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?

£500 is an obscene amount. Massively reduce how much you ask him to pay and then tell him to pay for his own luxuries

I’m not sure about the idea of secretly saving up rent money up for adult children. I think I’d rather let them save for a deposit themselves and give them a lump sum.

Also, do you even know how much he's saving, if any? Everything that he has left over should go to an account you have control over.

@QuinqueremeofNiveneh Hmm,, I don’t think that’s necessary for a 23-year-old, he’s too old to have a parent controlling his money like that.

Ask him to move out and see how quickly he offers to pay you more or buy his own stuff. no chance he could live away from home and only spend £500

£500 is a ridiculously high amount to be charging your own son.

What a way to treat your own kid, make money out them and if they refuse, threaten them.

He earns £1800
He doesn't have to pay for a car
He's got 1300 left.
Do you have that each month?

I think it is obscene to be frank for parents to be using their DCs’ money to fund treats for themselves.

No wonder so many young adults are going no contact with parents these days. Some will be ending up in shitty care homes, that’s for sure.

I don’t see how what parents have ‘left’ is relevant. We all earn different amounts and have different outgoings at different stages of life.

DS1 earned much more than me and DH when he briefly lived at home. That was because he worked hard at school and uni and got a well-paid job. I didn’t see it as our right to profit from that as some seem to.

YABU. If you’re comfortable, why not allow him to put that money towards a deposit instead? He’s your son and times are difficult for young people. Don’t you want to give him a leg up?

@SilkySquirrel Tbf, we don’t know that the OP is profiting from what her son pays, we have no idea what their household bills are.

Parents do their kids no favours by not giving them the opportunity to learn about budgeting and the real world while they're still safe at home.

Our job is to get them ready for the world. Budgeting and bill paying and understanding everything an adult needs to do to run a home are valuable skills and ones we should teach them imo

You do realise a helping hand can be a reality check not a rescue don’t you? Shielding them from the real world and building entitlement because you don’t want to “profit” from them is a sunk cost fallacy in the long run. No wonder so many kids are taking their parents to job interviews with them…

Aldi do compatible Nespresso pods for less than £2 for 8. I'd buy maybe 3 packs of these for the week for them. That's £6 a week and obviously £24 a month.

And save the nice branded Nespresso pods for yourself 🙂

That's a pretty hefty sum to live at home with mum and dad if I'm honest

Yes he would be paying more if he was in his own place but he isn't ... you aren't exactly giving him the option of living a little and saving by taking such a sum especially when your super comfortable

Unless of cours you are going to give him the rent you have been taking and giving it back when he gets a mortgage for furniture

We all know he couldn’t get the equivalent for £500 if he rented privately - that argument is overdone on these threads. The reality is it’s not a like for like comparison… he’s not renting privately and you’re not a landlady so I think you’re being a bit harsh, especially as you don’t need the money.

If he doesn't like/respect the house rules, he is free to leave..
Obviously has learned nothing from his previous messed up attempts at adulting.
Either he toes the line or he leaves... And this time do not bail him out!!
He is behaving like a brat.

You’ve made a rod for your own back here. You’ve bailed him out several times financially. He doesn’t cook as he’d make too much mess and you’d clean up. He does Jo household chores.

in hate to say it but you’ve gone very wrong in your parenting and have created an entitled man child.

you have two options. A rude awakening including rent hike to pay for his cleaner (you), washer woman, cook etc at least £1000 a month. And he still pays on top for phone, gym, coffee pods. He still has £800 a month disposable income after all bills, way more than a lot of people.

Or he moves out and you make crystal clear upon his departure that you won’t bail him out again. That he is a man and needs to manage his money and bills.

you are doing no favours at all and you HAVE to let him fail so he learns. There’s no lesson in you picking up after him in every area of his life

@QuaintNewt nothing wrong with that amount of house keeping, thats £115 a week. Thats not a lot of money, you couldn't rent a room in a flat where i live for that. I only ever buy the pods when they are on offer. But yes he should pay for his own phone. Our supermarket bill for everything can be 800 a month and we live on chicken, and if i buy branded it is only when on offer. So my son would easily be £100 for the supermarket bill, then there is gas, electricity council tax. He is a working adult so he should contribute for what he uses.

@SilkySquirrel

why is it obscene?
i didn’t begrudge them having treats, they were great parents that did a lot for me, why would i??

I lived with my parents when I was going through a divorce and more than 10 years ago I paid £100 per week (£430 p/m) for me and my baby/toddler daughter to live with them which i thought was completely fair. I did all the cooking/cleaning/laundry though and often bought shopping. I always bought toddler snacks as well. Personal expenses & phone /fuel etc. I would have never even considered as an expense that wasn't completely mine. My cats also lived with us & all of their expenses were mine although they were completely spoiled by their Grandad.

£500 is absolutely not unreasonable.

Absolutely he should be paying for his car charging when he is claiming the money from employer but I’d use that as an offset for stopping the buying of fizzy drinks and coffee pods so he feels he is winning to a limited extent

I think £500 is a lot. My daughter is the same age and just started work after uni but on a good salary. We charge her £450 a month and save it to give her towards a deposit on a house when she has saved enough to move out (she is also saving). We pay for most things even though she offers to buy her own food.
She does buy her own coffee pods though

Stop with the individual line item increases they are easily argued about and periodically increase the overall amount. So let him know that every 6 months (or whatever) his rent will increase by X… whatever that is to reflect the coffee, the cleaning (and supplies), the electric, the annoyance, etc.

At some point he will work out that he’s spending the equivalent to live with mum and dad that he would on his own.

If he complains well he knows the alternative.

I can't help thinking that it is the parents of children who have never had to contribute anything, who see their parents as a perpetual source of provision who will end up in shitty care homes. The parents who raise their children to be responsible adults and to pay their own way and not take others for granted may end up with better care...

Apologies, I haven't RTFT.
PLEASE tell me you are saving the £500 a month for him?