Reasonable spending on child's present(s)

[Ian Robinson]

I'm old school , and come from a big family , I never had a huge amount spent on me for presents by my parents (have 4 siblings). So did my wife and her parents were not very well off.
I think it is unwize to spoil the kids too much by being over the top on the cost of presents for them at Xmas and birthdays.

We never buy on credit for Xmas or birthdays, and have never spent more than $300 on our son at these times.

[TrevorW]

they stay home until 30 these days and earn a lot more

[Ian Robinson]

I gave my son an ultimatum on his 21st birthday , he was showing no signs of doing anything worthwhile and was hanging out with a bunch of do nothing nohopers and was bludging off us and not even offering to contribute anything to his keep - We couldn't afford this to go on , so I read the riot act to him and told him to either shape up or ship out. He shipped out and soffa surfed for while then decided he liked it better at home and decided what he wanted to do and did something about getting the training he needed to do it.

Best thing we ever did for him - forced him to grow up.

His mates must have thought I was mungrel - he told them and Centrelink he was kicked out on his 21st. He's the one who decided to ship out. I gave him the option to stay .

[Zuts]

Fine, but some items cost a bit. Say a PS3 and some games, a good set of Derwent pencils, an Ipod, whatever. I just feel happy watching them open the things on Xmas morning and dont fuss too much :)

Cheers
Paul

[Zuts]

Yeah right

My stepdad threw me out of home when i was 17. Just after my mum died. Best thing he ever did for me, NOT, the F*&%ING AR$%^OLE.

[jjjnettie]

We've never spent more than $100 on each of the kids at Christmas.
But this year is the exception.
They'll be getting one expensive gift between them, a Nintendo WII, then each gets two individual gifts, one gets a book of 501 science experiments to do around the home (oh god what have I done) and a model space shuttle, the other gets a field guide to rocks and minerals and a folding fishing chair/back pack.
Each will get some cash that they can spend as they wish.
I'm at a loss as to what to get my 22yr old son.


Our neighbour is very extravagant with her kids. Last year she bought her 9yr old daughter a new mobile phone, a $300 signet ring, a new 51cm tv, and the rest. Easily up to $1000 worth.
The ring was lost in the paddock the next day.
Her $400 gold watch she got for her 10th birthday a few weeks ago, just turned up again down at the creek.

[Ian Robinson]

There is a difference , you were still a child (a 17 yo child) , and he was still responsible for you until you turned 18 yo. You're right your dad was as you say.

My boy was an adult and was still behaving like a child. We gave him a year off after yr12 (that's not unreasonable) , but 3 years of not showing any sign of doing anything worthwhile was too much.

Once he turned 18yo we could have given him his marching orders, no longer our responsibility.

[matt]

Hmmm.

You sound like a good mum, jjj....

As for your neighbour? There's a forecast of strong winds tomorrow afternoon. Tell her to stand out in her back yard with a fist full of dollars and release the notes during the next strong breeze.

It'll be closely akin to her spending habits so far...and save her the unnecessary hassle and time of shoppng for her kids!:rofl:

[Zuts]

Geez, one of my daughters is 19. She has many issues and basically doesn't do much. I hope she changes and sees the world for what it is. Still she is 19 and as you say an adult so, when should i turf her out?

[Ian Robinson]

At 22 yo, a giftcard at Kmart, or HND, or ISP or a music place depending on what he is interested in , maybe worth $50 to $100 is more than sufficient I would think. That way he can go and chose what he wants and if costs more than the gift card - he can put it towards it and make up the difference himself.

Adult children should not have as much spent on them as younger kids , and should be adult enough to accept that.

$1000 worth of presents on one child is stupidity even if you are able to afford such extravagent gifts. The kid obviously has no respect for the value of these things and is being spoilt rotten by them. Trying to compensate for not being there for her because they are both working perhaps and value their careers more than being parents perhaps ?

[Ian Robinson]

That's up to you, and determined by your circumstances.

It might take a cathargic life event like having the riot act read to her to make her change and grow up. She wont change while she is allowed to continue the way she is. If you wont force the issue - no one else will.
My wife and I angonized over our ultimatum to our son for a long time.

[Zuts]

no problems, but i definately won't be throwing her out...

[Ian Robinson]

I didn't , I gave him the option to get his act together and stay , or to ship out, he chose to ship out .

[jjjnettie]

My neighbour is a single Mum, with a very wealthy family behind her who will plug up any holes in her credit card.
The kids wear Brand name clothes which are only worn a few times before being put aside. My kids quite happily accept them as hand me downs.

[jjjnettie]

Re. kids leaving home.
When we moved out to the stix 6 years ago, my eldest boy was only 16. He chose not to move with us. He had a full time job and didn't want to leave his circle of friends. I received a hell of a lot of criticism from my family for not making him move with us. But I couldn't force him to leave his job and friends.
The best thing I did for him was to help organise his finances so he could save a substantial amount of his pay. Hehehe, it was a joint account, so if he needed to access it he had to drive up to visit me, so I could co-sign the withdrawal slip. He paid cash for his first car.

[Jen]

Its really hard these days not to spend money on your kids they want different things compared to what we wanted when we were kids.
playstations & games, I-PODS, mobile phones, TV,s, laptops you cant buy things like that for just a small amount of cash these days :doh:

[Ian Robinson]

I did the same with my son , joint account thing , and while he was under 18 , I regularly transferred $60 per fortnight to another account as room and board (which I was actually setting aside for him if he decided to go to uni , I was going to use that to help him with his fees and books).

He opened a new account and had his Youth Allowance put into that when he turned 18 yo and from then on decided he'd pay the room the board (when it suited him - which wasn't very often or regular).

We were more unhappy about the looser lay about go nowhere mates he was spending time with who were all only interested in playing computer games and video games and not much else and were into drinking (and other stuff I suspect though I don't think my boy did the drugs thing). What the stuff is wrong with kids and young adults these days ?.

... when I was 19 yo I was a cadet analytical chemist and working rotating shifts , including weekends and public holidays and stacks of overtime while studying parttime.

[Ian Robinson]

If they want expensive stuff - they need to learn to urn the money needed to buy the expensive stuff themselves - like we did (with a few exceptions who's parents were loaded) , or downsize their expectations.

There's a kid who mows our lawn - I pay him $25 , and he does most the neighbours lawns, got a good little tax free business going and he has saved enough to buy a 4 wheel motor bike thingy over the last few years .... wish more kids were like him. I reckon that kid is going places.

[Miaplacidus]

I put this in the other thread, but it seems more appropriate here:

Well, the best Christmas present I ever gave was last year when I made the effort to set up my 16 year old’s super fund and gave him a job so he could put $1000 into it. Not only that, but because of the stock market rout I told him to delay putting in any money until June. And then in July he does his tax return and the government tops up his super with $1500 co-contribution. And so now he sees what a great lurk this is and is bitten by the saving bug.

So to all you tax-payers out there, I just want to give you all a big, sloppy kiss and say thank you for my son’s Christmas present last year. And to let you know that you are probably going to do the same thing again this year.

Think about it.

Many happy returns, everybody.

Brian.

………….

For anyone thinking of maybe doing the same, here is a quotation from “Wake Up To Wealth" by Harold Bodinnar. (Not a book I would necessarily recommend, by the way.) This is from the foreword by David Koch.

“Let me tell you about two average Australians.

“One invested $2,000 a year from age 19 to age 25, then stopped investing any new money and just left their nest egg sitting there earning 10 per cent a year (mixture of growth and income). In total $14,000 was invested.

“The other average Australian started investing $2,000 a year from age 26 and kept adding the same amount to their nest egg every year until age 65 earning 10 per cent a year (mixture of growth and income). In total $80,000 was invested.

“At age 65 the nest egg of our first average Australian had grown to around $930,000... a 66-fold increase on the amount they invested.

“At age 65 the nest egg of our second average Australian had grown to around $893,000... an 11-fold increase on the amount they invested.”

I.e. start early.

:)

[Ian Robinson]

Works fine IF you manage to stay in the workforce for your entire working life , something that is becoming harder and harder to do .

Most people can look forward to periods of unemployment (which can last years despite their looking very hard to find a replacement job) as it all too easy for companies to retrench their employees as their first course of action if there is a downturn or their profits fall - so much for company loyalty). Gone are the days when you could realistically expect to stay with the same employer for even 20 yrs , let alone 30 or 35 yrs , and few manage to stay long enough to build much of nest egg or even be able to take long service leave.

[Miaplacidus]

Well, I guess you can't take anything for granted. But I'm pretty confident that any bank or employer is going to be more impressed by someone who has demonstrated an ability to save since adolescence. And surely one of the principles of saving is to have something set aside precisely for that rainy day when you suffer temporary unemployment.

[Ian Robinson]

Maybe I'm jaded , but I doubt they would give a toss.

BTW You can't ordinarily touch your super when you're unemployed , unless you are prepared to give a big chunk of it away (as access fees and taxes).
And banks are more interested in your debt history than your saving history. Savers as far as they are concerned are not profitable. Heard the term "deadbeat borrowers" = people who pay the entire balance each month on their credit cards .

I know outstanding engineers who've been thrown on the scrapheap when the country is supposed to be short of engineers yet they can't get jobs despite superb CVs and credentials and stacks of experience.

[Miaplacidus]

You do sound a bit cynical, there, Ian. The tone of bitter personal regret, I hope I am not detecting, but if so I will try to defer to the soul of experience. Nonetheless, in the end the scrap-heap argument still sounds like a good reason to aim at becoming independently wealthy as quickly as possible. (I wasn't advocating putting all one's savings into super, by the way.)

[GTB_an_Owl]

whats the title of this thread ?

geoff

[Miaplacidus]

Asked Sue yesterday, ironic like, if there was any limit on what we were going to spend on the kids this Christmas. She didn't hesitate, didn't even turn her head to look at me, just answered distracted-like as she was studying the catalogue.

"No."

Bit of a worry. Sue doesn't do irony.

Maybe she's right, though. If you aren't going to spoil your kids at Christmas, what the hell are you here for?