AIBU - expecting son to pay for his own 'luxury' groceries on top of rent

[QuaintNewt]

23yo DS pays £500 a month 'rent'. This includes, all bills including mobile but ive recently asked him to take this on himself as he can get cheap sim only contract and good for credit rating etc. It also includes meals and snacks Sunday - Thursday with the original agreement being he buys his own meals on weekends (take aways) although if im cooking i will offer to include him and his gf in meals too.

We are very comfortable and not financially 'short' but also not loaded, we live well but dont have loads left over, and DS earns around £1800 after tax and has EV paid through work costing him £30 a month BIK (he charges at home and claims work mileage as expenses) so no other outgoings .

He thinks £500 a month is excessive and we have recently had a discussion about him paying us for his car electricity on top of his rent, I also do not want to buy him large packs of canned drinks and coffee pods (nespresso) as part of our weekly shop. The coffee machine was purchased as weve recently moved rurally and i miss my occasional coffee shop coffee but dont expect to be paying £150 a month in pods for is all which I can see happening ig DH,DS,DD all start drinking 2 o 3 coffees a day!

AIBU and a tighta**e or do you think expecting him to purchase these things himself is fair?

Did you buy the coffee machine from the £500 monthly that you charge him? If so, I think you’re being unreasonable to begrudge him the coffee pods.

I think 500 is excessive, especially if u start charging to charge a car and not include his preferred groceries in that too.
If I charged my son that I'd keep 250 and put away the other 250 (or 300/200 etc) for him as long as he was also saving for a house deposit for himself too.

My DD pays £500 a month.

In addition to her room, she does her laundry using our detergent, gets all her meals while she is here (7 nights a week), although will provide a weekend meal for us at her expense. She also uses leftovers for her lunch.

We don't buy anything special for her. She can do that herself.

Maybe with the 20k deposit he will be getting from bank of mum & dad / grandparents. Or he could stop smoking and save that. He has plenty of left over cash to save.

They did help him out.

They don't have a responsibility to bail him out indefinitely. That wouldn't be responsible parenting.

I don’t understand the “how will he save to move out” folk at all.

Hes 23 and has £1300 disposable income. That’s how.

I was paying £350 a month in 2009, I think he’s got a decent deal. I also wouldn’t give him any of it back, because out in the real world your bills don’t get reimbursed.

I want to make sure I am understanding - you pay the electric each night to charge his car and HE keeps the money he gets from work for his car upkeep himself? I'm sure it would be the same way in our house but when you think about it he is really taking the piss. 😂

He absolutely should be helping around the house IMO. That would be a non-negotiable for me.

The OP doesn't need the £500 to pay bills though as she said that she and DH are comfortable and that they don't need it. So the only reason I can think of, is that she's putting it aside for when her DS is ready to buy his first property.

I'd rather my son pay me £200 a month and put £300 into savings (£300 plus another chunk of money from his general earnings) in order to save up for a deposit on a flat.

I'd tell him to get his own luxury groceries though and wouldnt be happy paying £150 on coffee pods every month!

I'm sorry what? 😨
He's a grown ass man and he doesn't clean up after himself? Er no 👎

If he lived in shared accommodation, guess what? He would have to clean up after himself. 😠
If he lived alone, guess what? He would have to clean up after himself 🤦🏻‍♀️
If he jet-setted everywhere for his job, yet couldn't afford a cleaner, he would... you guessed it! He would have to clean up after himself. 🙈

Your house, your rules 💯
He needs to wipe his own backside and get his hands dirty with housework and pitch in😤
Never mind the hassle or arguments, if he can't clean up after himself and wipe his own backside, then show him some adverts for both single living and shared accommodation, and blow his mind with this info, as it is EYE WATERINGLY EXPENSIVE! 😭

Charging 500 quid, with meals from Sunday to Thursday is A BARGAIN 😭
You need a 'come to jesus' meeting and set boundaries now. 🙌
Otherwise he will get a shock when he moves out and needs to be independent without knowing how to efficiently run a household in terms of bills and crack on with boring/ menial tasks that we all have to do because it's real life 😬

You say you bailed him out before? Does he know how to budget? 🤔 I only ask, as i mentioned it on a similar thread.
Having £1300 disposable income to save and treat yourself on luxury coffee pods will change when he has his own mortgage, utilities and council tax etc, and that before he even purchases a toilet roll, never mind luxury coffee 😆
My dad always swore by the 50/30/20 rule for budgeting, and I adopt the same method.

Wishing you all the best OP, you are doing the right thing. 💐
@QuaintNewt

I think you are tight charging him £500…£300 max …not like you are on the bones of your arse

All the people saying they will know all about it when they move out,I think most of them are smart enough to understand that

Because he is paying for the weekly shop (probably for the whole family tbh) with the £500 he is paying.

I find that shocking tbh. How can is cost you anywhere near that for her to stay at home?

@dontmalbeconme

have you even read OP’s post??

@SilkySquirrel

mortgage, water, electricity, food etc etc don’t come for free, hun. Of course, it costs to have another adult in the house. And £500 is a LOT less than they would be moving if they lived elsewhere

I think £500 is quite a lot but depends where you are in the country. £10k isn't going to have a significant impact on the deposit unless you live up north, so he needs to save more. But then from what you said maybe he's not great with money or being organised so maybe what he pays you makes no difference.

I live with my parents temporarily and pay £300 which is supposed to be bills and food but actually I buy most of my own food, pay for a cleaner and I clean up after myself and we take it in turns for paying for dinner out of we go together. I can also expense my mileage but I then transfer this back to my parents since I use their car and charge it at the house. I'm a lot older than your son but I think I would have been the same at 23.

I think £500 would feel a lot though to pay in rent when my parents don't have a mortgage. Maybe offer to reduce it if he'll help around the house and do some of the none cooking shopping. Give him the choice of organising and paying for a cleaner or cleaning up himself.

All those people saying OP shouldn’t take money from him as she doesnt need it, doesn’t need it to pay bills or whatever…so what?! My parents didn’t need my keep to pay bills, they used it for nice stuff like a food shop at M&S or whatever, or a day out for themselves. What I was paying to them was way less then what I would have been paying had I lived elsewhere, so it would have been pretty churlish of me to complain about giving them money wouldn’t it??

@GregoryMcGregor

why?

£500 is a lot in my opinion (having 2 similar age children, 2 younger). It sounds like moving back in wasn’t really his fault the last time else as he would have had to stop his apprenticeship which, as a parent, I’d always have protected. I would have a problem with the not clearing up so personally I wouldn’t go in his room at all and leave all personal things such as laundry, changing bedding etc to him alone. So yes I’d go with £400 and he pays all personal bills such as phone himself. I imagine he has to pay car insurance and road tax himself too which is probably around £100 a month for him? If he wants a take away then yes he pays.

The thing is I’d want them to have enough money to save something each month so that’s why I’d charge less rent. Personally I’d be charging around £250 on the understanding they cover all their own bills and save something each month each month but only you would know if they’d actually save the money!

My mum charged me that in the late 90s and i was earning around £150 a week 🙈

My twenty one year old earns more. I thought I was doing well because he buys his own shopping and toiletries and does his own cooking and washing. DH works nights and I'm tube fed so no one cooks on an evening here. He also has a car.
What he does do is save a lot, including some sort of Isa that is only for buying a house and can't be withdrawn otherwise.

The only way I’d charge my child £500 a month is if I was financially struggling. OR if I was quietly saving the rent to give back to them as a house deposit.

My son and his gf lived with me for a while after uni. I charged them £500 for the 2 of them, for “rent”, bills and all food, except actually I was saving £300 of it for them, £80 of the remainder was the loss of the single person council tax discount and £120 was a notional amount for their food costs. They thought this was excessive. After a while they moved to the gf’s family home and although I really miss seeing my son every day I don’t miss cooking all the dinners, funding all the coffee pods (so many!) and generally feeling unappreciated. Now when I see them we have a lovely time and I really enjoy cooking them a meal and hanging out, because there isn’t the festering 2-way resentment of them thinking I was somehow profiting from them being there while I felt unappreciated.

I’d invite your son to move out and find out what his lifestyle choices really cost to fund.

"He doesnt do any shared housework or contribute to the household in other works - doesnt even clean up after himself, we have asked and its not worth the fights/backlash. We have also asked him to not smoke etc in the house/garden which he does anyway."

The above are the OP's words.
I suggest you re read her posts.
He's no prize.
He's returned twice having gotten himself into debt.
I would be mortified at his behaviour, knowing that was how he thought he could treat his parents and home.