We are finally discussing that maybe it wasn't a good idea to give Boy a couple credit cards. In our efforts to make his life easier, when he started driving we gave him a gas card. We told him this card is for gas only. We figured he can't do much else with the card, and he was good, for awhile. Suddenly, a couple months ago, I started seeing the bill creep up. I looked at it carefully and instead of the three or four entries when he filled his car, there were a couple of extra $10 here and $5 there. He admitted that he sometimes goes in there and buys some food when he is broke. Hmmm, I thought and told him to cut it out.
Wife then thought he should have a bigger card, in case he needed to buy books or an emergency arose. Plus, he could start developing his credit with a small credit card. School started, Wife told him to buy some shirts, he did, but didn't like them, so they went back, and then decided that since he didn't get the shirts, he could still spend that amount on other junk. We told him to cut it out, but he really hasn't stopped completely. Last month, the account was down to under $100. I figured I would have it paid last week when I made my payments. I opened the bill for the account and he had charged an additional $170. He claims that it was for school, but we then review the stuff individually and he had to admit it was just junk he likes to order. Of course, now that he has been busted, he was telling me this morning that he planned to pay off these new purchases, that I was just being an ass yelling at him because he had full intention of paying. I said cool, do it. I am very proud of him, he sent an $80 payment on top of my $100. I told him next month that bill will be yours. He said as long as he is working, he'll pay it off.
Before you start thinking we are monsters for taking a poor college kids money, we pay for his car, his insurance, his gas, he lives at home where he eats our food, pays no rent, maybe takes out the trash once a week and rolls the trash cans out to the street most weeks. His money is supposed to be for whatever food he eats outside of the house and whatever he chooses to do for entertainment.
Apart from those two cards, he also has a Buckle card which is about the only store at the mall that he likes to dress from. He has not abused this card, although when school started we maxed it out on a couple of pants. One was $160, other was almost the same. It took a couple of cycles to pay it off, and hopefully it can stay that way, except that Chubs wants to dress like his bro in the Affection shirts. I don't want the solution to be us taking the cards from him, I want him to show self control and use them for what they are for, emergencies.
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