Exclusive | Parents are cutting off teens as ‘stupid’ in-app spending spirals out of control: ‘I won’t pay for that s–t’

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Frustrated by her teenage daughters’ frivolous spending habits, Kim Orozco is putting her foot down — and refusing to foot the bill.

Instead, the New Jersey mom now forces Caylee, 14, and Carolina, 15, to dip into modest babysitting earnings to bankroll any nonessential purchases — like their $40 per year Snapchat+ memberships.

“I won’t pay for that s–t,” Kim, 48, told The Post, adding that she also won’t pay for their manicures, deliveries from Crumbl and Starbucks or “another crop top that looks exactly like every other crop top” they already have sitting in their closets.

“They’ll DoorDash Starbucks every day if I let them.”

And the piqued parent isn’t alone — most others in her circle, she said, are flat-out refusing to fork over cash for their teens’ impulse buys, especially for in-app purchases of nontangible extras that can quickly and easily add up, a phenomenon she called “highway robbery.”

Kim banned the video game app Roblox in her household, for example, after being “burned so many times” by in-game spending, her kids racking up hundreds of dollars worth of accidental charges.

“Roblox robs you,” she said.

Other parents have shared horror stories of eye-watering in-app microcharges that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, with one family incurring $4,000 worth of charges because of their son’s exorbitant spending spree on Roblox, where the line between “real money” and “fake money” are blurred, the couple said.

On Reddit, one mom said her son spent $568 on in-app games and coins on his Meta VR headset, while another parent weighed whether or not to let their kids spend their allowance on in-game purchases like Fortnite “digital currency,” equating it to useless “Monopoly money.”

“It’s their money, and I’m all about letting them ‘waste’ it on cheap toys or impulse purchases, because that’s hands-down the best way for them to learn important lessons,” the user wrote, adding that such “lessons” include things like the importance of saving money or realizing that cheap things don’t last long.

“But V-bucks and Robux and all that other crap don’t seem like they’ll teach those lessons.”

While Kim claimed most parents won’t pay for such digital purchases, some still are — but they’re not happy about it.

“I think it’s a waste of money,” New Jersey mom Shannon Murphy, 47, lamented to The Post.

But despite her strong dislike of her kids’ in-app spending, Shannon said she feels like she’s on the hook for her 16-year-old daughter Mackenzie’s monthly $3.99 Snapchat+ subscription, which has been charged to her card for over two years.

“It is kind of a waste of money, but just once you have it, you don’t want to take it away,” Mackenzie admitted.

“It’s annoying, but that’s the new standard of today,” she said.

Texting, it seems, is so late-2000s — both Mackenzie Murphy and Carolina Orozco said they use the ephemeral messaging app to communicate, saying they love the aesthetically pleasing in-app themes and added features that enhance their experience.

“It’s more trendy,” Carolina told The Post, adding that Snapchat is “more fun” than texting.

“I feel like when you think of text messages, you think of your parents — like, ‘let me text my mom or dad’ — but when you’re talking about your friends, you instantly turn to Snapchat because it’s so teen-based.”

Despite mom Kim’s disapproval, Carolina says spending her money on the $39.99 yearly subscription is “a good investment.”

The premium membership includes perks like modifying chat wallpapers, seeing who has rewatched their Story and looking at each other’s “Best Friends” lists a la MySpace — a useful tool “when you’re talking to a boy [and] you want to see if you’re on their ‘Best Friends’ list,” Mackenzie explained.

But Carolina’s favorite feature by far is the ability to customize the app logo design on her home screen to match her aesthetic, choosing a pink icon because she hated the original yellow.

Snapchat is one of the top social media platforms used among teens next to Instagram and TikTok, according to Pew Research data, and has remained so popular because it “gamifies friendship with features like streaks and trophies, boosting user engagement while making itself indispensable to maintaining relationships,” according to the Cut.

As a result, most of Mackenzie’s friends are shelling out the cash for Snapchat+ — “Everyone wants it,” she said — even if it’s just to keep up with their peers.

Parents, however, still aren’t sold.

“I just think it’s stupid,” said Shannon, who hates social media and wishes she could “take it all away.”

“They’re just all seeking attention.”