Helping my 16 year old son with his money

booklover

Hello everyone

I am really worried and hope someone can offer me some advice/help.
My 16 year old son is not very good with money;he spends any money he gets as fast as possible.

Just over 2 years ago he lied to me; he wiped out all the savings from his account. :mad: He spent this money on dvds, cds, meals and giving it to his friends.... :mad:

I blamed myself because I should have noticed what was going on.... :sad:

Anyway he accessed his bank card which I thought was safe and over a period of 4 months he proceeded to spend every penny from his account. when i found out i actually thought someone had stolen the money from his account and I was made a real fool of..... _pale_

This was about £1400 which my mother had saved for my son over the years and was to be used for uni. I never told my mother as she would have been devastated. As you can see it is very hard to trust him now...

Anyway, to cut a long story short I finally found out about what he had done and was extremely upset as you can imagine. :mad:

OK since then, I closed the acc and he always has to ask me for money; he is only a little more sensible these days.

Well here is my main concern now - he is starting a part-time job next week and will have to have a bank acc. Now he wants me to help him with his money and he consents to me having access to his account.

How can this happen :question: - I am worried and want to ensure he is sensible and saves most of his earnings and just waste it all again!!

Please can anyone advise me...


A worried mother with my son's best interest at heart.

Fiona

PS if this is in the wrong place please advise me.

shaz77_2

booklover wrote: »

Well here is my main concern now - he is starting a part-time job next week and will have to have a bank acc. Now he wants me to help him with his money and he consents to me having access to his account.

This is the most important aspect of your post, if this is his first job he will start to realise the value of money better. Its important to ensure that he sticks at the job regardless and if you are giving pocket money etc to him then I would consider ending it.

Fizog

Maybe if your son is earning his own money he won't be so keen to spend it...

My boys have both got savings accounts but i made sure they couldn't access the money without my counter signature until they were 18 (much to the eldest's disgust) he has had an abbey account into which I dribble £10 a week allowance and he has to buy phone cards etc from that & he never has any money on his phone.
He has been ingenious by walking home from school, miscalling me and all his friends and requesting new sim cards by the bucket load
and using them to text in an emergency.

Do you sub him or just give him a set amount. I am absolutely tough with him as he would have done exactly as your offspring and spent every penny. He has been working and saved £1500 towards uni. He has lots of friends already there and I think they have scared him by the debt they are already in.

Does your boy intend to go to university? If so a visit to Martin's uni loans is quite sobering...if you sit down with your boy and go through the merits of putting aside 50 % of his earnings in a high interest account which can't be accessed instantly and the rest of his wages in a debit account may be be acceptable to him.

You are obviously concerned for him but the best lessons are learned by the hard way. When your boy understands how long it takes to earn £1400 the penny will drop how stupid he was! He will probably get stung for NI and tax if he earns enough ..that is always a shock to a 16 year old.