to want to see DS's student digs bills before paying them?

[Eleanor02]

DS, final year uni, has rung to (once again) ask me to help him out with household bills. Two of them in a flat and other other student organised all the utilities etc and all the bills are therefore in his name. Advised DS at the time that they should work together on this.

Latest bill is BT. DS says that for for two recent months, flatmate wants £50 from him which would make it, if the flatmate is being straight with him, £100 between them. Then there's the issue of 3 months when the lads have left but the contract goes on. I have no idea what kind of contract they're on (neither has DS) or what their average monthly bill is. DS doesn't use the phone much - has a mobile. Really, they have the package for the internet (so clearly didn't need to bother with a home phone). All I know is that my household BT bill is pretty modest in comparison ..

AIBU is insisting that DS sees these bills for himself before phoning me again to ask for the dosh? Our household income is modest and it's been very difficult keeping up with DS' requests for money when I haven't seen any of the bills in questions.

And as for the remaining months (what possessed them to enter into an arrangement like this?), DS wants the money from me to give his flatmate who'll be responsible for those final bills but without knowing what contract they are on and what might possibly be done to mitigate things as far as BT is concerned, I'm reluctant to fork out - again.

Any thoughts really, really welcome.

Yes you should see the bills. From what you say it sounds as though they need some advice.

How much money you give your son is between you and him.

My course was 35-40 hours a week of lectures, lab sessions and seminars, plus 1-2 hours of study most evenings, and it was 5 years long. It gave me a professional qualification, and an almost guaranteed career with good prospects and a good salary, but I had to work bloody hard. There is no way I could have worked part time and still passed my exams, absolutely no way, and I don't know anyone on my course who did. Everyone worked throughout the uni holidays and had loans, but those without help from their parents graduated with debts of £50k or more, which would take decades to repay. I am immensely, infinitely grateful for the financial help from my parents, which allowed by to graduate with a loan of around £15k only, and have never asked them for a penny since graduation.

I'm telling this story just because there seems to be a popular idea that all students are dossers, drinking daddy's money down the union bar, and this really wasn't my experience, even back in the late 90s. There is also an idea that part time work for unqualified teenagers is easy to find, when clearly the employment figures these days tell a different story.

Surely if someone wants to help their child out and can afford it, that's their choice? I certainly would like to be able to do the same for my kids, when the time comes.

DS manages his job by not coming home in the holidays and staying in his University city. While all his friends are going home at Xmas, Easter and in the summer he stays there to get the Bank holiday shifts which pay more. Also supermarkets want you right up until Xmas they don't want someone who is going to take time off to go back to their parents home.

He started as a temp but because of his willingness to work was given a permanent job with more hours and manages to regularly get 40hr weeks in the holidays. Also he is given more responsible jobs which is all good stuff for his CV.

We are helping him financially and give him most of his rent which we would do whether he worked or not. He sorts out the bills for the house and collects the money from the others, and I know sometimes people are late paying which means DS pays it and then has to wait for people to pay him, so I wouldn't leave the bill and say its OK they don't need to pay it until August or else someone else will be out of pocket for a few months.

I bet the OP is scratching her head and wondering where it was she asked AIBU to pay my son's bills.

If this is his final year, what happened with all the previous bills? Why are you suddenly concerned about these ones? For your ds to get a sense of whether the bills are accurate then yes he'd need to see them but presumably he'd also need to check back previous bills (eg if any amounts are carried over then he'd need the previous bill to see how those amounts were calculated).

I find it a bit odd to try to do this at the end of the year rather than being on top of it from the beginning but hey ho, each to their own! YANBU to ask to see the bills. Do you trust your ds to interpret them correctly? It seems to me that if he was someone who was used to checking bills, you wouldn't have to force him. And if he isn't used to checking bills then will he really know what to look for?

As for the amount, our BT bills at home are equivalent to your ds' bill for a similar household size. It really depends what call package is included and the type of internet package too.

Depending on the package BT line rental would be just under £50 for the past three months, and if they had to pay for the next 3 months that would be about another £50 so about £100 and thats before calls, depends what package and if internets included, or if line rental was paid upfront as its cheaper that way.

£100 would cover 6 months line rental and very small amount of calls so maybe thats it, March until August for just the phone.