AIBU 'only' charging my son £80 a month digs? What would you charge your child?

[4thfloor]

i had a thread on Friday on which a few people commented that £80 a month was way too low.

So I'm asking if you have grown up children living at home, how much do charge them in rent/digs/board and lodgings?

Our set up is

DS1 has just turned 20, he works 16 hours a week (minimum wage)

I ask for £80 a month

He pays for all his own food/juice/toiletries/clothes etc

He puts approx £300 a month into his savings account to go towards a deposit for a flat when he moves out rather than me taking the money for board and lodgings

So my question is AIBU for charging him so little in rent and allowing him to save for his future or am I doing the right thing?

If you have grown up children at home how much do you charge them per month?

[RedHelenB]

fiverabbits - I would make it VERY clear that she needn't expect to inherit the house, you & your dh enjoy it through equity release as it will only get swallowed up by her debts!

[MrsMelons]

I would only charge the minimum I needed to for any extras ie phone bill and maybe a bit of food if I needed to financially. My mum charged me for the sky multi room I had, itemised phone bill and a tiny bit more, about £40 a month about 15 years ago. I was 19 and saving for a house deposit.

I would not charge rent as such if my child was saving towards a house or flat deposit. As a parent I think you are teaching them good values as he is saving for his own house and if you charged more he may not be able to do this. Lets face it - its hard enough to get on the housing market as it is.

[MrsMelons]

Can I just add if I could afford it I would really only charge for luxury extras such as phone etc as lile others have said the extra savings could make a huge difference.

[usualsuspect]

Plenty of employers only pay the 20 year old minimum wage.


I would only take the money off him if I needed it, otherwise on a part time wage I wouldnt.

[SelectAUserName]

Once I started working FT I paid £125 per month board, saved a minimum of £100 per month towards moving out and took over paying the home phone bill. This was in the early 90s when those sums went a bit further than they do now. My parents bought the majority of food but if I wanted anything different (I was veggie, they weren't) I bought it myself, and I bought my own toiletries / make-up.

I never resented this or considered my home was no longer unconditionally my home. I was an adult, adding to the overall food/utilities/wear & tear bills so it was only fair I made a working adult's contribution. I think my parents' attitude went a long easy towards me never being in debt after I moved out until my DP and I were unlucky enough to be made redundant.

[riskit4abiskit]

When I got my first proper job I paid nothing yo my parents, on the understanding that I would save one thousand pounds a month towards house deposit, this was about 7ish years ago when the banks stopped mortgages unless you had a massive deposit. Think the parental thinking was that I would never leave if I paid board too, and it still took about 2/3 years of saving! I am very grateful to my fab parents who let me get onto the property ladder this way

[pussycatwillum]

We didn't regard it as charging rent, but as encouraging DS1 to contribute towards the household bills. I can't see anything wrong with that once they are working. It comes as a great shock when they realise how much things cost, but it prepares them for life on their own.
My parents took money from me, which they subsequently used to pay for my wedding. I didn't know that was what they planned to do until we started booking venues, or I might have given them a bit more.

[ThreesyDoesIt]

I was never expected to pay to stay in my family home, I couldn't charge my dds either, this is their home as long as they need it to be rent free.

[cory]

My thinking would be that I would want my children to have something put aside towards the next stage of their life, but how that was achieved would depend on the individual child.

I would be happy for a sensible dc like yours to do his own saving, but I would not be happy with a situation where an earning dc was spending money like water and costing me so much that I wasn't able to save up for later help either. Would also not be happy with a situation where I was genuinely struggling because of extra cost of non-contributing dc.

[MummyPig24]

My dad charges my brother (23) £50 a week, that includes utilities and food. If my brother wants different food then he buys it himself (he refuses to go shopping with dad to choose food together.) My brother has a full time, reasonably paid job. Where else could he live for £200 a month?!

[EBearhug]

My sister went back home after her relationship broke up, and my mother charged her not much less than the going rate for a room in a shared house. She did save it all (without telling my sister) and later gave it back to her to use as a deposit.

She made it clear through our teens that we weren't really welcome to live at home once we got to 18, and I would probably have considered homelessness before going back for more than a weekend visit, so it may not count as a useful way of doing things.

[Purple2012]

When my dsd is earning I will be charging her rent if she lives here. The amount will depend on what she earns. I will probably put some of what I will charge her in a savings account to give her to get on the property ladder but I won't tell her that. If she saves hard for a deposit then I will happily give her a lump sum towards it.

[HappyMummyOfOne]

Fiverabbits, it seems very unfair that you bailed your DD out to the tune of £32k, she pays no board and will inherit the house whereas you take all your DS's benefits to the tune of £700 a month and he gets nothing.

[gobbledegook1]

It sounds reasonable given he pays for all his own stuff, I suppose it also depends on how much he earns though. I am another who fails to see how he can afford to put away £300 plus his £80 board and still have anything left over for all his own food & toiletries etc on 16 hours at minimum wage.

My DP's brother works full time (40 hrs a week plus the occasional overtime), he pays £50 a week (so around £200 a month) plus one third of the household bills (gas, electric & sky). He buy's all his own clothes & toiletries and covers the full cost of running his car and mobile phone himself.

[misterioso]

My ds 18 works 20 hours a week nmw. I charge him £15 per week, because I don't want him still living at home when he's in his 20's

[possum18]

GREAT PARENTING WILL TEACH VALUE OF MONEY AND APPRECIATE IT WHEN OLDER!!!!
I moved out at the age of 17 and pay all my own rent, food, bills..etc but my sister now age 21 lives at home and takes advantage of DD, she doesn't pay a penny towards anything.
Most of my friends who live at home (now age 19/20) all pay 30% - ish of their wages to parents to cover food, rent and bills.
As your DS pays for his own food..etc I would say £80 is fair - being 19% of earnings :)

[Darkesteyes]

EBearhug thats awful What if youd had to move back home in an emergency due to illness or leaving an abusive partner.

[MusicalEndorphins]

We charged our ds1 $50.00 (about 32 pounds I believe) a week so he could save for an apt. That included use of everything plus food.

[wongadotmom]

DD1 now pays £200 per month from an income of about £950

When she was on the dole in 2011 she paid £50 per fortnight from an income of just over £100

She has always had excellent value for money. :)

[FiftyShadesofGreyMatter]

DD covers her food and bill costs but I do not charge her "rent".

[MrsMelons]

Possum - I disagree. As I said, my parents didn't really charge me other than luxuries as I was saving so hard for a house deposit. I cannot see what taking 'rent' off your children achieves.

I am very good with money and actually managed to pay my mortgage off by the time I was 32. My parents taught me the value of money but were never going to take money off me for imaginary rent, they just taught me to save and I have always done this.

I am really at how many people charge hundreds of pounds to their DCs to live in their family home. If they are dreadful with money and not saving anything then I totally get it, I would also be reluctant to save for them unless they made an effort themselves, also if financially you cannot afford to keep them and it genuinely helps towards keeping your head above water but other than that I really don't understand.

I will teach my children to budget properly, if they have cars/mobiles etc then they will run them/pay for them of course but I would expect them to be saving for a house deposit and I will happily have them at home until they are able to afford to move out.

[EBearhug]

EBearhug thats awful What if youd had to move back home in an emergency due to illness or leaving an abusive partner.


Don't think it would ever have really been an issue while my father was alive. After then, my sister did go back home after breaking up from her partner, but she never heard the end of what a good mother we had, and how grateful she should be, etc, etc. Illness - I don't know, and I'm glad I never had to find out. She had a lot of her own history, which she never dealt with. And it's made me very too good at standing on my own two feet and not expecting anyone else to do anything for me.


I do think taking a percentage of what they bring home and putting it aside for them is not a bad practice, particularly if it's someone who isn't normally very brilliant at budgeting and saving. But different families with different dynamics will work out what's best for them.

[Beastofburden]

It would depend.

(a) is the family on a tight budget or not? if you are, and he knows it, then he will respect the need for him to help pay bills that are a bit bigger than they would be otherwise.

(b) is he a sensible bloke or not? if you have children who cannot be trusted to save for their own future then I guess you should charge them as much as you can, put it aside, and then give it back to them as a house deposit. But I don't agree that it teaches them about the value of money- quite the reverse, you are protecting them from the consequences of being useless and self-indulgent. I can see why you would do it, though, as wasting tons of cash is a bloody irritating way for them to learn.

In my case, we are not on a tight budget and DS1 is a sensible bloke, so I wouldn't charge him rent, and I would tell him that it makes more sense for him to save up to reduce his future mortgage than for me to pretend that I need the cash when we both know that I don't.

[TigerFeet]

sounds fair to me op

those who say that they wouldn't charge dc for living at home, don't you think that a wage earning adult should contribute to family expenses? My mum needed the money I paid her to help pay the bills, after all, an adult eats a fair amount of food and I used the phone etc etc. Even if she hadn't needed the money she still would have charged me. fair enough imo. Dh paid board and was given the some of the money back as a lump sum when he moved out.

my children are still small but when the time comes I will charge them board, as I think they ought to be helping pay for what they use. Of course it's impossible to say how much at this point, it depends on hiw much they earn and what their expenses are.

[nannynewo]

If he is working 16 hours a week on minimum wage then how does he afford to pay you £80 a month plus put £300 away into savings and then pay for food etc... on top?
Minimum wage for his age is £4.98 an hour.
As a student I pay £91 a week for my house (and it absolutely kills me) plus all my food/ clothes/ toiletries etc.... There are several reasons to why I moved away to study (the main one being my course) and I know that if I still lived at home my parents would also help me out like you are.
So I think if you can afford to then you are doing the right thing in helping him out :)