To think no adult kids would agree to pay this!

[Cruelstepmother]

Just found this 'how much rent could you charge your kids' calculator! www.comparethemarket.com/home-insurance/content/pa-rental/ - they suggested my cuckoo-back-in-the-nest stepson should be paying us £593.80 a month. What are your views?

£650 here. Food and rent reasonable (well under half a 1 bed flat in the area and included contribution to council tax/internet/tv etc) but electricity and gas way too much.

I paid my parents £400 10 years ago but that didn't include food or internet.

I think parents do their adult, working children a disservice not charging them (unless you know they're saving a lot). If I can afford not to charge I still would and save it on their behalf (unless I knew for sure they were putting it aside for a mortgage).

Put in both towns I live in and it says Blackpool would cost more than a nearby major city!

Are you sure it's not the amount you'd have to pay them to consider living with you in Blackpool?

I suppose that calculator could be used as a bargaining tool with pisstakers who don't want to contribute if the could afford to and you can't afford to subsidise them. Here's some idea of what parents actually ask for.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/millennials-live-home-mum-dad-paying-cost-rent-housing-a8229106.html

The problem for many is the lack of a healthy medium. Rents are extortionate, if I'd moved out and tried to rent I'd have most likely run up a debt just covering basic living costs and my parents would have bailed me out. That's far more financially and emotionally draining on them than me living at home.

Where I am a one bed flat would be £1200 pcm then council tax £200 pcm then bills and food on top. Let us say (because house prices are truly unreachable) that the parents are also renting and paying council tax.

In some areas it's just not possible to buy now unless you earn an enormous amount.

Only £107 a month for food !! DS costs twice that at least.

694 pounds a month. Mind you when I was earning about 17 years ago I was charged 400 pounds a month. 25 pounds more than what my parents were paying for rent!
I had to pay for my own food (which was taken) and they were allowed to use my room whenever they felt like it. I also wasn’t allowed to shut the door!

@dentydown your parents sound lovely

I agree with paying your way but I don't think parents should be using their kids to fund their lifestyles. My ex's mum made us pay 600 each per month and we couldn't be there at weekends. The reason being she couldn't afford to run the house and horse without it as she only worked about 8 hours per week. Also the reason he was never "allowed" to move out. So glad I got out of that one.

Just out of interest I put in the postcode of where I lived as a child and it came up with £1061, so all to do with the cost of private housing in the area. (We lived in a council flat!) it presupposes you have greater housing costs by having an adult child at home but that is only the case if you were planning to downsize as soon as they left!

A lot of responses are from the perspective of owning a house and possibly having low or no mortgages. If the parent is renting and has just lost child benefit and maintenance they will need financially to treat it as a flat share if kids are working and NT.

Unfortunately it repeats the rental poverty cycle as the parents can't afford to let the dc keep their wages to save.

It's generational and a sad trap really.

£574 here, with rent part being £374. I find this odd as my total rent is £450 per month. Why would we charge our child the vast majority of the rent?

£38.13 for gas! I don't even spend that a month, even in winter.

£685!! for my son, he pays £300, to be fair he buys his own food, his choice as he’s more than welcome to our food. I think you should charge adult children rent otherwise they will have a shock in the real world. My son has a big room with his own on suite, he would pay £700 in our area for that without food

I'd say half that amount seems fair. It's not accurate though as it says £626 for our DC (not old enough yet but just to check). As we are a council house though that's slightly more than we pay per month so hardly fair.

I'd say divide by the number of adults in house for net rent. Plus about 50pw to cover house meals and utilities. Extra food for them they could buy themselves.

So say rent is £1000 a month and there is 4 adults in the household one of being the person in question.

So that would be £250 and then £200 for food and drink and utilities per month.

So £550.

That's for someone who is a fully grown adult with job I'd say less for 16-19 especially if still studying.

The amounts are ridiculous as they don't account for how many people live in the household. For my postcode the breakdown includes 100 on food, 48 on gas and 63 on electric. We only pay 60 a month on gas and electric combined! 100 a week on food for a single adult is ridiculous too.

£694.08 here.

Around 20 years ago new graduate dds paid £60 a week, roughly half of what they'd have had to pay in a reasonable flatshare at the time. Otherwise it'd have come as that much more of a shock when they finally moved out and realised what a roof over your head, hot water, heating and food do actually cost.

But it was different then, house prices were nothing like as ridiculous and saving for a deposit wasn't such a massive issue. I still wouldn't charge sod all, though, unless I knew they were saving the money and not frittering it away.

Ok I divided the results for mine by 3 which is just over £200 which seems fairer to me. :)

it presupposes you have greater housing costs by having an adult child at home but that is only the case if you were planning to downsize as soon as they left!

Or if you were planning to get a lodger or rent the room out.

I don't think parents should be using their kids to fund their lifestyles

By 'funding lifestyles' you mean earning money. Why shouldn't someone earn money from renting out part of their property? It's a legitimate income stream that people rely upon. It's quite a middle class luxury to house adults without charging them.

It's so common on MN to tell people to pay their parents for any childcare or 'service' they get from family members yet it's frowned upon to charge your adult children fair rent. Why? You are providing them with a service too.

Ha ha ha! Mine says £730 a month! Whilst my DD is far too young (9), I thought I'd look. Our mortgage was less than that!

@MrsKoala I think you should include the whole sentence if you're going to argue about a point I've made - I agree with paying your way but I don't think parents should be using their kids to fund their lifestyles

I clearly stated that I agreed that the adult children should pay their way, however it seems some parents will charge much more than they actually cost to keep which I think is unfair, especially if it prevents their own hobbies or saving up for a future house of their own.

Apparently using our postcode we could charge more than my parents or my in laws. Their houses are WAY bigger!

Also, there's no gas to the ILs village so interesting how they've come up with that figure 🤔

It's wildly optimistic.

Woo Hoo 863.06 (the six pence being the key part ... That's the mortgage sorted each month then!

@PettyContractor

How much is it saying for food? Because although my husband and I spend about £150 each on food a month, we could very easily shave £50 off and spend £100 a month - the same as the calculator suggests, and certainly a lot more than my food budget as a new work starter (£13 a week).

For a laugh, i put in my postcode oop north (CA2):

Rent - 337
Food - 95
Utilities - 115

What I was actually paying/current figures:

Rent - £350 for a 2 bed flat, inc. water rates. Now appears I could have a 1 bed for that price.
Food - £52 - let's call it £65 for inflation
Utilities - £35

Utterly useless tool.

I clearly stated that I agreed that the adult children should pay their way, however it seems some parents will charge much more than they actually cost to keep which I think is unfair, especially if it prevents their own hobbies or saving up for a future house of their own.

I understand what your point is, but I disagree. What i'm saying is why shouldn't they make money and profit? It's a service that they would make money and profit from if they rented it to someone else. So by you being there you are depriving them of earning potential. My mum charges me the going rate to clean my house. She doesn't just charge me what it costs her. She profits from providing me with a service. I don't see the difference. I did laugh at preventing hobbies though - Really? you should let adults live cheaply so you can subsidise their hobby?

It was saying just under £100 for food. We currently spend £700 for three people, and DD is only 8. Having said that, £700 isn't just food, it's all supermarket shopping, plus family meals out, etc.

(I do think £700 is ridiculously high, and I don't know how we spend that much, but I've checked previously on DW credit card, and that is what it comes out at.)

Bloody hell. I got £751.80!!!!!!!

My Dc aren't quite at the age of living at home and working FT yet, but yes I would be reasonably happy to subsidise them as long as they are also saving for their own future.

I think as long as they contribute the difference between what it would cost with them there and without them then it is fair enough. I can see there would be circumstances where this may be different if for example parent is renting 2 bed house/flat instead of 1 in order to accommodate the AC.

I don't think the analogy of paying someone for services is the same at all. I don't think there that are many that would rent out their spare room to a lodger when their AC move out.

The £563 suggested for my postcode is ludicrous, as are all the other figures really.