Adult children contributing to costs

[JackyPaper]

I know I’m not being unreasonable to ask for a contribution to household costs from my adult child.
I’m a single parent with a good job but all my income is accounted for so no surplus. I still have under 16s at home. I’ve calculated how much it costs to have them living here (increased council tax, energy etc).
They have gently raised with me that they think it is too much compared to what their friends pay. I said friends parents are clearly subsidising which I’m not prepared to do, even if I could. Adult child works full time.

If you have working adult children living at home, how much rent do they pay you?

I take it you will charge them as adults but not listen to them as adults.

Poor kids.

£500 per month inc some toiletries from the supermarket.

£250 pm

Contribution to household costs are not the same as rent. A contribution to increased bills is completely different to 'pay for occupying a room in this house'. But you use both concepts in your post.

I'm not sure how helpful MN can be for you, if you don't provide any indicative costs. The costs are very different across various households and across the country. That's immediately obvious from any of those 'what do you spend on groceries/bills/whatever' threads. Even if you get a bunch of people with the same approach to the contributions of young working adult children, their costs are likely to be so different as to make comparisons between the actual sums very different, even before we get into differences in what either the parents or the offspring earn.

20% of take home pay

Yes, of course a grown up child living at home pays rent and expenses.
'Child working full time? Don't argue about the £.
Child can move on if she/he is unhappy.

£250 per month

£200 a month but currently in first year of apprenticeship so they’re not on a high wage

I think food / bills are fair enough but I don't think it's fair to ask for them to rent their room unless you would rent it to someone else if they moved out.

I think proving they have their own personal bedroom and basically the rules are as such if it was a house share fine.

If you expect to put in say 9pm curfew must babysit siblings yada yada no.

Depends on a few factors

I would ask for £200 as a contribution. We don't need the money so it would be because it's the right thing to do

If I needed the money then I'd switch my child and come to an agreement

"But my friends' parents let them do x, y, z" is hardly the reasoning of an adult.

I don’t think it matters what other people are paying, it matters what your finances are and how long you are prepared for them to stay at home. I think if it’s NMW job and you’re charging 80% of their take home pay, they’re really going to struggle to save for a deposit for a rental and they’ll be living with you for a lot longer. Whereas if you’re charging 25% of their take home and that means partly subsidising, I think that’s fair as they still have 75% of their income available to them and they can save and move out sooner. I think it’s a balance between not subsidising them but also enough of their take home left to save and get their own place (rent or buy). If you feel they’ve been living with you for longer than you wanted, you can gradually raise the rent until it’s not worth them staying home or you agree with them you’ll subsidise for x length of time only.

I ask for £250 from DS. I pay everything including his phone at £70pcm - all he pays us his car finance and car insurance

£0 but everyone’s financial circumstances are very different. We were happy to have them at home although they were working full time. I’d rather they were saving for a house deposit than giving us money. Our outgoings never really increased as they were all here while at Uni so it made no difference to us.

If you have no spare income then you definitely can't subsidise them. I'd be of the opinion that you are an adult, this is what it costs me extra in utilities/food etc to have you here. I need you to contribute x amount otherwise I'm afraid you'll need to look elsewhere for somewhere to live. It's not fair for me to have a poor standard of living whilst still trying to bring up two children.

However as they are an adult I'd comprise a spreadsheet of the outgoing costs Vs what you bring in first before asking them to leave if you get resistance. Treat them like an adult, engage with them to where you could possibly could cut costs as a collective household. Show them why you want more rent. What their friends pay is irrespective, every household is different. Engage with them as an adult and you are more likely to get the result that you want.

£200 per month, he’s an apprentice. I am on my own and couldn’t afford for him not to contribute

1/2 take home pay - what they would expect to pay in rent + bills independently. The important thing is to ensure that there's not too much disposal income. They need to learn to live within their future means not think everything they earn is "pocket-money"

If it's too much for your household budget you can put it into a savings account to return to them for down-payment or deposit or in case of crisis.

With council tax are you going to lower their 25% when the next child ages up too.

Could you live fine if they went sod this and left?

He’s in his first year of graduate job on £29k. We ask for £200 a month. That covers what he eats; we don’t need him to pay more and we wanted him to save a lot so he could move out with Gf. They get the keys to their home in 2 weeks.

Other relatives asked for 20 or 30 per cent from their DC.

Dss pays £250 pm. He's 26 and earns around £27k

£0 but we could afford it and our young adults saved very diligently to purchase. It was a way we could help. However best friend - single mum, had to charge her DC £400 a month to cover additional costs - food, power, council tax discount etc.

“I still have under 16s at home. I’ve calculated how much it costs to have them living here (increased council tax, energy etc).”

Wow, there are parents who sit around doing this? With a pen and paper, and calculator in hand?

Why have so many children when you clearly can’t afford them? The mind boggles.

I'm a single mum and once my teens leave education I will expect them to work.

I wouldn't charge rent as I live here anyway and the rent is the same regardless.

I would ask for a contribution to food and gas/electric as I would be losing any child benefit and child maintenance and wouldn't be able to support them both.

I see the best support I can give as offering them a home to stay in as long as they want to, as cheap as I can make it, so that they can save etc.

They can come and go as they please but I would expect them to do their own laundry and things like that.