If you have young adults living at home, what does their rent cover?

I've lived with my parents a few times as an adult. When I first came out of uni I think it was £200 a month (from a salary of ~£1200) and it's now £750 but there's me & DD. Salary is obviously higher but they're being very generous as I'm still paying half a mortgage. My mum picks up groceries and basic toiletries but if I want a fancy shampoo then I pay for it. I'm spoiled as they generally cook and do the laundry but are retired. I try to get us a treat online order/takeaway once a month but sometimes it depends on the Solicitors bill. When I move out I have every intention of paying for their carpets to be cleaned and a well deserved break!

I mean I’m not sure you wouldn’t struggle to get a month’s worth of food for £200 let alone utilities, Council Tax, TV licence, etc…

It’s quite an easy concept in the language, rent is the cost you pay for living in a property; many other terms can be used for the other things: bills; food; cost of living etc.

Calling it rent implies that they are tenants in a property. Getting to an age when you feel you might be able to and want to contribute to those other costs and offering to do that is called decency. A communal happy family life seems, personally, to become something else when you start telling your children they need to pay rent.

There is also a huge difference between someone staying for a short time and someone staying more permanently. And an even bigger difference between someone in their late twenties or more living there and someone who’s just reached 18 or something and discovers that they are no longer apparently a member of the family, but a tenant who’s expected to pay rent to continue living in the place they grew up in and had strangely assumed was their home.

I would never ever expect to charge my children for living in their home. I might at some point/ absolutely definitely consider having a conversation with them about whether now might be the time to spread their wings and leave the nest. But they would always know that they could return if they ever needed to. That they would never be turned away and never be made to feel unwelcome or treated like a lodger.

I think it's hard to compare, especially across cultures where expectations on parents, adult kids and extended family are different. As well as the cost of property and ability to pass on through generations, which can all be very different.

Also very family situations can be very different.
Some adult kids are responsible and trying to help themselves and are warm and kindhearted to their parents.

Some are not.

I have lived in 3 different countries so have some experience in this.

Because as many posters have pointed out, the ‘rent’ they charge their kids is usually just to cover their (adult) child’s food and sometimes other increased costs of having them living at home. It isn’t actually rent. Where could you rent for £200 a month with all your bills and full board included?

My ds and his girlfriend lived with me and earned a lot more than I do. My daughter is 20 and works full time and earns more than I do. I am a single parent and also have 2 younger ones at home. I would have loved to be able to say they didn’t have to pay rent but I was not/am not in that situation. So we agreed we add all the bills together and divide by number of people living here and they would each pay their share. They were happy with this as it felt as though they were treated like grown ups they are etc and it enabled them to save for a decent deposit to buy a house. We were all happy with it. We shared fridge/freezer/larder but they also had their own cupboard for special food just for themselves. They knew the budget for food shopping each week. They also had to cook their fair share for everyone,clean the bathroom and be responsible for their own washing. It has worked really well.

When did food become something included in rent? I wish I’d know when I was renting my landlord owes me several years worth of food!

Over the last 60 or so years Britain has become a country of small families living together. Other countries not so much. Just as children may move back home, so too would it be normal for families to have elderly parents coming to live with them. It’s a wider support network. Money is obviously important, but, just as any family, other things are more important. It’s communal and family oriented.

Aged 22, pays £300 per month. Earns £36k.

All bills and food in that. He buys his own deodorant etc.

He has no debt, owns a small second hand car to get to work, but doesn’t owe anything on that.

We buy him lots of extra bits too.

We are not very short of money, but he earns good money so can contribute to the household.

I paid rent from age 17.

My two are early 20s and live with us. Both work, theoretically full time, but eldest has a haphazard shift pattern, younger has two regular jobs paid at a higher rate than their sibling and generally more hours a week.

I'd like to charge a bit for bills and food, which I wouldn't call rent as such, but with one earning less at the moment, it isn't really fair. Also, it's not the case that we need money from them, just that we want them to realise that life will throw up boring expenses.

Basically they cover their own phones, clothing, travel, luxuries, entertainment and some food (because they don't want what I have bought!).

Both have had some mental health issues so I want to be supportive but also give them experience of managing money. It's a work in progress.

How would a Spanish parent afford to pay for food for numerous adults, plus their partners plus grandchildren? They must all be very wealthy! Good luck to them! Some British parents aren’t so lucky so your Spanish boyfriend can sneer all he likes. Adults are adults and should bear the financial cost of feeding themselves. Some cultures would be horrified at the prospect of leeching off their elders.

Uni wouldn't necessarily cost the parent thousands - it depends on parental income.
My 22yo ds1 had full loans and consequently has £60k of debt.
My 19yo ds2 is doing an apprenticeship, but isn't on minimum apprenticeship wage. It isn't a pittance and he has more than enough monthly income to enjoy his leisure time, save, run his car, buy his food and pay a very nominal amount for his housing.

I find it particularly odd when people charge their DC who are doing apprenticeships. If they had chosen the uni route, you would have been expected and required to support the costs of doing that.

They are effectively saving you thousands by doing the apprenticeship option, and you are also going to make them give up the pittance of a wage they get.

Similar situation here - ds and his girlfriend pay £80 per week between them, this covers the extra in electricity they cost me, dd will pay the same after uni when she has a job. This provides basic family food but anything extra they pay for

19yo (Alevels last summer and now doing level 3 AAT apprenticeship).

Pays me £100pm which basically covers the extra council tax (loss of single person discount) and a contribution to utilities.
This clearly isn't any kind of living rent and one of my conditions was he saves at least £500pm.

He buys and cooks his own food, there are some things we will share (milk etc), but he'll buy them as often as I do.
Buys his own toiletries and clothes, pays his own mobile bill, runs his car (which admittedly was his grandparents 2nd car).

It also depends how much you can afford to sub them too. Your bills will go up a lot. Id be charging £100 per week

@Willow12345

tell them to then.

@MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble

Exactly- it would be totally out of the question to charge DC rent in the vast majority of countries in the world. Somehow they manage to budget and manage their own finances just fine.

He is earning plenty of money and is on a strict timeframe. That £100 would otherwise probably go on takeaways.

I wish my adult children paid rent..

Why is there a ‘how will they learn?’ attitude amongst some parents? They learn, as yours has, by moving out and getting their own property and growing up. I’m not sure why some parents think this is something then need to learn first from their parents.
My parents taught me the (in my opinion) far more important lesson, that whatever might go wrong, I was always welcomed and would be supported by them.
That life costs money is a lesson that the rest of the world is very willing to teach. The world is pretty hard on the young, it’s bloody hard to make a start nowadays, for goodness sakes can parental homes be some sort of sanctuary from the constant ‘lesson’ that it’s hard out there?

When my daughter was here full time I asked for £300 and now she spends much more time at her boyfriends and sorts own food I ask for £150. The money is because she doesn’t want to give her room up for younger sister who is home all time but has a smaller room. It covers her share of the council tax - I could get the 25% single adult discount if she wasn’t here and for her part of the rent - UC take some off me as I have another adult at the property so she basically covers what I lose help with. I’m a single parent and my income pretty much matches hers so she has a pretty good deal as she doesn’t have to run a home on her wage. If I had enough not to charge her I wouldn’t but unfortunately I need the help.

Sorry, where exactly in my post did I call you unreasonable? I believe I said, ‘interested to know’…
I mean, now that I do know, I’d still ask if it’s better to charge him for the rather considerable inconvenience (you have to stay away sometimes?!?) his living with you causes as opposed to letting him save that money towards a deposit and setting a strict timeframe on how long he remains with you!

But the op hasn't asked for anyone's opinion on this. She is happy with her offer and her arrangements she simply asked if rent amount was fair.

@Brunocatmon personally I'd bump them all up by £100pm to cover electricity and the huge amounts of food you will need to purchase to keep everyone fed!

I charge my 26 year old dd £300. That includes all bills, and we cook for her as well. She earns 45k so I think that’s reasonable. She has moved back from a rented flat where she paid £700 plus bills, plus food. The £300 is to cover our extra costs really. When she first lived her straight from uni, I charged the same but saved half for her plus contributed to an isa. Her salary has gone up a lot since then so we both think 300 inc food is fair.

You sound like a lovely respectful person!

When i paid rent at home, it covered a roof over my head, household bills eg water, electricity council tax, mum doing my washing, mum cleaning the house and a basic food shop. Any extras I bought food wise inc beauty bits.

my kids arent old enough yet but id like to think, if im not skint by then, that i could save a chunk of that rent to give back to them to put towards a house deposit