Board and lodging. 23 at home; £27k pay?

[Fordian]

DS is in his first job post Uni, earning £27k. He owns a car to get to work.

We are DH and I in a 4 BR house, which we own, Hampshire.

I buy all the food, do most of the cooking tho he'll help prep, do the dishwasher. He'll hang washing and take it back in, will vacuum (if asked).

How much board and lodging would you charge, ooi?

But you could put a cheaper roof over your head instead of maintaing a family home.

Understand this situation!

Take home pay on 27k (making huge assumption there's a pension contribution of 6%) is around £1780, so if that's the case then I'd ask for £500 to cover everything (lodgings, bills, food etc) which leaves your DS around £1200 to manage car/phone etc. That feels fair but is nowhere near how much it would cost to rent a place or house share in Hants.

If you don't need the money then secretly save it up as a house deposit fund to give back to him.

If the money really helps to ease financial pressures you're facing with bills etc, then don't save it but relax a little while it lasts.

It depends on your own financial situation and on what your child is like. I made the mistake of not charging my daughter anything, thinking she could save, but she then had a horrible boyfriend and he took everything he could off her.

20% of take home and they pay for their own phone and car.

As much as it cost to keep him and not a penny more. And as others have said; give it back if you can afford to. It's your child not a lodger.

I agree @Anon300 and raise this every-time the topic is brought up.

Unless you were going to immediately downsize to a one bed flat/bedsit the minute they were old enough, you’d heat your house and pay for council tax (assuming two of you so no discount), have internet anyway. So it’s only a bit of extra electric and food.

I can’t believe the amounts some of you charge it’s crazy.

I don’t know one single person who has immediately downsized the minute their child turned 18. In fact I know the opposite where people are still rattling around running a large home when they could downsize!

My mum took 10% of whatever I earned from my first job at 16.

She did offer me money back when I went to uni and I declined. She offered it again when I bought my first house again I declined.

My friends thought it was harsh. I thought it was fair.

However we also wanted pocket money as children. We had age appropriate chores and if we wanted our pocket money that's what we had to complete.

Well my mum did. I mean it took a year to action, but child benefits and maintenancs stopped and council tax went up so she struggled to afford the house anymore so i contributed, then when i left she moved to a nice little flat.

£500 a month which is a bargain.

I should clarify she didnt downsize when i was 18 because I was contributing. She had to downsize very quickly after i left.

When my kids started work and still lived at home, they bought their own clothes, paid for their own phones. Bought all their own toiletries and paid their own travel costs, bought their own food and snacks. So I'm not sure what charging them 500 quid a month would cover. I would still have to pay all the other bills whether they lived with me or not.

So I was better off anyway because I no longer had to support them.

Yes you would pay rent /heat/council tax wifi/ etc regardless however it's only fair that cost is split between all the adults in the home unless they are in education. It's not wrong to pay less in bills because your working adult child is contributing to the household.

You will get all sorts of answers. You need to do what suits your situation.

Personally, I sat my adult son down and showed him the bills I pay (about 1,300 that belong to the family as a whole). We decided that £400 a month was a good amount, which left him a good amount to save and spend.

Some people don't believe in adult children 'paying' to live at home. I disagree, a lot. They should understand how the world works as they leave university. Parents are doing their children a disservice by not teaching them the world isn't free.

Id say 100pw too.

We give our parents 350 a month myself and 2 bros and we are so quids in its well worth staying home. I saw my parents gas/electric bill and that was almost just one of our payments so we are getting a bargain tbh and we appreciate all they do for us aswell and still chip in with cooking,gardening etc

That’s where we will just have to agree to disagree/matter of opinion. I don’t think it’s fair to do that to your children. Strangers/lodgers yes but your own kids!! That a no from me.

We "charge" our son the cost of the increase in gas/ electricity/ food.

It's pretty common to have a mesher order in a divorce settlement which says that as soon as the youngest child hits 18 (or leaves full time education) that the family home must be sold and the equity split.

Unless circumstances change for us financially, I won't be charging mine anything.

We’ve never taken any money off ours because we can afford not to and I know they are very good savers .

Absolutely nothing if they're saving to move out

It is. But I don’t see why that’s relevant. As I said… unless you were going to immediately downsize…

His take home will be around £1,800 per month, then he has to pay uni loan or any other loans and sav. 500 pounds is extortionate

Fucking hell….with your attitude your kids won’t bother coming back to see you…..so you’ll be fine in a bed sit all on your lonesome