How much rent to charge 18 year old?

We talked about rent with my teen, they were perfectly happy to pay it. Just because we've chosen not to doesn't mean they don't contribute to the household.

It's more of a parenting fail not to have saved anything for dc for them to take over and add to which would then go towards them getting their own place. I would not take money off my dc on £900 to pay my bills.

All the people who say they'd never charge their kid, honestly I think it's a parenting fail if your living at home child doesn't themselves choose to contribute to the house. I'm the eldest and when I finished college and started earning I discussed with my parents what I should contribute. Along with helping out with younger siblings, cooking, etc. It never entered my mind that an earning adult wouldn't contribute and make things easier for the other adults in the house.
I know the world is different now and I do hope to be able to give my kids a leg up when the time comes to buy a house, etc. But I'll feel like I've failed if they feel entitled to live in the home we fund and they don't want to help out.

I don't call it rent, I call it "his contribution to the pot".

My DS gets between £1500 and £2500 a month depending on how many shifts he has been allocated.

His contribution is £500. He has £500 spending money and the rest goes into his savings.

His contribution covers his electricity (he games a lot) all his food, toiletries, basic clothes (underwear, socks etc - he buys everything else), petrol to run him to and from work 5 or 6 times a week, his phone, his pre-paid prescription, Disney Channel subscription and whatever weird and wonderful stuff he asks to be added to the weekly shop. He has hollow legs, has a physical job and eats twice the amount of food we do and often wants stuff we wouldn't buy normally.

He is ND and to be honest I can't see him moving out any time soon, so I don't think it's appropriate to be cover all his expenses indefinitely, when he earns more than I do most months - and in 5 years time I will be drawing my state pension, so at some point he would effectively be sponging off a pensioner!

I think it’s too much, I would encourage her to save a bit more and stop paying the phone and charge £100.

All my children are on my corporate discount gym membership and have been since young children. I have never cancelled this, because I have no need to. Your situation is obviously different, but you must understand different people have different financial situations to you so can afford to pay their children’s gym membership. Don’t worry he is moving out, but also why is that an issue for you if it’s not for me or him? We quite like each other.

Why are some people SO judgemental about other people’s choices?! Jeez

@Mizanthrope you should do what works for you and your family, You know your daughter best, so ignore those of us who say don’t charge/charge more.

I’m sorry but this is absolutely insane. Paying for his gym membership?! What on earth! He earns more than my dh who supports a family of 4 on his salary (and my disability benefits, I’m severely disabled). Your son will be living at home forever at this rate. What incentive is there to move out?

I think most of London is expensive. He is obviously not buying in Kensington. He is very sensible with his money, so not living a lavish lifestyle no.

I don't charge my 4 rent. They are saving hard to move out could take years with the price of buying.

I wouldn’t charge rent but would as others have suggested say she needs to pay £200 into her isa in lieu of rent and that can be used towards a house deposit in the future. Or she pays it to you and you hold it for her.

I charge my DS19 £100 a month. This is mainly to go towards food of which he eats ALOT! We can afford for him not to pay but I think it's important that he starts to learn that life is not free

I think it depends entirely on your household income - if you need the money then totally reasonable to charge whatever they cost living there. But if it’s just for the look of the thing, I can’t get on board with money flowing up the generations not down!
My parents never charged me a penny, and I’ve gone on to be a higher rate tax payer so can’t see it did me any harm having an easy life at 18! No intention of charging my kids anything either - but we’re in the fortunate position that we don’t need to.

I don’t think £200 is a lot to be honest. If you don’t need the extra cash I’d be tempted to pop it in a savings account and not tell her. She has £650 of disposable income a month. There’s plenty of adults that don’t have that much so it’s not like you’re depriving her. FWIW I used to give my mum £150 over 20 years ago so no £200 isn’t excessive

She can pay her own phone - put the contract in her name. I wouldn’t charge my child rent but I’d hope they’d be saving more than £50 out of £900! She could be saving half, especially if she wants a car! At £50/month she’ll get saving for years!

I’d only be charging rent if 1. I actually needed help with the bills or 2. She was being irresponsible with it (I would then save it up for her but not tell her that). If she is happy with it, I would encourage her to put more away in the LISA in the future. I’d maybe suggest she keeps that at £50 a month while she saves for a car but then increases it when she’s managed to buy the car. Also make sure she pays u for the phone bill. Would be nice if she cld maybe buy a takeaway once a month but if she’s saving I wouldn’t put pressure on her to.

We don't charge our 19 year old but they put most of their wage in to savings, divided across S&S (not to be touched money for long term savings), cash ISA (moving out one day fund) and instant access savings (car and other big life expenses). They only keep a small portion for day to day spending which is in line with what their disposable income would be if they were living in a shared house and paying bills.

If their attitude towards saving area not so mature then they should be paying rent to us instead!

I think you’ve got it right!

I’d say £200 is a bit high given her wage, I’d go £100 for now and review if her earnings increase. I think it’s important that she gets into the habit of paying towards household expenses as that’s the reality of life.

I’d also stop paying her phone bill, and sit her down to go through the household expenses (essentials like broadband, water, energy etc) so she understands all that and can see where her contribution is going.

whenever I lived at home I made a contribution to household expenses and paid for my own food .

Does he have to buy a house in an expensive area? If he has plenty of disposable income after savings, and can afford a good social life, holidays etc, I wouldn’t be buying his clothes. Plus his girlfriend is saving too. If I were your son, though, I’d be mighty grateful for such generous parents!

It depends. My friend had to charge her DD rent when she started working because she lost child maintenance and some of her UC and still had rent to pay. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to say no payments are needed.

However, if I didn’t actually need the money, I would ask her for £200 a month and secretly save it for her so she had enough to buy a better car or spend on something sensible.

I’ll be charging my 18yo in the near future as they will have a FT job with a decent salary.

we live in an expensive area and a spare room is about 50% of her take home.

we’re planning on charging 25%

this still leaves her much more disposable income than I have

her dad will stop his child maintenance so it makes sense in her set up. We won’t be ‘profiting’ but we’re striking a balance between responsibility and a free ride.

if she lost her job we’d support her but she’s an adult and understands the arrangement.

My 18 yr old is working full time. She pays £300 pm plus her phone. This is less than 20% of her wage. The agreement is we keep it at this as long as her savings are increasing well. If she starts pissing it up the wall it gets doubled.
She has a car and covers own fuel, MOT, insurance etc. I cover her recovery, most toiletries, food and treats.
She has saved c4k since October.
I am not profiting from this, I am freeing up a little bit of my wage to top up my own pension- to hopefully finish at 65 instead of 68!
She is independent, mature and is very grateful when I treat or gift her nice things, which I often do as I am so proud of how hard she works, her independence and maturity.

Finding a job is so hard nowadays. Cost of living has gone up. University is no longer fee-free. I would never make my kid’s life harder than it needs to be. It gives me genuine joy to help them financially and they are extremely grateful and hard-working.

I suspect that those adult children who are lazy and take the piss, will do so, whatever their upbringing is like, and however much rent they pay or don’t pay their parents.