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

Which is fine if you can afford it.
We need what they pay in rent to make ends meet.
I'd have thought that was obvious.🤷

But unless you’re charging more than the £500 you mention, that is going straight into a savings account for your child, they’re not actually paying anything at all towards living costs (bills etc.) and certainly not towards food or ‘rent’. And so you are letting them live there for free, which is exactly what the Spanish approach is. So not sure why you have an issue with it…?

£500 a month goes directly to a LISA for first home

there was supposed to be £25 a week for food but that has somehow never arrived in my account

And as for the Spanish approach doesn’t mean it’s the right one

DS20 pays £200 a month board and lodge. It basically covers everything - but he's the only one left at home and he often says he doesn't want tea, that he'll be late and he'll make himself something. He then comes in with something he's bought that he fancies. This can range from frozen pizza to a piece of steak that he's going to cook.

My son pays £250 a month. Rent covers his mobile bill, other bills, and food. He eats dinner with us, but does buy his own lunches. I’m a carer for his brother, so on benefits, so can’t afford for him not pay, I get less money because UC assumes he’s paying his way.

You say you charge:
£265 a month which includes £100 rent, 25% of council tax (he moved back in after a period out of work, so I lost my discount), the additional utilities, tea, coffee, laundry products and kitchen towel.

I’m interested to know what you do with the £100 ‘rent’ bit of that? And also why the price increase when he earns more?

Totally understand wanting to charge adult children for what it costs you having them there. But is the rent aspect just a penalty you charge them for living with you? Would it not be better to let him save that towards a deposit for somewhere of his own to buy or rent? Genuinely interested, as I find this idea of a child as a tenant very odd.

We don’t need the money but DS gives us £50 per week which covers his food. He doesn’t take lunch from home. He earns 35k PA at the moment whilst training.

He will be given a decent deposit for a house in the region of 50k, when the time comes. A small 3 bed semi can be bought for 250k PA in this area a terrace would be 175k.

I have 1 adult DD living at home (23). she pays £140 a month which covers her mobile phone bill and whatever else the other money goes too.

this is on the proviso that she puts an amount away each month to allow her to save for a house.

this is the amount of money my other DD paid, therefore it is only fair that this the amount she pays.

i know for a fact she puts 25% of her wage into a 'deposit' account. She buys all her own food, she cooks all her own meals, the only thing i provide for her is laundry and cleaning.

Currently £265 a month which includes £100 rent, 25% of council tax (he moved back in after a period out of work, so I lost my discount), the additional utilities, tea, coffee, laundry products and kitchen towel.

He moved back in to save money but is a heavy consumer of utilities.

He buys his own food, toiletries, loo roll and hand soap, and does his own laundry.

Once he is on a stable financial footing the rent portion will go up to £200.

I think £200 a month including food for a child and their partner is incredibly cheap, you are basically paying them to live with you! Food alone is likely £250 per adult.

You don't say of your children are living with you to save for a deposit.
If I had all those adults living with me I would be expecting them to pay more .
£200 per month would not cover their groceries if they had their own place .if they are all in full time employment they can afford to pay more and should be thankful they have got off so lightly to date.

My adult child doesn’t pay rent, but of friends with adult children that do, it covers all meals and snacks, toiletries they ask for and anything they use. They all cook a couple of times a week and pull their weight with house stuff. If they want extras like alcohol, takeaways or anything in between shops etc then they buy them themselves.

My eldest pays £150 a month but she is on apprenticeship wages. When she qualifies and if she's at home I'll charge a bit more. She pays for her own phone and if she wants expensive extras she also buys that.
We have saved most of her rent for when she moves out but she doesn't know that.

Absolutely agree. And calling it a ‘ritual’ is perfect! Some people seem to see charging their child rent as some sort of rite of passage. Bizarre!!!

Ds1 pays enough to cover the share of the council tax, bills and his chicken breast addiction.

I don't profit from it, but I do expect him, as a grown adult, to pay his way in terms of food and bills.

In response to those like @Allseeingallknowing who say that they don’t understand parents who charge nothing and that they are being indulgent, I think it’s all about details and circumstance.

I think that contributions to food – if eating together – is one thing. Bills, that’s reasonable too though I’d rather argue should be based upon circumstance (how comfortably off are the parents? What if anything is the adult child earning? Why have they had to move home?). You see those on MN that seem to think that children returning from uni in the holidays should start paying their way. That seems particularly harsh.

Personally, the idea of charging your children ‘rent’ I find rather bizarre. (If it’s expenses, then that’s not rent). Charging children to take up residence in your house is a strange thing. If charging a child a rent, what are you using it for? (again I don’t mean expenses) To pay towards your mortgage (which would be the same if they were there or not)? Or perhaps for profit? Both seem rather mean.

Surely it should always be about circumstances. Can the parents afford it? Are they struggling financially anyway, and are the child is earning rather well? Then great, a contribution that goes beyond food and bills is going to be helpful and fair. But equally if the parents are doing rather well, then why charge a child who is presumably just starting out on a very expensive road to adulthood.

Some see it as some sort of lesson in frugality and adulthood. Fine perhaps if you’re secretly saving the money to give back to them towards a deposit, as a few on here say they do, but really, why not just tell them you don’t want rent but would like them to save their own money while they’re with you?

As a child of very reasonable baby boomers, they understood - when I moved back home in my mid-twenties after a relationship broke down and while in the very early (and badly paid) stages of a career - that they had had things rather good. That they came from a generation who had free university education, were able to get ‘jobs for life’ with career progression built in and were able to buy houses young and for not very much money. They realised that house costs were now phenomenal high and beyond the reach of most – rent was skyrocketing too – and they also knew that they and their generation had benefitted enormously from this rise. Houses bought in the 1980s for £20k or £40k might now be worth into the millions and too that one of the reasons for the rise in house costs was baby boomers who had invested in second (3rd, 4th, 5th…) properties as a back up to their pensions. They had taken over the market and made that market practically inaccessible to those not already part of it. They knew that charging me a rent that they didn’t need and would only make my ever being able to leave again even more difficult would be completely ridiculous.

So really, charge expenses, absolutely. Ask for a ‘contribution towards living there’ if you need the help and they can afford it. But don’t charge them rent if you don’t need it. At best it will be a rather pointless lesson in the realities of life and at worst it will mean that they will never actually be able to afford to leave!

DC shouldn't be paying rent to stay in their own home unless: a) their parents are on a very low income and desperate for the money or b) they are earning an absolute fortune. It's not a hotel.

DH is Spanish and he can't believe that this happens in the UK. Any parent who tried similar in Spain would be torn a new one by their family. He says there would be shock all over torn about it.

Yet another way in which youngsters have it harder here compared to elsewhere. It is a very bizarre ritual.

I offered to when I moved back with her (offered to pay rent as well), but she didn't want me to. She'll buy the food for us (her, me and DD) and if I want/need anything extra, I'll get it myself.

I'll be the same with DD when/if she's in a similar position as me.

That’s too many people in one house I wouldn’t do it .

My son is 23. He pays £500 a month.

He has ASD and ADHD and in many ways is like a young teenager, and only holds a job down because of the additional support and scaffolding he has at home, which in turn has impacted on the hours I can work, my earnings and ultimately my pension.

We drop him off and pick him up from work, so he gets through a few tanks of petrol during the month. I manage his money and ensure he saves as well (and he has amassed a very healthy savings account) otherwise he would blow the lot on XBox, Monster and Pizza.

If he took less of my brain power I wouldn't take as much money, and at some point he will almost certainly blow his job up, so then I won't be taking anything from him for who knows how long.

Can’t understand all these indulgent parents who charge nothing when their children are working full time. They are still able to save while paying their way. No doubt they also manage to buy clothes, and have a social life, holidays etc. it’s taking the pee out of their parents imo.

Mine has moved out now but was paying £200 which basically covered his food. We were fine with that as he was saving up a house deposit.

Do you buy food, help with bills etc?

I am from a culture where money does not change hands in families.
Amazingly we all manage to learn how to budget and be frugal.
Horses for courses.

My eldest is home after 5 years of living independently, budgeting, managing everything herself. She knows it all already.