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?

I think £500 is a lot.

That said, coffee pods etc should be his to buy.

I think it’s fair enough to charge him £500, I was paying £300 20 years ago. I often think it’s a bit bonkers to not charge and then the child has a disposable income that exceeds the parents in quite a lot of cases.

Generally if you are paying a third of your salary to living expenses, a third for fun stuff, travel, clothes, going out and a third for saving for a house deposit then it seems reasonable to me. I suspect it’d be a minimum of half his salary in a shared house by the time added on food and bills.

'I think the closest in my area that I can get with bills included is £1000 a month and my food and transportation would be extra'

That is irrelevant. That like saying a decent meal out would cost £50, a taxi to town £40 etc. What the going rate is does not matter when someone is living in their actual family home.

I'd never charge a dc 'rent' or 'board and lodge' but if money if very tight I can understand some people may need it. The op doesn't and £500 is taking the piss.

I would be much more concerned about the fact he doesn’t do his share around the house, you should not be waiting on him hand and foot, he should clear up after himself, do a share of the cooking and cleaning and do his own washing.

If he is able to reclaim the cost of the electricity from work then that amount should be paid back to you.

I think you’re being mean
my 23 year old pays 70 a week.

he works full time but I want he to have a good start in life so encourage saving.

you admit you don’t need the money yet you’re fleecing him.

But I also wouldn’t charge him separately for the coffee pods when everyone else in the house is using them.

Lots of British people don’t charge, there are no set rules. I charge £250 which tbh only really covers their food. My DC do save a lot each month so I think we are all happy with this.

£500 a month virtually all in when he is working is absolute peanuts! Tell him to quite grumbling and get into the real world and see how much that would cost him!

She’s said she’s giving him £10k and that other family members are giving him another £10k! The £500 is about teaching him to be responsible with money, he has already been in financial difficulty before

My DD earned 1500 a month and paid £175 but she bought her own toiletries, own phone/car etc and (by choice) ate out couple times a week.
id probably divide the pods up when they arrive and if you use your quota you get more or wait for next delivery. I wouldn’t charge extra for electricity ⚡️

I wouldn’t charge extra for electricity ⚡️

To me this is the most clear cut - DS is getting reimbursement from work for the electric car costs and OP is currently covering that cost herself. That is certainly profiteering by DS!

If DS was filling his car with petrol, OP wouldn’t be paying for that.

Where is it though?
It’s £850 a month for a room in a shared house in my city but it’s a desirable place to live.

He will get an approx £10k deposit when he moves buys a house, plus maybe another £10k from family. So i dont feel we are significantly.limiting his chances of getting a house deposit as he still has £1300 a month to save from.

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.
Any family meals out, take aways as a family etc are paid for by us include for his gf.

All this is wild!
You are seriously tolerating this from a 23 year old?
Both ds usually pay for our family meals out and they normally do it discreetly before we've noticed. Same with takeaways if we have them. Dh has to insist we treat them. Why dont you say 'come on lad, it's your shout on the takeaway tonight ' His reaction will tell you if he has come entitled or not.

The smoking weed would be enough to kick him out permanently to be fair. He is disrespecting your requests and house and as for not helping cleaning, wtf!!!! He is a grown man. Flipping heck, my lads dont even live with me but when they call round and no one is in and they see something needs doing, eg pegging out the washing, chopping up some fire wood for the weekend, they do it without a thought. I thought thst was normal.

I think coffee pods are the least of your issues!

OP is his mum, she should be happy to clean up after him. Grateful even

We charge ours what it cost us so we’re not subsidising them but not making a profit from them ether
car charging is completely separate from and will bill him for them

£500 does sound a lot

It depends on what the long term plan is. If he's saving for a deposit on a property I would probably only charge for his food and hot water but if he's just coasting then I'd say what you are charging is reasonable and encourage him to rent somewhere

If a 23 yr old dc doesn't contribute towards household tasks it's a bit of a fail tbh, ours were washing up and hoovering up way before 23.

Compensating for this laziness by charging a whacking 500 quid then umming and ahhing if coffee pods should be extra demonstrates the very haphazard thinking in that household.

I wouldn’t nickel and dime him for the drinks. He should pay for anything like takeout he chooses to get but otherwise he’s part of your family, enjoy having him either way you while he’s there.

Would you enjoy having someone living in your house who smoked there (despite being asked not to), didn't clean up after himself and didn't do any of the other chores?

I'd wonder why I didn't get him doing stuff in the house from age 10yr on. Wash up before going to play etc. Do your washing or wash the car get some pocket money etc. It's how you do it.

If you have a selfish lazy lump who smokes in the house and doesn't wash up well who has enabled him to be so useless? They learn this behaviour from being allowed to do it for years.

For one months worth of pods you could purchase a nice espresso machine with a milk frother. They are perfect for lattes and would be much more cost effective than pods. Also no plastic and you can use the grounds for compost!

@Gloriia Maybe they do, maybe they don't (OP hasn't said) -a biddable tween can become a stubborn teen overnight, say.

But either way - he's 23 and he has had a couple of attempts at moving out. He's old enough to take some responsibility for his own domestic environment, whatever he was taught when younger. My parents never taught me to cook, but I didn't stand around at uni aged 18 waiting for someone to teach me how to turn a stove on. I bought a student cookbook and figured it out.

Just over £100 a week pretty much all in? I don’t understand how anyone thinks this isn’t very reasonable. He’s an adult with a job! He’s very lucky he has the option of staying with you, FFS. If he doesn’t like it, he can move out. I wouldn’t pay for the coffee pods either, way too overpriced, he gets them himself.

He should pay for coffee pods and electric for his car (hes getting the latter back from work). Id not make him get takeaways ... there would always be something there to cook if he wanted to.

agree!

(Except he’s not being made to get takeaways - OP pushed back on him expecting her to pay for his takeaways at the weekend even if OP wasn’t around. Pretty sure there’s always something around he could cook!)