What do you charge your adult child to live at home

[Rollofrockandsand]

Eldest is about to start work on £32k and will be living at home. I plan to ask them to pay board. I can easily afford for them to live at home for free and plan to save the money and give it back to them when they move out. They have a deposit for a first home but won’t use it for a while.

i want them to contribute because I think it’s a very important lesson and value for them to understand.

i am thinking about £300 a month which is significant enough for them to notice and little enough they can still save / go out and enjoy themselves.

Mine is the same age and on similar income.
We don’t ask for anything. We don’t need it. She has started a pension and also is saving.

An alternative is to say to them you will not charge them to live at home provided they regularly save £X monthly. Saving is just as important a lesson.

I don't understand the point of taking board only to give it back with a ta-da when the young person could have just saved it for themselves.

DS, 23, recently graduated and working in a pub, pays us £250pm, which I put in an ISA for him. Budgeting and financial responsibility are important skills.

My ds2 ( aged 24) earns a similar amount. I don't charge him anything. We don't have mortgage or rent to pay and would still be living in the same size house if he wasn't living with us and still paying the same council tax etc. He buys quite a lot of his own food and takes one shower a day. I know he is saving well for him own home and we have regular talks about cost of living, council tax costs etc. He has offered to pay. My job is due to end next year and if I can't find anything else quickly and have no earnings then I will need to ask him to contribute then.

My 16yo DS easily eats £120 a month. He uses £30 of electricity and when in full time work, his half of council tax will be £125 a month.

Add in laundry, toiletries and wear and tear, the realistic cost is probably £300, so I'd add in a bit for the room too and make it £400. That is about half what a room in a HMO and bills would cost near here.

Your DS will be earning £32k. Does he have student loan payment to come out of that? Commuting? What else?

It’s the principle that nothing comes for free. I expect them to save too,

Yes this exactly. I know my ds is savings and he also is very interested in finances and always looking for the best savings deals etc, invested in shares etc as soon as he started earning. he is probably more financially savvy than me and there would be no point me saving for him he can do better himself. With this ds he is the only one out of my four kids who have not been to Uni ( two still at Uni) so we haven't had to support him through years at Uni as we have done for the others. He has cost us very little !

Student loan will be £60 a month. Commuting is about £30 a week. They share a car with sibling but o pay for all costs for that apart from petrol and as sibling is at uni without a car they’ll have full use of it

We add up all the bills, divide it by the number of adults in the house and work out a contribution for food shopping.

It's revised every April. It means that they know thst their actions affects how much they pay. You leave lights on, we use more electricity, your share of the bills goes up.

We don't charge rent, we are adults sharing the costs of running a house.

Growing up it was 1/3 of wage.
Granted my mum saved half of that 1/3 for me so effectively I paid 1/6
So about 650 to 750 month whether you need it or not. Save half of it for when they go. They will be paying 800+ to run there own house.

Best thing my mum ever did for me taught me to budget and that my wage isn't all mine.
I wasn't shocked when I got my own place, and very grateful when thay gave me the money back for furniture ect

Dd is similar and we don't charge her. However we know that she's a saver. Almost all her salary goes straight to save for a house. She spends very little, mostly petrol for work.

If dd2 wants to do the same we'll have to think much more carefully as she's money in = money out. I remember the time she had some money for Christmas and couldn't think what to do with it, so bought Kazoos for all her form. Apparently they blew them all day. Happy kids; unhappy teachers.