If you have young adults living at home, what does their rent cover?

[Brunocatmon]

My ds is 21, almost 22. He's worked in hospitality his whole working life ( he started work 2 days after he turned 16 ).

Recently he changed jobs to a more secure job with decent contracted hours with more regular pay than before.

Ds's gf ( same age, 21) also lives with me.

Then I have dd who is 14.

The 2 young adults pay rent. £200 a month. This is all in.

In a couple of weeks my eldest dd (30) , her fiance, and 2 dc are moving in from overseas until they find themselves a house to buy. Realistically this could be a good few months.

Dd ( 18) is also moving back in from overseas.( she lives with them at)

I was talking to eldest dd and she said so if we give you X rent then we'll get groceries but if people want expensive extras they get it themselves is that OK?

I said their rent is inclusive of groceries unless expensive treats etc.

It just got me wondering. If your adult dc pay rent what does it include?

DS(20) pays £400 a month rent. He works PT at Sainsbury’s and usually brings home about £1,000. He pays his own mobile, gym membership , fuel and Spotify, and has enough money to fund his social life and expensive purchases like an Apple Watch or designer trainers.

Last year, I saved it all up and gave it back to him as a lump sum for his gap year to Australia.

This year, I’m saving it up to fund him starting university in September. He’ll need a new laptop and all the kit that’s needed to live in halls. His dad and I will be contributing financially to his rent and living expenses while he’s studying but he wants to work too.

I think he has a good work ethic and understands that you have to pay your own way in the world.

@Hall84 👏

@BeachLife2

a) it’s not their home really, it’s their parents home
b) if they are earning money why shouldn’t they make a contribution to the running of the home in which they live? They would have to do this if they were living in a flat share or whatever. It’s just part and parcel of adulthood!
c) not all parents can afford to support their adult offspring indefinitely especially given the cost of living is so high

@PinotPony

You're not charging any 'rent', so I don't know what you're moralising about. You're providing a compulsory interest savings account.

£5000 a year could earn a decent amount of interest or return on investment, but far better that 20 year olds can "pay their own way"

I currently have two dcs and one of their partner's (all in their 20s) at home long term as both are saving for house deposits. Currently charge each 300pcm, that includes their share of utliities/groceries/council tax and a small contribution to the mortgage. I am a single income so cant afford to be subsidising three adults!
I would probably be downsizing if they were not still living here which is why I charge them 'rent'. I dont think I am the big bad wolf as they are on good FT incomes themsleves and are saving huge money by not paying private rent.

Its quite a middle class concept that you dont charge your adult children rent/board, and if you do it goes towards their house deposits. In reality, many people are not in a financial position to let their kids bludge off you, especially in this day and age when DCs are living at home for years.

@Cherrytree86

Point A in my post was that parents who desperately need money from their DC don't have a choice.

However, I find it extraordinary that parents declare that their home is 'theirs' as if their DC are hotel guests.

My DC will be welcome in their home whenever they want to or need to be here.

No wonder our DC have the lowest life satisfaction in Europe when there are parents wanting to kick them out asap

@betsy99

Total opposite in my experience. It's the mc parents who seem to think DC will never learn how to budget unless they pay 'rent' in their own home that are the problem.

Quite how they think the rest of the world manages their own finances without doing it is anyone's guess.

Maybe you are right, only basing this on my experience of growing in a mixed social area where my brothers and a lot of my peers paid rent (abit this was the 80s!).

I worked out recently that if dd paid 50% of all the bills and food it would be approx £650 a month, she’s only 19 and I’m asking for £100 a month and she needs to buy some of her own food.

I think £200 a month is pretty cheap, are they all good at cleaning up after themselves? I can’t even imagine how much food you’ll need to buy to keep that many people fed!

Why the aggression? I’m not “moralising”, I’m answering the question posed. 😂

I think you missed the part where I said I’d saved the money. It was in an account earning interest.

Would you genuinely support your adult child by buying them a car, paying their university fees, taking them on expensive holidays, but then say “No, my precious boy. You keep 100% of your wages and spend it on whatever you like.”?

You’d probably be appalled to hear that he regularly offers to pay for family takeaways too. Poor lad is so hard done by!

Ds1 is 25 & moved back home 3yrs ago after uni. We charge him £300/month & this includes food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, electricity….. Do we call it rent, yes probably, but realistically that’s just a general term these days & it covers the extra it costs us for him to live here. We know that he is still able to save plenty of money each month if he chooses to.

Mine also pay £200 a month for that they have food,basic toiletries, shelter, warmth, TV subscriptions and an in house cleaner, gardener, and washer woman.

Not sure anyone has argued against a grown up child not contributing to cost of living (bills, food, etc.) in a long term situation, if they can afford to. What you are asking your child for seems very reasonable in your situation.

But being charged rent to live in the property is different. i.e. ‘a tenant's regular payment to a landlord for the use of property or land’. That doesn’t include food or utility costs. So in essence a charge on the child that is giving a parent profit (as any mortgage payment or rent the parent is paying would be there whether or not the child was there).

Of course, bar the odd lazy sod, surely the majority of those having to move home are doing so because they have been forced to. Presumably their circumstances aren’t great. Divorce, split, lost a house, lost a job, relocating and need somewhere temporary, etc. And so surely a parent’s instinct is to help them get back on their feet and find independence again. One great way of doing that is deciding that they should not have to contribute beyond the absolute minimum. If that costs the parent, then that may well be the choice they make to help their child. Charging them rent in that situation seems vastly unfair.

There are also some on here and on previous MN threads that seem to think that once their children reach 18 they must start financially contributing to the household. Now, I don’t know enough about the benefits system to comment on that and it may well be that external rules force a family to have their child start contributing at a certain age. But otherwise, it seems a particularly cruel ‘lesson in financial awareness’ to start charging a child for living in their own house just because they have turned a certain age.

I don’t get why as an earning adult you wouldn’t contribute to family finances for the house you live in. ‘Rent’ is a shorthand but unless it’s some wild pots of money situation, that’s just how families are isn’t it? I think people who say it’s an English thing are getting hung up on the ‘rent’ label as culturally where I’m from you might not call it rent but if you were living at home and working you’d 100% be paying for some mutually beneficial stuff - whether it’s food or a new kitchen or some bills or something, in a kind of ‘it all comes out in the wash’ way.

Reading this thread I think it’s a mixture. But both have those that seem to think that charging their children is a good life lesson. Both seem slightly moralistic and puritanical.

There are the more middle class (one assumes) parents who want their children to learn about finances and so have them pay a rent that often turns out to actually be a secret savings fund for them down the line.

And there are those more working class families (again an assumption) that seem to think that once you’ve reached a certain age you’re now an adult and have to pull up your boot straps and head off to work to start contributing to the household.

This is only a comment regarding those that think it’s some sort of good life lesson that kids should learn at home in order to face the world rather than, say, discovering it my actually going out there and getting on with life. There are of course those that choose to support their children and not charge them and those that choose to support their children but cannot afford not to charge them.

Where I live that's double private renting a 1 bed pokey flat. My dds are better off living at home paying for keep and saving up to get their own places.

Well that's your opinion. I don't feel that my DC take advantage of me and DH at all. We bloody love having them here, they bring their vibrancy and joy with them.
I couldn't ever conceive of charging my kids rent if I could afford not to.
DD1 lives at her boyfriend's parent's place and they do not charge rent either.

@MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble But both have those that seem to think that charging their children is a good life lesson. Both seem slightly moralistic and puritanical.

In our case, we have a DD who seemed to be stuck in teenage mode. We didn’t take any money from her when she was studying though she worked part time. All her money was her own and she’d blow it straight away. Once she got her first proper job this behaviour continued. We had countless discussions about savings and pensions but she would still spend all her wages on nights out, concerts, clothes, beauty treatments etc and then has no money for two weeks until payday.

So I began to charge her a token amount which covers what we spend on things for her. I don’t profit and none of it goes even towards a share of the bills. I just wanted to make her step back and realise that she isn’t a child anymore and she is responsible for herself. She can’t keep living like a rock star/influencer/member of the royal family and expect us to subsidise it.

We’re not saving it for a deposit for a house because we’ve already got that ring fenced in a LISA for her, as we did for her siblings who are all extremely financially responsible. God knows where we went wrong with DD! If that makes me moralistic and puritanical then so be it.

There’s a lot of wealthy people on mumsnet. Adult children earning 35k or 45k n not being charged rent is also ridiculous. I assume that adult children pay rent where it’s a necessity that all adults in the house contribute. That’s the situation in my case as their father stopped supporting them when they were 16 n has made it difficult for us financially. I put the money by for him though n save it n won’t use it unless it’s absolutely needed.

My son is 20 and pays £200 board. He occasionally buys other food if he wants it but otherwise it's all in including his phone,.waiting for him to upgrade so he can take that one on himself.
He works full time and is saving. I'm not teaching him any life lessons just needing a contribution. Life is expensive and we need it.
Our youngest is finishing school and not going to uni. While he is just continuing with his part time job we won't charge him but once he is working full time we will expect the same.

And all those people saying to save up any contributions they make to the running of the home to give back to them when these people are earning about 40 or 50 grand per year… why?! Use that money for bills now, or use it for treats like meals out with husband etc. it’s still possibly to save on that wage and make a contribution to the household.

I mean you hear of adults who live with their parents who earn far more than their parents but they aren’t contributing a penny to bills etc - how on earth can that be right?

DS is 21 and pays £260 a month for a double room, food, bills and most of his washing done (as I work from home so it’s easier for me to do his washing).
He puts the washing on occasionally.

He treats me to an occasional takeaway, regularly washes up, cuts the grass and puts the bins out etc so it works well for us.

@Cherrytree86

It is totally unacceptable in my view for parents to be using their DC's money to pay for meals out with partners.

It's one thing for a genuinely hard up single parent struggling to pay bills to get help from their working DC, but totally inappropriate to be using DC as a profit mechanism.

But it’s acceptable for adults on a salary to have meals out on the back of using their parents’ generosity so they don’t have to pay any bills or Netflix subscription?

@BeachLife2

this!

why would it be unacceptably for the parents to enjoy some treats? Or are things like holidays, meals out and Netflix only for offspring and you have to deny and martyr yourself of such things once you become a parent for ever more? Even if your offspring earns 60grand a year and you earn 20 grand a year?