Dio, I think part of the problem is that, when he runs out of money, they still let him charge to the account and send the bill to Opal. They just won’t “stop”.
Opal, just read your last message. I’m guessing you’ve tried talking to the school administration/cafeteria management about this? I can see their side on why they wouldn’t want to “stop” an account once it’s been overcharged, but I don’t see why they cannot do some management based on individual cases.
I think the best option mentioned here is giving him exact change every day, if that is allowed in his school.
If the school doesn’t accept cash then close the account. It’s over. He gets a packed lunch. Hope he enjoys baloney on whole wheat. Not only does the child not get to eat school food but the money spent against your directions is to be returned 3 fold out of his allowance.
Is there a reason that you cannot make him responsible for the bill? I mean, I know it comes in your name, but just tell him that from now on he’ll be paying it. Just like he’ll be paying the phone bills and cable bills and heating bills if he racks them up in a couple of years when he leaves home. Adjust his weekly or monthly allowance up enough to cover the cost of the lunches you are willing to pay for. He does have an allowance, doesn’t he?
Most of those school lunch systems are designed to only be able to go into the hole a certain amount . Then it won’t accept any more purchases until that account is paid. If you let him run it down that low, he will be cut off one of those days, giving him the natural consequence of spending money on breakfasts (going hungry). You might want to check with the cafeteria ladies about doing this and find out how low the account can go below zero before it will no longer allow a purchase.
The system I’ve seen has every student at the school set up with an account number and PIN, whether or not they buy lunch. The account can be paid ahead of time, or they can pay at each meal. Let his account hit bottom to where the system won’t allow any more input on his account (some amount below zero, maybe $-20?) and then give him the cash for the week. Either he runs out early or he doesn’t.
Any reason why he cannot make his own breakfast and pack his own lunch? Since he cannot be responsible with his tuck account, he should not be given one.
He can work off the money he owes and continue to work to pay for the items you have not agreed to buy.
You will cancel the account and he can eat breakfast at home and pack a lunch.
If he accepts option 1 and screws it up by not following through, option 2 becomes the only option.
Now is the time for him to start learning the consequences of financial choices. It’s much easier for him to learn and recover from breakfast sized choices than it is for him to recover from a first credit card and the lure of what you want when you want it.
Give Dominic $50 a month. That’s $2.50 a day X 5 days X 4 weeks a month. Tell him he can buy anything he wants with that 50 bucks, but this is all he gets. He gets his $50 at the first of the month, not before.
If he wants to buy crap and loses his money by the end of the month, that’s tough on Dominic. Dominic wont starve and it will teach him responsibility. If he comes back to the house after school and is eating like starvin’ marvin’ you know he is pissing away his money.
You can start with $25 dollars and go from there. Make the kid eat breakfast at home. The kid has an Italian name, if he is Italian, then he already knows how to cook.
Only February has 4 weeks/20 weekdays to a month in a non-leap year. The other months have 22 or 23 weekdays in a month, unless they start or end on a weekend. Look at a calendar and count the weekdays.
As for the question, yeah, give Dominick a budget, and tell him that he won’t get more money from you. At 15, he’s more than old enough to manage a lunch account. Or he can do chores to earn more money, either for you or for people around the neighborhood, or he can supplement his lunch money with his allowance. If he can’t manage a charge account, then he should lose it. This is what happens in real life, and it’s best that he learns that lesson NOW.
However, at 15, he’s probably got a hollow leg or two. Most teenage boys are bottomless pits when it comes to food, and he might genuinely be hungry for both breakfast and lunch at school. When my husband was in high school, he generally got and ate two full lunches, plus he’d have a couple of snacks, and he’d finish up whatever I didn’t want from my full lunch. And he was quite skinny, having just gone through a big growth spurt.
I won’t try and guess about any issues extraneous to the OP’s problem, so, here’s my solution.
Tell son that if he doesn’t stop, you will go to the school and let everybody see it.
Tell school to close the account.
If they won’t close account, do not pay it. If you have given your express wishes against it, and if they keep extending credit, let them pay for it.
If none of the above work, go to the school superintendant.
Go to state representative.
If none of those work, go online and find one of the watchdog groups that work against sugar in the school; equally, go to one of those that are so virulently against giving credit cards to new college grads; pimping out donuts to HS kids, on credit, may make some kind of stink. Call the newspaper and see who handles the education articles.
It hurts when the lawyer smacks you upside the head for wasting the lawyer’s time, or if the lawyer is of the more politically correct breed, it hurts when the lawyer sends you a rather large bill for wasting the lawyer’s time.
Consider all aspects, there may be a social aspect to the school breakfast and may be worth it on that alone. It’s not always ‘we have the same food (or better) at home’. Students need social interaction, and normal classroom time doesn’t allow for that to any great extent,
He has abused the privilege of having an account. Therefore, you close the account, and he can take a bag lunch and breakfast to school. If this is terminally un-cool and causes all his friends to think he is a geek, so much the better.
He continues to take his lunch to school in a bag until he has worked off the debt by doing extra chores. When that is done, you can give him $2.50 a day, for him to spend as he wishes on food.
Make sure you call the school and tell them that you are closing the account. The worst case scenario is that the school continues to extend him credit even with a closed account. I don’t know what to advise you to do if they do that.
He needs to learn this life lesson, and probably should have learned it years ago.
God help him and you when the credit card offers start coming.
I don’t fully understand why this is even an issue.
Close the account and tell him to pack his own damn lunch each morning. Obviously this means you should have food available for him to pack. If you’re controlling about what you want him to eat, then only have food available that you want him to eat.
I packed my own lunch 4 days a week in high school, but that was my choice. My parents would have covered the $5 school lunches if I’d wanted to eat that crap each day.
Keep in mind, the kid is at an age where I was eating 6 meals a day (breakfast, 2nd breakfast [teacher didn’t care if I ate a sandwich in class, thank you Mr. P.], lunch, after school snack, dinner, omg dinner was 3 hours ago and I’m hungry again). He’s probably genuinely hungry. I really don’t see the issue with letting him eat, but of course now you’ve gone and made it an issue by forbidding him his piddly $6/week muffins. No, he shouldn’t have gone behind your back when you laid out the rules, but that whole problem is avoided by not making them in the first place.
I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but the breakfast room in my high school was used a lot for socializing. He’s buying breakfast because his friends are buying breakfast. You either have to suck it up or find some way to limit his account to lunchtime only.
Also, if you don’t want the kid eating breakfast as school because you have breakfast stuff at home, just stop buying breakfast stuff for the home. Problem solved.
Quoted for truth. Both my sons needed more than the standard lunch to make it through the day. They ate full breakfasts at home, two lunches at school and started eating the instant they got home. Both were very athletic, for what it’s worth, but I think that is standard teenaged boy behavior. Agree on a budget for food, when it runs out he can bring sandwiches from home.
If the concern is that he is eating junk food then I’m sorry, the schools let that ship sail a long time ago. My kid’s school had soda and candy machines in the cafeteria, cinnamon rolls and cake on the food line.
Are you using Mealplay Plus? They have a feature at least with our school, that puts a more restrictive daily amount that can be spent.
I personally, think that these types of issues are more common with elementary school kids. Your son knows that it doesn’t matter what you say or do, because you will keep paying the bill and allow him to purchase meals using his school ID.
Why not just turn off the account, give him enough cash each day to pay for lunch and let it be that. Treat him like he’s 6 if he’s going to act like he’s 6.
Good grief, no. I’m surprised the school lets him get more than a dollar or two negative anyway - my kids have gone without lunch a time or two when their account was low (and they didn’t bother to tell me). Our school allows you to designate money for lunches only - solved the problem of Dweezil coming to me in early October one year and saying “I’m out of lunch money”. I was puzzled… then I called and found he’d been buying extra snacks etc. in addition to lunch.
Check to see if the school can’t put a lockdown on how the account money may be used. You can’t be the only parent to have this problem! And even without the breakfast issue: I’m assuming you’d rather he eat the somewhat-nutritious meal rather than, say, cookies and juice, right?
We told Dweezil, after the lunch-money-gone incident, that he was welcome to purchase those things with his own allowance money. We’re only on the hook for the meal. We also, last year, switched him to a monthly allowance which includes his lunch money; he now has to write them a check on the first of the month.
Too late to edit, but: with our daughter, we prepay “lunches only”. She has a certain amount of cash (allowance) that she may choose to take to school for snacks if she wishes. Since our son manages his own lunch account now, he can buy anything he wants with it. Lunches, breakfasts, etc.
I really like the idea of having Dominic manage his own lunch account at this age. Presumably he has some discretionary money / allowance; if he wants to use that for breakfast, there’s no problem.