Son just left college.....now what?

rammy007

the £5 i gave my mum was the amount she lost in family allowance at the time,the £10 i survived on paid for transport to/from workand my lunch at work etc it wasnt a case of my mum could afford it,she was just no worse off how do you expect anyone to ever leave home if they arent encouraged to save,i more than anyone know what it costs to run a house etc from an early age, now i have my own home, have always worked,got 4 kids can drive and have a car each,my sister on the other hand went to uni,never gave my mum a penny and blew everything she had and although she is married doesnt have her own house,never really had a proper job and cant drive and is just having kids and she is in her thirties i put what i have got down to my management of money at that early age

Savvy_Sue

rammy007 wrote:

the £5 i gave my mum was the amount she lost in family allowance at the time,the £10 i survived on paid for transport to/from workand my lunch at work etc it wasnt a case of my mum could afford it,she was just no worse off how do you expect anyone to ever leave home if they arent encouraged to save,i more than anyone know what it costs to run a house etc from an early age, now i have my own home, have always worked,got 4 kids can drive and have a car each,my sister on the other hand went to uni,never gave my mum a penny and blew everything she had and although she is married doesnt have her own house,never really had a proper job and cant drive and is just having kids and she is in her thirties i put what i have got down to my management of money at that early age

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or to suggest your mum did the wrong thing, I was just responding to you saying that 1/3 seemed a lot. The OP seemed to think her son would be dead chuffed to have 2/3 of his earnings to keep. As she said, it would give him a heck of a lot more 'pocket money' than she gets!

Some people will learn to save almost regardless, and some never do. Like you and your sister, presumably brought up with the same ethos. I seem to have two sons who can hang onto their money, and one, the youngest, who can't. The older two have jobs, middle one does the free papers and a Sunday morning round. Youngest is not keen to get a paper round, too much like hard work. Any money he earns by doing 'big' jobs - cutting the grass, for example - around the house is immediately 'blown' on CDs and trendy t-shirts. So far I haven't taken 'keep' off any of them, because the eldest has only just left school and is about to go to Uni, and I believe he's in a position to make up any shortfall in his tuition fees and advance pay his accommodation. No doubt he'll tell us if he's not. Plus I'm still getting Child Benefit for him, and he's willing and helpful around the house.

If any of them stay or come home to live after they've left school, they WILL pay me keep, either from their benefits or their earnings. But whether he likes it or not, I'm likely to take more off the youngest and put some of it by for him. When he flies the nest properly, he can have that money. If it all goes on trendy t-shirts then, he'll be on his own. But at least I will have shown him that he could manage without that money I've saved for him, and it's grown into something that may be useful. Whereas if I say "You can keep an extra £x as long as you save it" I won't actually have any control over whether he saves it or not. He might set up a standing order, but how do I stop him withdrawing it?

You may not agree with what I'm planning, and of course the youngest may realise that he actually needs to get a job when I stop subsidising his social life in a year's time because that's what happened to his brothers. But since each one is different, it seems reasonable to me!

MommaCC

Try to persuade your son to register with agencies, as many as possible. You may need to take him there if he needs a little moral support. Even if he just gets a few days temporary work it will give him some real experience of "the world of work" and the money may motivate him too.