to think grown up children are sometimes too expensive?

[MitchyInge]

I know IABU but ARGH at eldest's attempts to live and work independently which seem to cost me ££££

first she moves to Italy and runs up a £300+ phone bill, which she is paying back so I should probably stop feeling cross about that

now she is renting a room in the house next door (with her boyfriend) and working part time for me and part time for the council as a youth worker, for her work with me she needs a car but the suspension has collapsed on hers and she has used up the 30 days Aviva allow her to be insured on my land rover - it will be £1800 for remainder of my policy which is stupid, vehicle is not worth half that

they won't insure her to drive my car until she is 21

think she should just move home again and live here rent free for a while

could just leave her to it but is HUGE problem to me if she doesn't have a vehicle

[MitchyInge]

AT TIMES LIKE THIS I WISH HER FATHER WOULD DO SOMETHING HELPFUL

[kidcreoleandthecoconuts]

If you can afford to help her out then I would as it's affecting her being able to work for you.
BUT I think grown up children are probably as expensive as you allow them to be tbh!
There comes a time when she has to stand on her own two feet without your help.She knows that she has you to fall back on.
I had no one to fall back on at that age. It didn't stop me getting into scrapes but I also had to get myself out of them and so I learnt valuble lessons along the way.

[ShinyAndNew]

Why are you paying her phone bills? Or rent? I left home @ 17 and that was that. My bills, my responsibility. Though I did once ask my mum to put a £10 in bank account for food, as we had ran out of cash. She refused and told me next week I might think twice about spending all my money on booze before buying food.

You know what? She was right.

If your dd wants independance - give her it.

[thelunar66]

Hmm... YANBU. We have same sort of issues with DD. We funded her through her degree and I thought that this would finish when she got work. DH is still pumping the same amount of allowance through to her account every month though.

There will be nothing left for poor DS when he goes off to university next year

We were supposed to be spending this last year saving for his 'turn'.

[mumeeee]

She should be paying her own rent and phone bills, DD1 is married and living in London. We don't help her financially at all. We do p[rovide all food when they come to stay with us and when we went out for Christmas lunch we did pay for thier meals, But that was a treat. DD2 is at uni. We pay for her acomadation but she pays for everything else including her mobile phone contract. She has been home for the last month but goes back to uni on Saturday. When she is here we provide all food. She doesn't have an allowence. Her allowence stopped when she got a part time job. She doesn't have a job now but we won't be giving her an allowence.
When D1 was living at home for a few months after finishing university and had a full time job we actually asked her for rent. She was fine with this. Grown up children who are working should not be givn an allowence.

[2rebecca]

I don't get why you are paying an adult's phone bills and rent.
OK contribute something towards it if just getting started but most of the expense seems to be of your own making eg getting her on landrover insurance and choosing to pay off her stupidly expensive phone bill.
She's now an independant adult and should be behaving and treated as such.
Perhaps her father is being helpful by not bailing her out and treating her like an adult who should manage her own finances and live within her means.
My parents helped me when I was a student, but once I was able to work was expected to work and for £1800 she could get a small second hand car and insure it, or just take the bus or taxi. £1800 covers alot of taxis, and I would have thought could cover new suspension.

[MitchyInge]

didn't mean to give impression I was paying her rent, because am not, just thought it would save her some money if she moved home again.

is quite difficult to know how far to support them when they have difficulty - I left home before I was even 15 and was a bit of a vagrant until I found work and lodgings at 16 and went on to continue my education. I don't want my own children to be as unsupported as I was!

the phone is just v convenient, it's an old half-price deal, her sister has one and I had one and it's all on one line - anyway she is paying that back so I shouldn't have mentioned it, it's the first time she ever went over the limit since I took the contract out 5 or 6 years ago

she hasn't seen or heard from her father for years, so no, he is not being helpful because he has never contributed a penny towards her or her sister - his loss really but anyway feel better for getting it off my chest, we will just have to work together for a bit. too many advisories on last MOT for her Ka to make it viable to repair again so will probably have to scrap it and see if we can get another runaround

[BrokenArm]

My elderly grandfather once confided to me that all of his 6 adult offspring had borrowed money off him in mid-life -- some of it they could never pay back. My father was annoyed to have this secret revealed and soon explained how quickly he had paid his own borrowings back.

Yes I think the purse strings can be hard to cut, OP.

[MitchyInge]

poss. more so because of being a single parent family all this time, it's quite intense - she has been huge support to me when I was ill and missed out on a lot by being a young carer and so on over several years, so there is probably a bit more than average maternal guilt going on

also she never ASKS for help, think it would be easier to look the other way if she was annoying about it and pestered

obviously she had to tell me about the car though as she couldn't get to work today, is peripatetic sort of occupation with no alternative to some sort of private vehicle

[Pikelit]

With respect, MI, I suspect you may be over-compensating a bit for your lack of support. I'm a bit of a soft touch in the wallet department meself (I'm sure connected to a similar lack of parental support) but in fairness both sons fully understood and were went along with the basic family rule "support through education, out to work and support yourself otherwise"!

After coming out straight out of uni (or returning from Australia), a certain amount of assistance with settling down to real grown-up life was permitted but it stretched only to guaranteeing rents and occasionally adding people to the car insurance.

[MitchyInge]

it was only supposed to be for a month, paying the insurance, because she gets paid monthly at other job so it was just a leg-up really until then

is not a massive crisis or anything, just a bit unwelcome on Monday morning

[nannynobnobs]

Wow. I have never borrowed off my parents since I was a teenager. Even then they rarely let me borrow money.

I lied, I borrowed a 20 off my dad last year. I paid him back 2 days later, it was weird to owe him anything. I just wouldn't even think to ask- he's an adult and so am I (I'm 29), why should I rely on him?
A friend of mine is in her 30's and always lives beyond her means, is always skint and can't make up the rent. She runs to her parents for cash all the time and it's one of the reasons she's so bad with money- because they enable it! I'd tell her to bloody stop drinking and smoking so much.

[nannynobnobs]

Let me add, I have told her that before... but I wish her parents would!

[MitchyInge]

could never see them go without anything - perhaps if she was irresponsible and out clubbing every night, but not when she is working two jobs and doing voluntary work in her spare time

though we are getting dangerously close to notion of 'deserving poor' there

think if it had not been recession at moment she might have been in good position to organise overdraft or loan

[2rebecca]

Why are you paying for her phone contract though? My teenage kids pay for their own phone calls (PAYG) and I don't see myself paying for their calls at all when over 18.

[MitchyInge]

don't know if they will let me separate the lines into different contracts tho, and keep the half price deal

is only £15 a month for both

[Morloth]

Are you sure you are not hamstringing her a little bit?

[MitchyInge]

what by paying for her phone or helping with insurance?

bet you were not so hard hearted with yours!

[mumeeee]

I prpbably do seem a little hard hearted, But sometimes young people do have to go with out. As I've said we do pay for DD2's accomadation at the moment. She's in halls and everything is included in the rent. That is all utilitie bills and internet. She has to pay to use the washing machine and for all other living expenses. We want her to learn to budget and she has done very well so far. Actually finished her first term at uni with £500 of her loan left. Although she has spent quite a lot while being at home. Some on Christmas presents but also on going out and catching up with her old friends. If she runs out of money we won't be giving her anymore.

[Morloth]

I am not hard hearted but I will expect DS to stand on his own two feet, the same way me and my siblings were.

Mum wouldn't have let us go hungry/homeless (i.e. if we had needed to then we could have gone home) but everything else was our own responsibility.

I am glad she was this way, I can handle pretty much anything because I learned the hard way.

[flowerytaleofNewYork]

I have to say it wouldn't have occurred to me to run up big phone bills that I knew my parents would have to pay for me, even if I would have paid them back. Also, not sure why the fact that the phone contracts come as a package means she can't pay for her share of the deal?

I understand why you want to help your DD. Personally I didn't have a penny from my own parents once I was 18, which I am very pleased about. I went to university taking out student loans and working, and worked and paid my own bills from there.

It's really easy for us to be harsh when it's not our DD we are talking about, and it must be hard to put your foot down and make the break, I'm sure. But really, you can't complain about grown-up children being expensive if you are choosing to support her like this.

It's things like 'see if we can get another runaround' that are quite telling. Why would you be getting it? It sounds as though you are still very much of the mindset that the expenses of her life are your responsibility to an extent and at least partly your business to worry about. If she's old enough to be out of education, earn a living and live with a partner then really her finances, bills and logistical living arrangements and costs shouldn't be anything you are involved in or concerned about.

I'm conscious I'm sounding quite harsh, and I am aware it's very easy to do that from a distance so I'm not actually feeling nearly as judgemental as this post might come across!

[MitchyInge]

do think it is a LOT more difficult for young people now than it was for me 20yrs ago, think the gap between earnings and accommodation/cost of living generally was much narrower, I seemed to do ok and have enough to save for a house etc but as a % of income, renting a room now is definitely much bigger than it was then

also have not really conveyed what a super girl she is, so have laid her open to unfair criticism on here I think!

probably do need to toughen up a bit, see if she can get £££ together to get new car and in meantime maybe juggle her work so she can do things within cycling distance - most of our work does involve collecting various animals and ferrying them to classes or groups or other training sessions, am stressing about these commitments a bit as they are ultimately mine but can't be in too many places at once

didn't realise the short term on and off insurance had a cut off point, only so many days per policy year. also it is just ridiculous how much it costs to insure a car now, when I passed my test and got first car it was £100 a year - less than half a weekly wage in those days, insuring her tiny Ka is more per annum than she earns in a good month

[MitchyInge]

(she more than pays for her £7.50 share of normal monthly phone cost, wish had never mentioned the overspend in Italy but neither of us realised the allowance didn't cover calls made overseas)