Dig Money

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No replies in Money Matters so...

DS18 starts a full time job next week, earning £10 per hour.

It's only me and him in the house. Obviously child maintenance and child benefit has stopped. Single person discount will be taken off my council tax.

I have told him he will need to start contributing and asked if he wanted to discuss a fair amount. He wants me just to tell him. I've told him he will also be taking over his mobile phone.

Also relevant is that I have agreed to take out a small car loan for him when he passes his test, hopefully in the next few months, and i have said that I will make the payments for the first year, and then he can take them over. Payments will be about £90 per month. I had agreed to this before we knew whether he would go to college or go out to work, and I still plan to do this for him. He'll cover insurance and fuel.

So what is fair?

Thanks.

So, you really need to not be worse off yourself, so he pays the Council Tax extra, he pays for all his own food and all his own gas and electricity. You do the last three by working out how much you spend on these and dividing into two.
I would also make him pay his own car payments.
he should then still have over half his wages for himself, and I will guess this is still a lot more than you have to just spend on what you want, rather than what is needed.

it has to be fair to both of

I would say he pays his phone and car and contributes to food and the increased council tax, everything else is most likely the same whether he's living at home or not.

I would sit down and work out what he's going to be bringing home and what he'd be paying out and make sure before you take out the car loan that he'll have enough money left each month for petrol, car maintenance, clothes etc.

150

So what is fair?
Is that the question? You could take more than 'fair' and help him to start saving instead of getting into the habit of spending 100% of his wages.

Thank you for these replies.

He will be paid fortnightly and will bring home approx £600 per fortnight, probably slightly more. So I was thinking £75 per fortnight?

Currently food is approx £200 a month, energy is £125, and my council tax will now be £145 for 10 months.

I am sticking to paying for the car for now.

I think taking £75 per fortnight will still leave him at least £400 per fortnight, after car insurance and petrol.

I can ask if he wants to pay me more which I can save for him, but he would ask me to help him with that anyway, and has in the past.

So for now, the question is about what is fair.

My view is that this is an opportunity to teach budgeting, get him into the habit of keeping a track of his income and outgoings ideally a spreadsheet in his phone he can easily update.

Make sure he's got an app for his banking so what he's spending is visible. It's easy for all of us to keep tapping your card, if you don't keep a track suddenly you're short, then the credit card comes out.

This is the vital finance lesson that will set him up for life, always know what you've got in the bank and what expenses are due before you get paid again, not just direct debits, will you be getting a haircut? Having a night out? Needing petrol? Anything predictable. I'm in my 50s with a good income and I still do this every month.

He needs to learn to manage his money and at least short term financial planning.

Encourage him to open a savings account and put some money in each month for his MOT, Christmas, holidays whatever.

Taking money off him and saving it for him doesn't teach him about saving money.

He has worked before and was earning decent money over the summer in his part time job. He eventually started saving money from that for car insurance. Unfortunately that has now gone as he's been unemployed for the last two months or so.

He has commented on having to reduce the frequency of hair cuts, and he's been missing out on nights out now too, so I'm hoping he has learned a little over the last few months, as I told him from the start that he should be saving for more than the car insurance, as we knew that job was not long term.

He does have a banking app.

I don’t think you will teach him anything about how much just living costs, if you only ask for £37.50 a week.
it barely covers food or bills

Do you really feed him for only £25.00 a week ?
and that only gives you £12.50 towards council tax and bills.

Have you got £400 a month to do exactly what you choose ?

not fair if he has more than you.

£75.00 a week is more like it, £150 a fortnight

I would ask him to pay the difference between you living there alone and him being there, as he’s not earning a lot. So a quarter of the council tax to start with.

When he is earning he eats out at least once a week and eats at his dads one night. In the new job, he'll get a meal during his shift.

It definitely doesn't feel fair taking £75 a week off him.

At the moment, when I pay all regular bills, I have about £800 left a month.

Will also need to remind him about setting up a dentist plan actually.

I think £50 a week for food and the extra 25 percent of council tax. I would also get him to sort out a pension from week 1. If he is 18 to also pay into a LISA for deposit for a house later down the line. What he pays in government will top up. Just a thought but car insurance will be more than the £90 loan each month. If you could afford it could you insure his car for him and let him do loan himself. It would build his credit rating. He will need to be saving for following years car insurance too.

£50 a week is the going rate here when children start work but that includes food etc

Say he gets £1200 then £200 board, £30 phone and £200 on insurance and fuel still leaves him with £750 fun money each month which is plenty

30 years ago I gave my mum £70 of £340 net pay a month. One fifth. So I would definitely take £200 a month on those earnings at least.

Resist "just telling him" because he wants you to. Figure out what the extra costs of having him there are. Get him to talk through the figures with you and agree together.

eg If it covered his half of the food (not anything he wants but normal family shopping), a quarter of the council tax and half the bills what would that come to? Would that be plenty for you to ask of him or would a little bit towards rent be reasonable too? Also set an expectation that as costs change, his board money might too.

He might not want to engage but in the long term he will have more buy-in if he understands where the figure comes from. It'll also help him see it as him contributing towards the costs rather than paying you to let him live there.

Maybe think about shaking up chores etc too. We all do stuff for our kids and he's only young, but him paying rent doesn't mean he's paying for you to do it all!

I agree with above posters about not saving for him but getting him to open a saving account, when dd was 17 started her part time job I helped her (she's severely dyslexic so I need to help her) set up an easy access savings account, so she could access the money quickly, she didn't have any financial commitments though.

She's now 19 and works full time and has set up a proper savings account and saves into both, the easy access just because she's used to it and proper one to save for a car and insurance.

She's transfers me £300 a month for board she has offered more but she's determined to save for her own car I won't accept more.

Have you checked how much insurance is for your Ds, my Ds 17 passed his test last week and the insurance was a shock!

Not unfair at all. It's a fraction of what he would pay if he moved out. Will he/ does he help around the home?

Agree with pp's. A discussion is better if you want to help him with his future. A true understanding of what it costs for the two of you to live is not a bad thing even if only contributing a little as one day he will have those costs to pay. As pp's advised, talk to him about future goals. It seems so young to be thinking about it but so many of us learn these things so late. Does he want to own his own home one day? Instead of thinking about it down the line and finding out he's woefully unprepared and it's going to take many years from there get him to look at house/ flat prices now and work out what kind of deposit and salary he would need ( and knowing they are going to increase). This gets him thinking about the future and his development. As someone said above he can save longer term in a LISA for a house deposit. He should have shorter term savings for car maintenance, insurance, holidays etc.does he want to have a decent pension. Ask him to do a savings forecast for himself. If he wants a 1k holiday with friends each year how much should he put away for it and so on rather than being on the back foot. Have a set amount as disposable income for fun and the remainder to be used sensibly.

Another one saying to use this is a great budgeting opportunity here.

Sit down together with a pen and paper and work out what he's going to earn, and what needs to come out of this (bills/food shopping/car repayments/petrol).

Also look at long term, is he wanting to buy a house? Could be open a LISA and start paying into that?

I'm my opinion he's better off starting with saving more and spending less. If, in a few months, he realises he doesn't have enough spending money then he can save a little less and spend more. But he's better off saving more to begin with instead of being used to having all that money.

I'd say minimum £50 especially if you're paying car loan and insurance. That's leaving him with a lot of disposable income.

I wouldn't just pluck a figure from the air, it needs to be based on real costs.

I’d charge half the food, and the extra cost of him living there, so you break even yourself. If that’s less than £50 per week, I’d charge at least that much and save the difference for him in secret so that he still knows he has to save for himself but gets a surprise bit of extra when you deem it appropriate. Or you could use to extra to take him on holiday with you.

I have told him he will need to start contributing and asked if he wanted to discuss a fair amount. He wants me just to tell him.
I agree with what others have said above about teaching him about budgeting. At the moment he wants you to do the "wife-work". Train him out of that!

Agree with PP sit down and work out your actual costs in terms of council tax, utilities etc. It would also be worth looking at what it would cost him to rent a room in a shared house locally. Really is a great opportunity to look at budgeting and establishing his own ability to plan ahead and save as a regular habit.

Thanks for these replies. I agree that sitting down with him and going through the big bills, and probably even the smaller ones that he would never consider, is a good opportunity, regardless of the figure I decide on. Would love to see him take that on board and start some real saving, but we shall see!

Please show him the bills and budget so he has contexts and really understand why he's doing it

Hi, me again.

So, the full time hours are not materialising in this job.

He had two shifts last week and two shifts scheduled this week. The week before he was unwell and had none, obviously fair enough.

I haven't yet asked for any dig money, and was planning to tell him to start his payments in this weeks wage.

Considering he's now only earning approximately £140 a week, how should I proceed?

I have told him that 2 or even 3 shifts per week isn't good enough (for him, not me) and if that's how's it going to be, he needs to start looking elsewhere asap. But no progress being made there, it seems.

Do I start charging dig money anyway, to spur him on, and of course help with my costs? Or is that unfair? If I charge now. What should I take from him?

Thanks