Who is being unreasonable here? - Charging adult child for rent

[IAmTheBFG]

Hi Mumsnet,

I am a 21 year old recent graduate who has just moved home after finishing university. I have a training contract with a City law firm, which means I am spending the next two years studying, receiving a maintenance grant of £12,000 in the first year and £20,000 in the second year. I am living at home for the first year and aim to move out to a house-share in London in the second year. This is because my parents live an hour and a half commute door-to-door from the university I am studying at and the second year is meant to be more intense academically, so I think it would be beneficial to be able to spend more time studying rather than commuting.

As a result, I'd like to save £7,000 of the first year maintenance grant to ensure I can afford to move out in the second year. That leaves me with £5,000 to cover all my expenses, including travel, which I estimate to cost about £1,400. Therefore, after travel, I have £3,600 to pay for books, replacing shoes and clothes as they wear out, socialising at London prices, and train tickets to visit my boyfriend.

Here is where the dilemma ensues: what would be a reasonable amount for my parents to charge me for rent? They have suggested £30/week, but given after saving and travel I will only have £70/week spare, £30 seems a bit steep. Their rationale is that paying them a token amount demonstrates I appreciate being able to live at home, will help keep me grounded, and demonstrates willingness to contribute to the family.

I am happy to increase the amount I pay them if I get a part-time job, but I am unsure whether it will be possible to manage a job alongside a three-hour round trip commute and the demands of my course. While I don't have a steady part-time job over this summer holidays, I am working for a week at a summer school (so 7 days of 11 hour shifts) and have signed up to freelance for an events agency. This is also not for want of trying, after my exams finished I applied for five summer jobs and reached the final interview stages for two of them.

For context, I have never done anything which would suggest to my parents that I take their generosity for granted. From the age of fourteen, I worked for six hours a week as a tutor and the day after Sixth Form ended abruptly because of the pandemic, I got a job in a supermarket working for 25 hours per week. While at university, I worked for five hours a week in second year, going up to twelve hours a week in final year, and have always worked during the university holidays doing a combination of hospitality jobs and legal internships. This is all alongside getting top grades at A-Level and during my degree.

Apologies for what is a bit of a long post, but if you were my parents, would you be happy with me saving £7,000 out of a £12,000 grant, and how much would you charge me to live at home this year?

I pay £75 a week which will be increasing to £125 a week, would you like to swap?

I paid my parents the same amount at 17 on an apprenticeship wage so no I don't think they are BU. You need a part time job.

I get paid less than an NQ in most of those firms and I'm a 20 years qualified in house lawyer. But I still earn (what I think is) a good salary, it's a hell of a lot more than my DH earns in the public sector and I'd rather poke my eyes out than work for a City law firm at my age.

£30 is a very low rent, it barely covers the food cost of an extra adult (and is less than feeding yourself) yabu. £12000 is low but better than borrowing the fees!

As part of the household.

Cooking, cleaning etc

How many women on here have partners that do absolutely nothing?

Maybe your parents' view is affected by your stated income trajectory - if you expect (hope?) to be on 115k in 4 years time this is very different to if you were studying/training for something like nursing or teaching where you were never going to be on a massive salary, and would be struggling post qualification to save and get yourself on the housing ladder, in which case they might be more inclined to help you build up some savings.

I would be thinking the opposite tbh. Bankrolling a child for an extra couple of years knowing they will be financially stable in a few years seems like a worthwhile investment. Bankrolling them while they work towards a career that will not give them financial stability would seem like the beginning of a long road of needing to prop them up financially.

£30 per week isn’t “rent” - it’s a contribution to food, it’s not enough to contribute to bills or anything else.

Even though your parents are well off, they presumably anticipate a time when they won’t be funding your day to day living costs.

If you manage to save any money, it will be because they’ve been subsidising you, which is basically the same as giving you cash.

@Nanny0gg

whatever. £30 a week is nothing, I’d be embarrassed to be quibbling it if I was OP

You could offer to do cooking, cleaning, ironing etc in addition to the £30, which is an incredible generous offer for them to make! My son lived at home post Uni and paid £150/month (this was 15 years ago), did all his own laundry - washing & ironing, cooked for the family twice a week. He insisted that he wanted to be treated as an adult, and do his fair share.

70 a week spending money is loads. You realise many working adults don’t have that much disposable income?

You need to prioritise paying your way over travelling to see your boyfriend.

With regards to socialising, everyone on my course is training for the same profession, so socialising is important as it is realistically networking with future colleagues in an industry where who you know is important
So pompous 😂
Your fellow trainees will NOT be the ones you "need to know"...

i dont think you earn enough to pay your parents personally

Haven't RTFT byt you sound a bit entitled. I worked 3 jobs during sixth form and had at least one job in high school to save, everything I've ever had I've earned myself and I've never had a penny off my parents. I worked during university as well and didn't live at home for any of the 3 years. The fact that you have factored in clothing to your budget is laughable

I wouldn’t charge anything. When I was growing up, we didn’t pay if we were still studying. No one before me and my sisters had gone to university, and my parents prioritised academic studies. This would have applied if it had been part of a work placement as with the OP. However we were expected to contribute to the household in terms of housework, cooking, and being generally helpful! It seems weird to me to say why should your parents help you, why wouldn’t they?! It’s hardly like the OP is coining it in and being entitled, or dossing about and expecting money. Quite frankly, I’d be thrilled if I was their parent.

I wouldn’t charge you in those circumstances but I think you have to respect that it’s their house and just suck it up.

You sound like you’ve got your head screwed on and so if I can financially afford it I wouldn’t charge you anything.

If I needed the money then I’d charge you a maximum of £50 a month to help with the utilities and food you’ll be using.

They obviously want to teach you how to pay your way which is great but I personally don’t see the point in doing this because you’ll learn it once you move out anyway.

My next door neighbour was on a training course and his parents charged him a lot of rent compared to his salary and it meant he had no spare cash to socialise or experience anything.
So he gave up the training course and got a FT job on minimum wage to give him more disposable income and he’s still on a crap wage now 15 years later.

I would want to encourage you to carry on the oath that you’re on by supporting you as much as I can.

You are only young once and I hope that my DD uses any soars money she gets to go and have fun and buy whatever she wants.

So you plan to save a considerable amount of at your parents expense? You don’t have enough income to save, £7000, so you need to think again. £30 wouldn’t even be rent, would it? It wouldn’t cover the basic costs of keeping you at home unless you don’t eat anything there or use any gas or electricity!

What? Never forget they did this to you?

Never forget that they paid all your living costs for 3 years as a student?
Never forget that they are inviting their adult child to live at home at an incredibly low rent/bills combo that will not be matched by anywhere else?
Never forget that they are supporting you in your life choice so you don't rack up debt and can simply enjoy the expected high income without huge loans to pay back and didn't have to work for a year or two to save money for the training contract years.

Your response to that support is to say stuff you, you're on your own, when they have clearly not left the OP on her own? I can only assume you are a troll, highlighting the post with craziness to make the OP pause.

How on earth are they exploiting their child here? They clearly are still subsidising her living costs. Come back to haunt them? Haunt them that they are helping their child? What do you think the OP is entitled to?

I'm not sure you're grounded in any sort of reality - how would taking a min wage job instead of this training contract help the OP or provide any sort of payback to anyone? I mean a full time min wage cleaning job would bring in £19851, which you would be taxed on. The year 2 allowance is £20k as she stated in her initial post. Not only would she be wose off in the long term but she'd be worse off in the short term too. She's only got a spending allowance of £70 a week because she's choosing to save over half of this years income. And if she did get a job instead of training what are you imagining the outcome to be in terms of the rent? Would the parents still make the same offer but you think the subsidy ok as larger income? Would they charge a full market rent because your reasoning is that they can afford that as it wouldn't be in Central London and they're working? Or would the OP move out and live their best life somehow to spite their mean parents? The OP is studying for herself and her future, not for anyone else. She has an income to facilitate the training. She just needs to learn how to budget and live within her means for a maximum of 2 years before her means dramatically increase.

If I needed the money then I’d charge you a maximum of £50 a month to help with the utilities and food you’ll be using

I was also thinking £50 a month could be a good suggestion. OP you can only ask and see

when my dc was saving to go abroad i charged her £15 per week which covered the petrol driving her to work and back!

I would never charge my children to live in the family home, only if I really needed the money, but I suppose it's a cultural thing – more common among white English people. To me it just seems weird when your parents don't need the money, and you're earning so little.

If I needed the money then I’d charge you a maximum of £50 a month to help with the utilities and food you’ll be using.

If you needed the money, you’d only charge half the amount you would lose in child benefit? I guess you’ve no idea what needing the money is like.

As you have a training contract and therefore guaranteed job and income in 2 years time once you pass your course, why not propose to your parents that you pay them back at that time? Eg you could pay them a £5k lump sum once you're earning.

Or as pps have said, get a weekend job and pay them the £30 pw now. I know you'll have an intense course, but I studied at Oxbridge and worked in holidays and term time despite a significantly heavier-than-average course load, and still passed my degree with the same 2:1 classification as just about everyone else. It can be done.

You’re getting £12K for maintenance….. but want to spend less than half of it on maintenance.

Come on, OP. £30 a week is absolutely nothing, your parents are already hugely subsidising you by offering that. Stop taking the P.