To expect my dd to pay for her driving licence ?

If my daughter told me to fuck off, the shutters of the bank of mum would clang shut faster than you could say awww mum.

That said did you offer to pay and now you're withdrawing the offer?

In the real world financial circumstances can change quite quickly ,the daughter should have the maturity to understand and respect why her parents cannot now pay for everything! A vet bill can cost £50-£5000+++ depending on the problem.
OP your daughter sounds a spoilt,privileged brat . She needs to apologise to you and start behaving like an adult .

How do you know this? Or are you just guessing based on you and some people in your social circle?

I paid for DD to learn to drive a couple of years ago. That alone was around £1500. Insurance would have been almost £4,000 for the first year and second-hand cars are now stupidly expensive.
I ended up trading my car in and buying a brand new one litre thing (that I hate) to share with DD. She's now at university and I'm shortly going to go back to a car I want, rather than one bought with DD in mind. She doesn't need a car as she's in a city centre campus l.

As I already explained, your friendship circle is anomalous.

@fruitbrewhaha get some insurance quotes. My dd is 20 and as a named on my fiat 500 it knocked my insurance up to £1500 at 17 when she passed. Yr 2 was lower once she had 12m no claims. Lads in own cars were paying £3500 for insurance.

As an additional driver, she wont be able to earn her no claims discount. It may be a cheaper way of doing it initially, but long term could end up costly

It really isn't that weird.

I was 18 in the mid noughties and virtually all my friends had lessons and cars bought for them by their parents - I was very, very much an anomaly in that my parents could easily have paid but thought it was my responsibility - as a result I couldn't afford to learn until my late twenties.

Gosh! How you going to manage that!

My first car was 20 years ago now and was an old Renault Clio cost 3k. Ran that into the ground

I last sold a car 4 years ago and couldn’t believe it was worth more than when I had bought it ten years earlier. Had a good 100k miles more than purchase and was stranded in a garage with thousands of pounds work required due to something gone terribly wrong. Sold for 6k!

So not sure about the 5k!

Stay calm ! Just read your update !
It's so annoying when u do everything and they swear at you !
I think maybe if she can afford it then say she can pay no need to get in debt over it if u don't need to !
Or u could go halves may e once u in a better position money wise but the best thing right now is STAY CALM and don't react to the swearing 🤬 big hugs it's hard having kids ! I do remember this age very well !

Sorry, I meant £200 a month as a new driver with a new license on their own vehicle, not with a provisional as an additional driver.

We paid for DS’s but he would also never tell us to fuck off, so there’s that. I think if she’s saving for uni and all her money is going towards that then yes you should pay, but if she has left over money that would cover the lessons etc she should pay.

Depends if you want your word meaning anything.

A vet bill shouldnt make a difference against a long term commitment such as driving costs. Maybe you should actually look to charging her board/ pat some of her own expenses, then use that money to keep your board

My son is using he's child trust fund that he was told was for lessons and we will pay for any additional plus the licence he's 18 may

£200 for a new driver on their own car, sorry - not as an additional driver.

Personally I think learning to drive is important to get done asap. It’s essential, not a nice to have. Many jobs expect you to have a valid driving license for business travel. If you can I would pay for lessons or at least make a contribution.

Totally agree. As I said, I don't know anyone whose parents paid for their driving lessons. I do know some parents who paid for a car or put money towards a car but none of them were particularly expensive cars.

You intended to pay. Now you can't afford it. That's a disappointment. DD can rethink her plans and learn either at uni or afterwards. You can help then but only if you can afford it.

If you don't pay for lessons, are you prepared to take her out driving a lot? This is time consuming for you but will save a lot of money if it means fewer lessons.

Pretty sure they can afford the pet. It's the lazy entitled daughter they can't afford

I think you are being mean. You have already told your daughter that you would pay, as most parents do. It sounds like you couldn’t afford the pet you have.

Insurance will cost almost £200 a month for a learner (more for boys, sadly)

How much?! What are you insuring? We insured my kids on my own car when they were learning, it's nothing fancy, but fairly new, and it cost less than £150 for three months. Once they passed though, it was about £1800 to add them as a named driver, so we didn't do that! Cheaper to get their own car and insurance, and to start their no claims bonuses.

There’s a lot of separate issues there - it’s neither reasonable nor unreasonable to pay for driving lessons depending on your finances and how important it is that your kids drive.

The issues are more around what are your expectations of her, is she pulling her weight at home, are you allowing her to speak to you so rudely etc.

I’d suggest when you’re both calm sit down for a good chat, explain that your finances are stretched right now, that you’re unhappy with her lack of contribution to home life and that since you’ve had a row now seems like a good time to agree how things will work going forward.

That agreement needs to cover finances but also helping in the house and treating you respectfully. Try to listen with an open mind to what she wants as well! At her age you want to start moving towards being adult roommates rather than doing everything for her.

I think threads like those show how out of touch mumsnetters are. It's very weird to pay for a child's driving lessons and vehicle. It infantilises them and makes your children look like toddlers.

It is absolutely normal up and down the country for 18 year olds to fund their own lessons, driving licence, test, and car using their own money from their job.

Depends where you live really, we’ve bought car, lessons, test fees and insurance when they pass. But we live very rurally - half hour round trip to the train, 20 min to their jobs, so for us it’s money well spent that we are no longer the taxi service! They didn’t choose to live here, we did. Might not have been so generous if there was a feasible public transport option though.