21 yr old daughter doesnt want to contribute to our home financially

[worcestershiremum]

my daughter totally refused to contribute to household financially,she paid a small amount last year,but just refuses and says i just want her for her ££,I paid my mum and dad from 16
any suggestions?
Im deff being taken for a mug

It seems on here that everyone has their own circumstances, some choose to charge their adult children rent and others do not. I’m sure all these children are equally loved. The issue here it seems is the daughters refusal to respect her mothers wishes.

If the daughter can’t afford it she should have maybe explained why and told her mother what she can contribute (e.g. ‘I can afford this much but I will take on responsibility for certain chores etc’), flat out refusing is disrespectful and immature.

OP I'm sure you don;t 'want' to contribute your hard earned or saved money to running a home when you could spend all of it on fun. But 'want' doesn't come into it.
She pays her way or she lives independently. That's the choice.

My children have been contributing since they both had jobs. (14 & 15) it wasn't anywhere near what it cost them to live here. I showed them a breakdown of costs etc so they knew I wasn't fleecing them. They started off paying £10 per week this increased the older they got and the more they earned. I foot the bill for basics and if they wanted luxuries, social lives etc then they paid This was to get them used to paying bills, I wouldn't chase them for it, I would just cut them off, WiFi, clothes etc. That's how real life works, you blow Yr cash on expensive make up then you don't eat(😂😂 I never cut off food it was things like they got basic toiletries etc)
I also made them help with the household budget and food shops.
Now they've both moved out (20 & 25)and understand the cost of living. They manage money very well, have savings and no debt. Hard work but worth it

@gingersausage

Totally agree. DM did this for me and I will do this for ds.

Change the wi-fi password every month and charge her an appropriate fee for being told what it is.

My 2 older dc pay £55 a week. We are a low income family and need their money to maintain the family home. Once they leave home we will downsize. However, I recognise that this is a fair amount to pay and I do all housework, washing, cooking and provide a taxi service where required. They do their own rooms, cut the grass and vacuum the stairs (which I find difficult). This suits us all and they never moan about paying. You need to list all the costs of running a home, sit down over a cup of coffee and sort it out.

Children, teenagers, young adults do need to learn about real life, budgeting etc but some of these comments sound like they are made by people who don't like their children.

So bloody rude when the OP pisses off.

I have two early twenties sons at home. They both started paying something into the house a from their second months full time works pay check. I asked for nothing when they were at college and nothing when my first son was unemployed for a time after finishing college. Nor did I ask for anything when my second son did a years apprenticeship. The first months wage was also all theirs so they could have a small cushion of spare money in their bank accounts.
Now they pay roughly what it costs in extra for them still to be at home.
So a percentage of gas, electricity, community charge, cable, WiFi and water.
They buy and cook their own food and sort out their own toiletries, phone contracts, netflicks or any other extras. They are responsible for keeping their own rooms clean, changing beds, emptying bins etc and I rarely enter their rooms unless I need to speak with them and I always knock first.
The only thing I do is all the washing but that is my choice as I would rather do full loads than each do several half loads.
Works well for all of us. I am helping them by giving them a safe home to stay in as long as they wish. They are saving so will one day be able to pay a deposit and get a mortgage on their own property. We are in south so even a one bed flat will be around £150k. If they left home and rented then it would add years to the chance of them ever being in a position to buy.

Mind you I can see why people ask their dc to leave. Hard to get ds to pitch in

I love him very much but not his attitude 😡

@worcestershiremum. Come back and update

It is not hard to get dc to pitch in if they have always been expected to help.
I have friends with adult children the same age as mine who moan that their kids leave damp towels on the bedroom floor. Their rooms are a health hazard, leave dirty washing all over the place then have a go at their mum when the hoody they wanted is not clean.
They don’t seem to get the fact that if this is the sort of stuff you put up with when they were children then this is how they will behave as adults. They are not going to change just because they are now 22.

We live in SE near London
I will be charging my kids rent, so that I can put it away for them towards their own home. I will do this because the house prices where we live are through the roof, 375k for a small flat.
I will also expect them to save while they live in my house, it’s not patronising it’s helping them out.

I am curious about the thing with the chatging rent to save and not telling them and then giving it back - i dont quite get why there isnt an adult conversation that goes - you can live here without paying rent as i believe that this is your home and a period rent free is going to help set you up for life, but a condition of living here rent free is that you pay into a savings account. How shall we work this? Do you want to give me a set amount to save for you, do you want to show me evidence you have saved the amount, what do you think is a suitable amount, whats the aim? a deposit on a mortgage, a deposit for a rental in another city' it just doesnt seem very adult to not have this conversation.

“I will also expect them to save while they live in my house, it’s not patronising it’s helping them out.“
It’s patronising to pretend to treat them like grown ups by taking rent but actually doing enforced saving.

I see this where I live in the SE and London area, so yes very expensive property compared to say, Hull or Burnley. But that also comes with more job opportunities. I’m not s millennial but I’m fed up with them bring written off as lazy snowflakes; they’ve got a pretty shit deal really. It’s not the bloody 90’s still where anyone on a shit salary could buy a nice house.

I'm not so sure.

My niece lives in an affluent SE commuter town, has just started her 2nd year at college and works p/t in retail. She was lucky enough to find a job with a firm who pay everyone above min wage and pay the same rate to everyone in the same job, regardless of age, so she has been getting £8.50ph and working all the hours she can fit in around her college work.

A year on, she has saved over £10k. She reckons she's on course to have £20k by the time she finishes college next summer. She lives rent-free at present, as still in FTE, but SIL says she's going to ask her to contribute to costs when she stops getting child benefit for her.

Even in their posh town, it's still possible to buy a one-bed flat for £110k, so unless prices rocket again, it looks very much like she'll be in a position to buy by her mid-20s. She's really committed, she's insisting her father teaches her basic DIY and decorating, so she can get a doer-upper.

She spends very little though. She got driving lessons for her 17th and has passed her test, but won't get a car because they're too expensive. She cycles to work/college. She has a phone under the family business contract, but it's a basic Samsung, nothing flash. She asks for clothes, make-up etc for birthday/Christmas presents and doesn't have expensive hobbies (reads and plays the piano). Her crowd don't even seem to go out much, the house is always full of teens when we visit.

So I'd say it's doable, but probably only outside London.

We did have the discussion when they started work. We worked out roughly how much they added to the bills and rounded it up to £100 pm. This they pay to me in cash on payday.Then they opened a help to buy isa. The maximum allowed to open it was taken from their childhood savings accounts and a standing order set up to pay the maximum allowable each month into the isa which come out of their bank account the day after pay day.
The childhood savings accounts were then transferred into adult accounts so my name was taken off of them.
Internet banking was set up so that at the end of the month any money left over from wages can be transferred into savings.

I have no further input and as my sons are adults they are responsible for their savings habits.

I mean... you do definitely sound greedy.

My DC are late teens
As long as they are in FT education I would not charge them
They get an allowance and I buy all food,toiletries,underwear,pay phone contracts,contact lenses
I don't want them to work during term but they have had summer jobs
If they still live with me when they leave education I would expect them to make a contribution
Can't believe how many here and advocating asking them to leave at 18

At aged 17 I left home to work in a childrens' home. When I had a long weekend I was reimbursed my keep for those days, and I always gave that to my mother. Your daughter is 21, old enough to be treated as an adult. Write down how much all your household costs are. Mortgage/rent, council tax, water, gas, electricity, cleaner/window cleaner if you have one, food, cleaning stuff. Divide it by the number of adults in the house, including her, and then sit her down and show her. If she still won't pay, tell her to find her own place. Time for you to step up and parent your spoilt brat.

@BertrandRussell when my daughters were living at home and getting their first jobs, I didn't want them to get into the habit of thinking that everything they brought home was disposable income. And nor did I want to be taken for granted. I think it's that, that's infantilising.
"Don't worry, you're still my babies so I'll pay for everything for you even though you're earning your own money"

But at the same time, I knew I didn't need the money, so it felt wrong to keep it. So yes, when it came to setting up their own home, they got a bonus.
I now have daughters who are excellent money managers, and who are appreciative. Maybe they'd have turned out that way anyway, but it didn't hurt to have them be treated like adults and not babies.

“But at the same time, I knew I didn't need the money, so it felt wrong to keep it. So yes, when it came to setting up their own home, they got a bonus. “
Why not just say “I won’t take any rent from you- you can save for a deposit on your first house”? Why lie about it?

Grasspigeons I will be having adult conversations about saving with DD, and I’d hope she will save. However the point in taking money from her when she starts earning is that it teaches her about having to pay her way, living within her means. When she leaves home she will not have the luxury of having no outgoings so I want her to learn to manage her many carefully from the start as I did. Whether I end up needing that money to help run the household, or I am able to choose to give her a gift of some money later down the line when she needs it because I built a savings pot for her, that lesson is still the same.

Had my mum been able to afford to help me with a deposit from saving what I paid to her between the ages of 16-18 I would not feel lied to or patronised, and what I had previously been taught about managing money would not be lessened. I wouldn’t make the connection that any cash gift had come from my small amount of board. I wouldn’t be angry that the money had been kept back - I was quite happy to be contributing to the household at the time, and would most likely have wasted a proportion of it (I was already saving a little of what I was left with). Even if I had saved it all what would the difference be?