SS15 is greedy. He has no regard for the other 4 people who live in our house and guzzles enormous amounts of food. We live in the UK and the price of food has gone through the roof lately, but ss15 must think we have an endless supply of money for groceries. A cheese sandwich to SS15 involves a half pound of cheese, half a jar of pickles and at least 4 slices of bread in one go - and this is just his after-school snack before expecting his evening meal with the rest of the family! Supper to SS15 is a massive, overflowing bowl of cereal which should be enough to feed all 3 boys for breakfast! I don't object to the kids having snacks within reason, but the amount ss15 guzzles is obscene! I've had to reduce my hours to part time due to poor health and Dh doesn't work due to health problems, so we're on a really tight budget. We have 3 ss's live with us full time and we struggle to make ends meet, so we simply cannot afford for ss15 to gobble enough to feed the 3 of them!! The other 2 kids can be pretty greedy too but aren't as bad as ss15. I only ever buy them the cheapest brands of everything because I can't afford to see good quality, pricier stuff be guzzled in an instant. They're told that once their snacks have gone they've gone and there will be no more until the next shopping day, but ss15 is so selfish that he seems to make sure he gets most of it before the younger kids get a chance and it realy pisses me off!! I get decent stuff for me and dh and we have our own cupboard, and skids know not to touch our stuff.

For long enough, dh was in denial and always made excuses for skids, until I made him face it one day by proving just how much food had disappeared between them getting in from school and me making dinner 2 hours later. DH had no choice but to face the fact that skids eat far too much and told them to stop being so greedy. He was particularly hard on ss15 as he is the main culprit. It worked for a couple of weeks but I noticed this weekend that the shopping I'd bought was disappearing too fast and as ss8 and ss9 were away having contact with bm and me and dh hadn't eaten it, obviously ss15 is up to his old tricks. I told dh it is unacceptable and that we cannot continue funding ss15's gluttony. He has warned ss15 that if he continues, we will give him his own box with a weekly ration of snacks and once they've gone there will be no more until the following week. SS15 went off to his room in a sulk so we will see whether he has taken notice or not.

I know many teenagers, specially boys, do have a big appetite but this is way past what I'd consider reasonable. Has anyone else tried rationing or experienced this problem? I'm dreading ss8 & ss9 getting older as I'm sure we'll have double the problem, particularly as ss9 is already obsessed with food. I can see us having food locked away and serious rationing, which is not really the way I want to live but we may have no choice in the future if things don't change.