the luxury of 2 fridges, one he can help himself to anything from, the other he knows contains food for meals. It works most of the time (unless the free fridge is empty.) Could it work for you if he had a shelf/cupboard that he knows he can help himself to stuff from?

I like to use the teenage laziness to my advantage (and to cut down on the mess) by having some ready-to-eat stuff in the 'free' fridge, if there is a pack of sausage rolls to hand he won't bother to heat up a pie. If there is leftover chicken in there then he's not cooking something else.

Re the orange juice, mine does exactly the same but I don't mind (I like to think the vitamins balance out the unhealthy sausage rolls!) I just buy lots of it, I think the value ones are only 65p each (he likes the apple juice too) and taste just as good as the branded stuff.

He does have his own food cupboard too which has noodles, pasta, tins of ravioli etc plus his allowance. My older daughter also cooks for him several times a week and I buy him doughnuts and brioche rolls etc. He eats all this plus whatever else is around and I now shop daily to stop him going through a weeks supply. I end up with toast a lot of the time for lunch or supper.

Incidentally my daughter cooks food for everyone except me because she insists my food tastes better and I won't like it. She would never go near a pan when she was at home despite my offers to teach her to cook. I've never put down her cooking because I never had it.

esalad

GBNI wrote: »

What age is he? Could he get a job and help contribute to the household?

He's seventeen and doesn't have any interest in finding work

WestonDave

So sit him down and bluntly tell him - there is so much money for food each week, so much food gets bought with it and if you go raiding for it you are eating your own mother's food and leaving me to go hungry.


Hopefully the point that his selfishness is directly impacting someone he probably wouldn't want to hurt will at least make him think twice next time he gets the munchies.

wiogs

As I said in post 2 - you need to have a talk with him.

Sooner the better

rach_k

If he's 17 and he's choosing to eat 'junk food' that isn't his to take over healthier food that is there for him whenever he wants it, I would be firm in telling him that if he wants extra junk, he must buy it himself - he could get a paper round, Saturday job etc. A younger teen could get a paper round too. I think you're already very generous with his food allowance - that should be plenty. If he doesn't want to get a job that's his choice but don't let him leave you hungry because of it!

As he has his own cupboard space, perhaps you could tell him how much you are prepared to spend stocking it each week and let him choose what he wants for himself, if he's not eating what you buy already. If he chooses a few more expensive things over lots of cheaper stuff, that's his choice and a good life lesson. Or offer to continue stocking it with healthy-ish options that will fill him up if he's really hungry rather than just being greedy. While I agree that he's growing and probably needs the food, he doesn't *need* pizza and pies - he wants them. If he continues to eat food that isn't his to eat, tell him he must replace them himself and don't buy any more until he does (or lock away what you do buy).

ETA - Another option would be to tell him that if he takes something that wasn't his to take, you will take the cost of replacing it from his next week's allowance.