AIBU - expecting son to pay for his own 'luxury' groceries on top of rent

But why should DS have £1300 (or more, if OP were to charge a lower rent) of free cash per month, if OP and her DH have considerably less?

Sure, don't charge £500 if his take home is £600 but he has a lot of spare money.

"I truly believe that the biggest favour we can do for our children is to teach them to be responsible, self sufficient adults. This includes paying rent and expenses. Lots of parents who are financially comfortable save the ‘rent’ and give it back to their adult child later on to help with house deposit etc."

Except donating a house deposition from the Bank of Mum & Dad isn't really teaching them to be 'responsible, self sufficient adults'...

Personally i think £500 a month is a lot for your own child esp if you dont 'need' the money. It also feels like youve moved the goalposts, originally incl the mobile phone and then excl it for the same price, incl the bills but now wanting to charge him car electric, including snacks but now wanting to charge extra - i dont think coffee and drinks are 'luxuries' really either tbh.

I think you need a calm, sensible conversation where you agree and you all stick to it. Maybe charge less but only include evening meals if he has what youre having, and he buys his own coffees and cans? £500 + his own drinks + mobile + coffees/cans does seem a lot to me personally.

My DS pays £200 a month which is all family meals if he wants them (but he buys/cooks his own if preferred) but he pays for his own car and phone AND he also cuts the grass and trims the hedges in summer and takes DD to an activity once a fortnight when im.at work. This works for us and we agreed it together. It is of course up to you but i dont think its fair to keep adding extra costs on, how is he supposed to budget if it keeps changing!

@TomatoSandwiches

Why should be be grateful for his landlord deigning to only charge him £500 a month?

We don't charge DS anything now he's back from uni and working full time and studying part time. He is saving and adding to his house deposit pot - he's never going to be able to leave if we take his money. He pays his car insurance and phone. Food he eats with us and anything out of the ordinary he can buy himself but he and his girlfriend are quite frugal. This is with a husband retired on ill health and me being the only wage earner.

He doesnt do any shared housework or contribute to the household in other works - doesnt even clean up after himself, we have asked and its not worth the fights/backlash. We have also asked him to not smoke etc in the house/garden which he does anyway.

Wtf. This bothers me much more than the financial situation. How dare he be so disrespectful? It is your house, and he needs to live it in a clean and respectful way. I would not tolerate my children not cleaning up for themselves. Great, another man who grows up thinking it is not his job to look after his household and clean. He’s going to make a great partner and parent in the future, no doubt. 🙄🙄🙄 Ugh

Absolutely this @QuaintNewt.

Personally I don’t agree with charging DC to stay in their own home unless they are either earning a fortune or it is absolutely necessary.

Putting that to one side, in my view it’s absolutely obscene to be charging your own son £500 a month. I appreciate that includes food but frankly it sounds like you have a nice little earner going, as it can’t possibly cost that much to have him at home.

You talk about ‘bailing him out’ like you’ve performed some huge charity, but he is your son! We accept an ongoing obligation to our DC when we have them!

I don’t see how what it would cost to rent in an expensive location is relevant as some have claimed. Rental costs are so high as a result of property prices increasing and greedy landlords. That doesn’t mean parents should be using that as an excuse to profit!

All adults have to pay to live somewhere. No one lives for free.

I have adult ds living at home and he pays his expenses rather than rent because I knew that he’d accept that more easily. He pays all food, car, phone and toiletries cost which would add up to £500 imo. He uses “my” stuff like loo roll and washing powder and saves a lot.

If he was unhappy with that then I’d charge 1/3 utilities and council tax so he could see that he was getting a good deal. He knows how much I pay on my mortgage and that it’s “only” £1000
pm because I’m old enough to have bought property 20 years ago.

He does his own laundry and keeps his room and bathroom clean. Having his gf come round means that he is motivated to keep it clean which works fine with me.

How did you come up with the amount £500? Did he go to uni so have an idea of how much things like food (not takeaways) costs?

DS still has £1300 over and above what he is paying for board and lodging though - I doubt OP and her DH have that much 'free cash' each month. And they are doing all cleaning, maintenance etc, plus hosting his GF regularly.

Well dividing the bills and food by 3 would probably be about the £<500 anyway so not much difference

If he thinks £500 is excessive, tell him to find somewhere else cheaper. He'd soon realise what a bargain he's getting.

Is that a Nespresso offer?

The imperfect wonky pods don’t always work properly so you don’t necessarily save money.

I buy crappy Starbucks brand etc. pods for DS and DH and keep my Nespresso pods in a tin for my use only. 😜

I have a subscription that includes a free Nespresso sleeve a month although I am wondering about splashing out on a bean to cup machine?

20 years ago I paid £40 a week in board money. It didn’t include toiletries, or any “special” food, in your case the coffee pods!

£500 is way too much for living with your parents. It’s suppose to be a contribution, not you profiting from him.

he should be paying to charge the car, after all you wouldn’t be paying his fuel bill at the petrol station would you?

Same here. And im also paying the mortgage on a house big enough for my adult son to live here instead of a smaller property just for me.

I think she would be happy to buy everyone one pod a day (or whatever) but can see it turning into several pods each p.d.

but also - this is an example of a 'luxury' expense, given DS expected OP to pay for his takeaways with friends, I would guess he's pretty casual about adding the expensive versions of many products to the shopping list.

I don't really care how much rent would be if living with me wasn't an option. It would be more about actually covering the cost of bills and food. So however much heating/energy/water/council tax was, I would divide by number of people in the household and expect him to pay his share. Same for food. I wouldn't pay for luxury items, phone bill or takeaways or EV charging. Id sit them down and go through these costs with them. I don't think I'd charge them for a roof over their head if they were still setting themselves up in life which at the age of 23 you are really.

I can see why parents do charge though if their child needs a kick up the bum. I think if they were still living with me by 25, I would start charging subsidised "rent" but I'd probably be saving it aside to give to them later in life anyway.

So you would buy pods for you, dh snd dd but not da?

i couldn’t do that

He’s an adult so if he wants luxuries that’s for him to purchase

Find me a shared room rental where you can smoke in the house these days - and you have a younger dc…

I feel how much the family earns is nor here nor there.
The idea that the young adult than can save money to move out assumes:

1- this is an agreement between them. There’s no indication that it’s the case here. He moved back in because he git in debt and woukd lost his apprentship otherwise. So a huge favour and rescue from the parents in the first place

2- it also assumes the young adukt and the parents have talked about WHEN he us going to move out again. In tgis case, it doesn’t sound like it happened either. But rather than it was a given hed be given money to buy his own house.

3- theres is an agreement on house rules which is RESPECTED. Which isn’t happening at all here either.

Im all for supporting my dcs. But I’m Fulky against becoming a martyr/the maid/the bank. It’s not helpful for said young adult, even less so when the previous two attempts at living in his own were a disaster.

Greenlandss
Unfortunately the OP's son has the makings of the type of non prize that we read about on here.
Thats a bit of a jump isn’t it?

Dear god.

Put his rent up by £20 every time he smokes in the house and by £10 every time you have to clean up his mess.

He is not acting like an adult at all.

Luckyingame
I think in that case I'd take the hint and move out.
I’d be thinking this too- op you put rent in inverted commas and everyone here is saying ‘oh he would have to pay so much more if he was renting’ but the thing is he’s living in the same place he’s lived all his life, he doesn’t have what he’s have in his own place. While I think he should pay I think people need to acknowledge he’s not doing a bad job