Adult children and paying keep

[123dontcomeatme]

Am home from an evening out and feel a bit disgruntled.
Dd is coming up to 20 and has just secured herself an apprenticeship starting on the same wage I am on..she has worked so hard for it and it's a fantastic wage.

Dd will be paying half of all living costs. Im on my own, was on universal credit. I can't afford to pay for her and honestly I think if shes earning the same as me, I shouldn't have to. I would like to build some savings for myself after being financially screwed for the last 19 years.

Fried thinks im being terrible and dd should not contribute so she can save for a house deposit as that would be the best thing I could do for her.

Quite how I would manage or how I would afford anything myself is apparently not of consequence.

Im sure she didn't mean it but honestly, is this really unfair of me? Am i being harsh?

But were you paying keep or half of all the bills. I was expected to pay keep and half the food budget.

Try managing that when the keep bit was way more than I earned and then was presented with a bill for half the food budget which covered my mother, my sister and my aunt and cousins (one of whom had to eat a particular diet that cost hugely more than the average person would eat)
It was too much and I moved out leaving dm with £0

FWIW I only had a couple of rounds of toast for breakfast and maybe 2-3 cups of coffee. I wasn’t physically there to eat anything else. as I was working to pay for the keep bill.

Because the contributions are too much. Its a fixed rate with no negotiations on that. Even with the take home pay being adjusted, I still needed the extra 45p in every pound I was up.

Dds dad has paid 150 her whole life, high earner but kep having loads of children. He paid no extra so I really needed every penny.

My parents pay for my sisters who live at home, they pay something silly like £50 a week and that covers everything. £200 for rent and bills as well as a live in maid (aka my mum) who still does their washing, cooking etc as well as they don’t contribute to any cleaning or tidying of the ‘communal’ areas. They are both on full time wages and watch my parents struggle and have no luxuries in their older age yet one of my sisters has been to 8 different countries this school holiday (she’s a teacher) - because she has the disposable income from living at home.

i had a friend who was 30 and never paid a penny to her parents, they even still paid her phone bill. When her dad got health issues and became disabled, he wanted to drop his fulltime job to part time. He asked my friend for a contribution to live there so he could go part time at work and she refused saying she ‘couldn’t afford it’. So every penny of her money was disposable income, didn’t pay a penny in living costs (except her luxury car), but laughed at the ‘audacity’ of her parents asking her to help pay for the roof over her head.

i guess what I’m complaining about is that so many people expect their parents to pay for them like they did when they were kids. They have full time wages yet see that as disposable money instead of the practicalities of the real world and using it to pay your way. They watch their parents either struggle to pay for them, or for them to have less money for themselves and their retirement just because they’re still providing for their children well into adulthood

Of course she must contribute. She will be able to save too. It's important young people understand how expensive it is to live now.

Your friend is being unrealistic. Don't allow her daft opinions to influence your feelings.

My situation is similar to yours.

I agree with this. I am a lone parent so I do know how tough things are in that situation but I would ask my DD to pay a contribution as I did to my parents when I was that age but definitely not half.

If your DD moved out you would have to pay for everything yourself anyway so I think asking her to pay half is a bit much - she’s family, not a lodger.

When does a child become your tenant and source of income?! Or course she shouldn't pay anything I don't understand for the life of me why anyone would consider charging a child for living in their own home

That's not your child's fault and she shouldn't be punished for your and her fathers mistakes

No one is saying that she shouldn’t contribute but half of everything would probably mean it was the same or cheaper to house share with a friend and not have to check in or out.

I don’t see the problem with this. I’m a single parent too and thankfully I managed to get a promotion a few years ago, so when my youngest turns 18 in March, I will only lose a tiny amount of child benefit (pay most of it back via tax return). Had I been relying on UC still, then yes of course i’d have had to charge my DC rent / share of bills. Half does seem a lot, but you do need to start your pension back up now. Some posters have no idea about the realities for some people.

@123dontcomeatme . OP you are getting such a hard time on this thread .
You have provided for you DD for nearly 20 years and she is now an adult. You are now two adults sharing a rented house and of course you should share the costs .
I understand the sentiment of wanting to help your children onto the property ladder and WE didn't charge our DC anything when they started work . But WE were a two person / income household already and were not losing UC etc

You do sound a little bitter about your marriage break up all those years ago but other posters are not in your shoes , and whether you are or not the financial situation is still the same .
Your DD still has a significant amount of disposable income and seems happy to contribute .
On MN everyone earns wayyyy above national average and it's clearly just lack of effort if you dont .😃.

YANBU at all. Once they’d graduated and were living at home for a while, dds paid roughly half of what they’d have had to pay for a flatshare locally, rent only no bills or food.

We didn’t need the money but IMO they needed to understand PDQ that a roof over your head, heating, hot water, etc, do not come for free.

We did help them much later with house deposits.

In my first holiday job (supermarket checkout) back in the late 60s I earned £8.50 a week, of which I had to give my DM £3.

So different from dh, whose DPs were if anything even more skint than mine. He earned £20+ a week, holiday jobs on building sites, and was expected to give his parents nothing!

If op works for the NHS then her pension contributions would be ongoing. Nothing would have stopped to be restarted

Did you read the bit where I said I was a victim of domestic abuse or are you just trolling for kicks?

Incorrect, I opted out and can opt in when im ready.

You really do need to read the thread in its entirety. OP’s DD is 20, not a child. DD is also earning a decent wage and OP is trying to make the finances work for the both of them.

But why would you opt out of free money? I only work through an agency and my pension contributions are doubled by my employers and I believe the NHS contributes more.
It doesn’t make sense as you have been paying tax and NI contributes on every £1 you have taken instead of putting it in a pension.

If anything wouldn’t you be worse off if after paying the tax and NI you had 55p for every £1 deducted through UC

Opting out of NHS pension was a disastrous choice sadly. Did you not realise the government would effectively have been paying 55% of your contributions (because that salary sacrifice wouldn't count as income)? Plus the employer contributions on top.

wow, the bitches were out in force last night weren't they?

You know what, I think it sounds like you have a lovely relationship and your daughter will understand why you need the money. It sounds like she is going to be left with around £1500 a month, there is no reason she couldnt still save £800 a month and still be left with £700 for anything she wants/needs. She could even save more if she wanted to some months and it gives her a good base of having to pay bills so she isnt used to spending £2k a month and then being hit hard when she does move out!

Im married and very financially stable but if my kids are still living with me when they start their carreers (not a minimum wage job they take at 18 becuase they have no idea what they want to do but when they start in the 'real world'), we will be taking 'keep' off them and it wont just be £100 either. They need to learn that it is expensive to live these days and it gives them a good grounding. Slightly different situation as our plan is to save this and give it back when they do move out but the principle is still the same.

If she is planning on this for 5-6 years could you put £20 a month aside, over 5 years it will be over £1000 and might help her with all the stuff you need to buy when you move out?

@123dontcomeatme Well done for standing your ground in response to a bizarre outpouring of sanctimony.

It sounds like you have done a great job to date, at cost to yourself. Now there is an opportunity to change that, you are right to take it.

We are not here to be martyrs to our children, but to support them. This doesn't mean giving everything over to them.

To the posters who think otherwise I pity your lack of ambition for yourselves. Do you want your children to martyr themselves as you are proposing the OP should do??

OP, loving your responses to the pearl clutches and bosom hoikers, keep it up. 😉

I assume because she was on her arse and needed every penny to, you know, survive. Ive been there, didnt have a pension for ten years because every single penny was accounted for

I’m sorry Koala that sounds horrible. Your mother sounds cold and that this wasn’t to help your mum out but to almost push you out the house if she was demanding more money than you earned. This wasn’t my situation and I’m hoping this isn’t the situation with Op.
So sorry though you experienced that!

Agree with all of this.

OP, I think you are doing a grand job. You are clearly a hard working person, with a good strong head on your shoulders. There’s nothing wrong with trying to better a financial situation, which works for both you and your DD.

Not everyone is in a position to allow their adult children to live rent free. Imagine if the DD was a friend or sister on the same wage as the OP, and asked to live with the OP rent free so they could save for a deposit. They’d be called a CF. The OP is absolutely correct to charge half the living costs.

Even when I had a Saturday job I was expected to contribute a third of my take home pay to the family pot. It teaches young adults that not every penny they earn is theirs to keep.

I actually blame the government for this. They introduced TC, UC etc which means once children turn 18, parents are left with a great loss financially. Employers should be paying their staff enough money to live, if you are working F/T you shouldn’t need government subsidy. Just my opinion.

I do sympathise op but I do also think you need to consider how you are going to manage when DC moves out. Young people change their minds easily and she may get into the work place and see others like her renting and enjoying their independence or she may meet someone and decide to move out.
I am also a single parent with 4 DC, 1 still in education and one about to go to uni so I will have to try and support them at uni on my min wage if needed. Your DC could also have made that choice, how had you prepared for that? I know how hard it is but I think that most people don’t charge their adult DC half of all household expenses when they are starting out as they want them to be able to save for their future independence. You are seeing you DC’s new income as a way of you saving money and I think that’s probably where many have an issue. I do appreciate your struggle though as a lone parent (due to being widowed), I know that it’s not easy.

Please opt in asap!