18 year old to pay keep?

What a ridiculous thing to say. Decent parents do exactly this. It's not making a profit at all. We lost Child benefit when DS turned 18, all the bills are going up, DS brings home more money a month than me, is at home 4 days out of 7 using electricity and gas, has his girlfriend stay over regularly, eats us out of house and home.

Would you say the same thing if it was your parents or sibling or friend staying with you? Would you feed, clothe pay all the bills for them without expecting something in return, even if they were bringing home more money than you? Or would you think that they were CF and ask for a contribution to the household? Why is that situation any different to asking an adult child for the same thing. Exactly how long do you let them continue living with you without contributing. 6 months, 1 year, 2, 10?

Not asking for a contribution just creates entitled kids who have no idea that life costs money, sponging off mum and dad for as long as they can, whilst having lots of money to piss up the wall.

I would suggest a gap 6 months of traveling and then back here to work and save for Uni.

How is he going to pay for the travelling if he hasn't worked and saved first?

He either contributes something, even a relatively token amount like £200/month, or he finds a bedsit and supports himself entirely.

I do benefits advice for a living. It drives me (and my colleagues) mad where people have adult offspring, usually young men rather than young women, at home on a wage and piXXing it up the wall on the high life while Mum struggles to keep their siblings warm and fed.

Our DS’ 22 & 20 pay keep, £150 pmth. They both worth ft, it’s a tiny amount, but if gives them so responsibly and a chance to save for their deposits etc.

*doesn't respect you and thinks you here just to bank roll him.

Kindly - if you don't firmly put your foot down now it will continue through Uni.
Don't get me wrong
I helped bath kids through Uni.
Paid their phones and they had a once a month food delivery but after that it was up to them.
It doesn't seem like he really respect the fact that you are now here just to bank roll him

I wouldn't ask for rent but I would expect him to work to fund his travelling and pay fur personal expenses. Work full time for six months then travel for a few. That's what most kids on a gap year do - sone just work almost all of it to have money for Uni. A friends son Magee to save £11k! He then travelled around the UK in his own gif a month, mostly camping, then started at uni with a bit of a cushion.
Does your son have a uni lined up?

Bunbuns... Don't be ridiculous. It's teaching a young adult that life isn't a free ride and household income will have dropped now he is out of education.

@Bunbuns3

Profits? I wish. I'm still paying for his phone and sky sports. He eats like a horse.
He still has around £1300 disposable income which is a heck of a lot more than I have.

Making profits from your children. Classy thing to do. Decent parents just don't do this!

This was a topic of conversation among my children's friends once A-level exams were over. Your son probably knows what you're going to say but unfortunately adult life 🤷‍♀️

My 18 year old works average of 30 hours a week at Tesco, picking up around £1600 a month.
I don't charge him anything - he contributes £250 a month to the household. He also makes contributions to any weekends away, holidays we have. We have split the cost of his driving lessons. I have just taken redundancy and will be giving him £3k towards a car.
He is very good with his money and saves a lot. He is going to university in September and will carry on working.
He understands money doesn't grow on trees and has a great work ethic.

I would probably choose a token amount and tell him he needs to pay this, I think it’s for a young person’s benefit that they learn life is not free.

Exactly this.

Yes of course he should pay something! And do some cleaning, cooking etc .

I would suggest a gap 6 months of traveling and then back here to work and save for Uni.

My son was told he was either in full time education or working. He chose to work. He's in a care home and does 37.5 hours a week over 3x 12.5 hour shifts. It leaves him plenty of time to socialise, pick up extra shifts if he wants to. He pays his own mobile bill, driving lessons, clothes etc.

I read in some financial thing or other that your take home pay should be split 50% Bills, 30% social, 20% saving. It seemed a really sensible way to split your money and one I've adopted myself! DS gives us 25% of his basic take home pay, 25% to driving lessons, phone etc, the rest as above. Anything he earns in excess of basic pay is his to keep and we suggested that he save at least 50% of that. It works really well for him and he does not bridge paying is as he knows how much everything costs.

Nothing much has changed for him, other than he gives us some of his pay.

Incidentally I am as far from privileged as anyone could be!

I wouldn't charge him keep for his gap year but I would expect him to fund his travelling himself.
I have never charged my children keep, it just doesn't fit right with me But neither did I fund their nights out, travel, clothes etc .

At 18 I expected my dd to cover her own phone, gym and social life. She also gave us £100 a month she was working around 25 per week. If he wants to go travelling he should work for 6months and save up.

Plenty of people take a self-funding gap-year by getting a full-time job for six months and then going travelling on the proceeds. (I have family members who actually continued alternating between the two for several years - apparently supermarket night shifts worked particularly well as they stopped them having a social life, so they saved better.) You only get to spend the whole year travelling if you've already saved or have parents who can easily afford it.

You'll presumably be losing child benefit for him, and if you're currently the only adult in the household, the council tax discount will go in November. So you don't need to feel guilty about asking for a contribution - it is assumed that at 18 he will be doing so - at the very least you need those covering, and as you say, living costs could go up if he's at home all the time.

Setting out a plan is probably wise - maybe you'd settle for covering the child benefit/council tax amounts to start with, but with clear warning of when you will start expecting more.

Has he applied for uni this year, or is he going to apply post A-levels?

If you need the contribution then ask for it. If you can manage without it you could charge board but save it for him. My ds is coming back from uni and taking gap year but I’m only expecting him to be home for summers and away for the middle chunk hopefully working in Australia and travelling in Asia. I’d encourage him to research schemes where he can get a work visa abroad or firm up his travel plans and cost it out. It’s much more expensive than it was in my day even using hostels etc. I’d be expecting work fulltime to cover the costs. An alternative is to do voluntary work abroad but then you need your own money to cover costs. If he’s just planning to travel he will need a big trust fund or will find he won’t be away for very long at all. The more growing up he does this year the more he will appreciate university. I expect once his mates go off to uni in September he will get bored if he doesn’t have firm plans. I’m expecting ds to go off around October so won’t charge him over the summer but if October rolls round and he’s still here then I would be charging rent.