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?

@Chickenwing2

op’s son isn’t a child though is he. He is an adult with a job.

It is, I know! They lost their previous phone and wanted the then latest i-phone, that is on my account but they reimburse me. That contract runs out soon, so they'll be getting a sim only I'm sure

@QuizNight, this young man, aged 23, has already failed TWICE at living independently. Failed so spectacularly that the had to be bailed out financially by his parents both times.

Please, please, please explain to me, and the other mystified posters, how he is ever going to manage to set up on his own, if he is allowed to exist under the delusion that the cost of an adult life is 500 pm AND to have the temerity to suggest that it should be less?

@SilkySquirrel, if you can put "profit" to one side for a moment, I would welcome your thoughts on this specific question too.

(And the question relates to JUST finances, we're not even talking about cooking, cleaning and washing yet!)

@Foxybyname why should they save it. Why should parents pay all the costs of an adult child who is earning their own money. Why should the parents be out of pocket. Dom adult children earn more yhsn ther parents. Thay have to learn that life costs money and it is not free.

Because it is perfectly possible for young people to understand the cost of living without their parents making a profit off them.

As I said earlier, DS1 knows much more about saving and investment than I do. He independently set up a stocks and shares ISA invested in the Spanish stock market, as he identified this as a growth area.

Parents don’t need to emulate greedy landlords to teach young people financial skills.

Sure, anything is technically possible for "young people" in general, but what about this young man in particular, who is so inept he has already twice failed "to understand the cost of living".

What is the change or mechanism or experience by which he will learn not only the true cost of an adult life but all the skills that go into running it?

When at the moment, his parents are maintaining for him the illusion that someone earning 1800 pm can reasonably expect to have 1300 in disposable income, and actually ideally a bit more, plus free coffee pods.

(And congratulations, naturally, to your child for his financial acumen. He sounds very, very different from this poor unfortunate soul we're discussing.)

i think @SilkySquirrel would just let him live with her rent free for ever more, spending her pension buying loads of coffee pods in her weekly shop and whatever other shite he wanted 😂

on another note, he really shouldn’t be drinking a lot of coffee… it stains teeth and this combined with his smoking will likely result in very discoloured teeth. Also bad breath 🤢

£500 is very excessive! My son pays £200 per month and I am a single parent with no other income than my own for full time work!

So then you must be paying at east £75/80 a month extra council tax a month, never mind bills increase

I agree exactly . Similar to my story.
I had 2 gap years but I worked and saved and travelled, lived in a house share in London after uni, then masters then moved away to live with boyfriend and finally met husband. Saved like mad to get deposit for house aged 29.

I would never have gone back - I think I call have my pride and dignity and not expecting to free load off my parents. I am aware it’s much harder these days but I have friends now who are lower incomes who work 3 different jobs to improve their income and pay down mortgages. They are older and much more tired than 23 year old. They run a house, teenagers and cook clean etc and do 3 jobs each. Why should older people have work relentlessly hard going everything so a 23 year old ADULT not a child can do one job and have £1300 left over and contribute nothing?

The accusation of boomer is a disgrace. So many parents now just enabling lazy rude snd disrespectful kids. Not all- certainly not my friend groups but hearing thdm talk on various platforms it seems to have become a cultural phenomenon in Great Britain now. I suppose we should be grateful they are even bothering to work at all?

They run a house, teenagers and cook clean etc and do 3 jobs each. Why should older people have work relentlessly hard going everything so a 23 year old ADULT not a child can do one job and have £1300 left over and contribute nothing?

Exactly this!

My exdh is Greek and he has a similar mentality to @SilkySquirrel 's dh. Unfortunately as he has decided not to work (or move out) it is down to me to fund the household with the help of uc. I am disabled and work a zero hours contract and we still have a dc at school. I wouldn't charge ds22 more than £250 a month (he has had to move out anyway) but he earns twice our household income so I do think he should contribute if he lived with us. My ex in laws used to live on very basic food so when the prodigal son returned he could have meat! And for all the hardship they put themselves through to support him (including putting him through university in the UK) he didn't even bother to go to their funerals!

It is, I know! They lost their previous phone and wanted the then latest i-phone, that is on my account but they reimburse me. That contract runs out soon, so they'll be getting a sim only I'm sure

Some of these posts!! Ffs.
My council tax went up by £80 pm when my then 18 year old moved back home after a 4 month period of being kicked out, they were doing drugs and I will not be a door mat for any shitty, disrespectful behaviour under my roof.
When I was living without them my shopping bill was £25, now they're back it's £100+, so yeah, damn right they pay rent as a grown arsed, working adult. Anyone who disagrees, watch your 'child' leave, get into issues because they have not been taught the BASICS, and come running home time and time again. Would you live with family or a friend who was working, move in with you and pay no rent? Duh!

Some of these posts!! Ffs.
My council tax went up by £80 pm when my then 18 year old moved back home after a 4 month period of being kicked out, they were doing drugs and I will not be a door mat for any shitty, disrespectful behaviour under my roof.
When I was living without them my shopping bill was £25, now they're back it's £100+, so yeah, damn right they pay rent as a grown arsed, working adult. Anyone who disagrees, watch your 'child' leave, get into issues because they have not been taught the BASICS, and come running home time and time again. Would you live with family or a friend who was working, move in with you and pay no rent? Duh!

In fairness, OP says she can afford it. She's got a husband so they're already paying full council tax, got two wages coming in. Different situation from yours, which sounds financially and otherwise stressful.

It's entirely possible to teach the basics without charging rent. My parents did just that and I never got into any issues or ran back home.

Yes but that would be his own space.
Theres a big difference.
My DS pay a lot less than this because I don’t want profit off them plus I want them to enjoy themselves or be able to save until they get saddled with massive bills.

In some locations, £800 is the cost of a room in a shared house.

EG this one, in Oxford, £850 incl bills.

m.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/flatshare_detail.pl?flatshare_id=15367942&search_id=1408960624&city_id=&flatshare_type=offered&search_results=%2Fflatshare%2F%3Fsearch_id%3D1408960624%26&

Your attitude is shocking and a disgrace to motherhood, parenting and the objective of raising functional effective adults. His parents are not ‘profiting’ from him, they are subsidising him. Doing him a huge favour by letting him live there! For goodness sake the guy is bloody 23 not 16! They have to run a house. They deserve their time back. Do you think his mother is forever meant to some kind of modern day slave then? Running around clearing up after this sloth? Did you know it costs money to have an extra person in the house? Or do you think the fairies pay for the extra person then?

Parents responsibility in law stops at 18. They owe him absolutely nothing after that. The fact that they and many other parents fund the transition until the young person is financially on their feet in early twenties ( usually in in tertiary education (you would expect that to take a bit longer) is usual but if he is now working and has spare money this should be saved so he can move out. The whole point of raising kids is so they can become independent and move out! So they have the skills to survive on their own in the outside world.
They need to separate from you. Not remain hanging onto your apron strings whilst you clear up their mess.
The relationship moves to adult to adult. Something has gone wrong it it’s still parent and child. This doesn’t sound like the 23 year old is an adult at all. If my son ignored my rules not to smoke I would ask him to move out. Thankgod he doesn’t smoke ( or drink come to that).

Living at home at that age would also require an agreement to contribute regularly to the same amount of housework as everyone else. Wash cook clean etc garden help etc. Any spare time he should be learning new skills to increase that low income aswell.

Oh yes a cocklodger in training haha! This is how it starts!!!

If I had a pound for how many posts I’ve read all
over mumsnet and Facebook about the amount of cocklodging men that exist in so many family homes - it’s no surprise really when you read some of the comments and attitudes on here how men turn out the way they do. It’s BOTH parents responsibility to raise effective functional independent adults. The sooner parents start doing that, the sooner women won’t have to carry the enormous mental load they end up doing in this life - to the detriment of their own health.

Whether you find it normal to live at home in your twenties depends on the culture you come from- I don't think Spain is a fair comparison because homes are much larger and extended families far more common.
Many parents simply don't have the room to have their DC living with them- my half brother left home for uni, my Dad and step mother downsized then my half brother bounced back for a decade.
It is unfair to expect parents to house their children into middle age (my half brother didn't move out until he was 36) in downsized properties when it doesn't fit with their retirement plans- adults are adults, and it is not unreasonable to expect them to live independently.
Obviously if they are struggling, or can't get a job after uni no one would argue with them being at home a little longer- but typically these days it isn't a little longer it is well into the parents retirement.

100%
Utter nonsense

Rent means rent of a room/flat/house. Not board and skivvying.
Here hed be looking at over 500 for a room in a shared house possibly not including bills, definitely not including food.