How much rent to charge 18 year old?

[TakeALookAtTheseSwatches]

My daughter left college last year and started looking for a job, she started working just after Christmas. She works part time hours and her take home pay per month is around £900. She's putting £50 in to a lifetime ISA and she has no other bills (I currently still pay her phone contract which is about £30 a month)

We provide all her food, she eats tea with us and we have breakfast things/snacks in the house. She doesn't usually eat dinner but will sometimes buy herself a meal deal if she wants something.

So what would be reasonable? I was thinking around £200 a month and I'm happy to put £50 of that in her lifetime ISA too if she wants. She is saving up for a car so isn't spending frivolously. Is £200 too much?

Well you are not his girlfriend and his girlfriend is also being supported by her parents in the same way. I don’t go out and choose his clothes for him obviously. I just tell him to put it on our card. Why is that an ick?
Surely if you can afford to support your adult child to save for a deposit so they can become homeowners rather than renters that’s a great thing. No need to feel ick about that.

This is much easier said than done, she has applied for hundreds of jobs since August and has basically had to take whatever she could get after months of no joy. There's definitely opportunity for her to go full time at some point and I'm sure there will be overtime too.

He earns enough to save for a house AND pay for his keep, even if you don’t need it. Why on earth do you still pay for gym, clothes and shoes? You might find it impossible to get rid of him!

My son never paid a penny and we never agreed to that.
He's still talking about cash gifts.
My DD who's a student offers. She can't afford it.

Both my DH and I are in our sixties and could do with a downsize. When he's gone we're off!

I think £200 is reasonable.

Do you know how much they need for a deposit to buy a house in London or near these days? Even with him saving most of his salary, it will take him years. This is why we support him because we can. I don’t understand why you would have an issue with this. I feel really lucky to be able to help him get on the housing ladder and will do the same with his younger brother when the time comes.

I also don’t want to get rid of him. I love having him at home. Why would you even say that?

No wonder so many elderly parents end up in care homes...

I'd let her pay for her phone but I wouldn't charge anything else.

What a weird comment. Why should a working adult pay nothing and have their food and bills paid for them? No wonder you get so many entitled people these days.

I mean that in a jokey way, implying he would get too comfortable, but do you really need to pay for his clothes, gym etc too? Surely he can budget for those?

It's also not tax efficient. An 18-39 year old can save into a Lifetime ISA and for the maximum of £4,000 saved each tax year, the taxman gives them £1,000. Interest is added to the full £5,000 which is probably more than many parents can get. The drawback is the money is supposed to be used to buy a first home so if that's not the plan in the next ten years another saving account might be best.

I want to know what I entitled about it. This is a generation with practically no chance to get onto the housing ladder before they are in their 30s and many never will. What exactly is entitled about accepting some help from parents who can easily afford to help out. We were lucky to buy a house straight out of uni in our time. Times have changed.

i don’t think that is an issue. Like I said, he is saving to buy a house with his girlfriend. I don’t need to pay for his clothes etc, but I choose to to allow him to save faster. I’ll let you know if he still lives at home and I am buying his tracksuits and takeaways when he is 42😀

Finding a job is so hard nowadays. Cost of living has gone up. University is no longer fee-free. I would never make my kid’s life harder than it needs to be. It gives me genuine joy to help them financially and they are extremely grateful and hard-working.

I suspect that those adult children who are lazy and take the piss, will do so, whatever their upbringing is like, and however much rent they pay or don’t pay their parents.

My 18 yr old is working full time. She pays £300 pm plus her phone. This is less than 20% of her wage. The agreement is we keep it at this as long as her savings are increasing well. If she starts pissing it up the wall it gets doubled.
She has a car and covers own fuel, MOT, insurance etc. I cover her recovery, most toiletries, food and treats.
She has saved c4k since October.
I am not profiting from this, I am freeing up a little bit of my wage to top up my own pension- to hopefully finish at 65 instead of 68!
She is independent, mature and is very grateful when I treat or gift her nice things, which I often do as I am so proud of how hard she works, her independence and maturity.

I’ll be charging my 18yo in the near future as they will have a FT job with a decent salary.

we live in an expensive area and a spare room is about 50% of her take home.

we’re planning on charging 25%

this still leaves her much more disposable income than I have

her dad will stop his child maintenance so it makes sense in her set up. We won’t be ‘profiting’ but we’re striking a balance between responsibility and a free ride.

if she lost her job we’d support her but she’s an adult and understands the arrangement.

It depends. My friend had to charge her DD rent when she started working because she lost child maintenance and some of her UC and still had rent to pay. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to say no payments are needed.

However, if I didn’t actually need the money, I would ask her for £200 a month and secretly save it for her so she had enough to buy a better car or spend on something sensible.

Does he have to buy a house in an expensive area? If he has plenty of disposable income after savings, and can afford a good social life, holidays etc, I wouldn’t be buying his clothes. Plus his girlfriend is saving too. If I were your son, though, I’d be mighty grateful for such generous parents!

I’d say £200 is a bit high given her wage, I’d go £100 for now and review if her earnings increase. I think it’s important that she gets into the habit of paying towards household expenses as that’s the reality of life.

I’d also stop paying her phone bill, and sit her down to go through the household expenses (essentials like broadband, water, energy etc) so she understands all that and can see where her contribution is going.

whenever I lived at home I made a contribution to household expenses and paid for my own food .

I think you’ve got it right!

We don't charge our 19 year old but they put most of their wage in to savings, divided across S&S (not to be touched money for long term savings), cash ISA (moving out one day fund) and instant access savings (car and other big life expenses). They only keep a small portion for day to day spending which is in line with what their disposable income would be if they were living in a shared house and paying bills.

If their attitude towards saving area not so mature then they should be paying rent to us instead!

I’d only be charging rent if 1. I actually needed help with the bills or 2. She was being irresponsible with it (I would then save it up for her but not tell her that). If she is happy with it, I would encourage her to put more away in the LISA in the future. I’d maybe suggest she keeps that at £50 a month while she saves for a car but then increases it when she’s managed to buy the car. Also make sure she pays u for the phone bill. Would be nice if she cld maybe buy a takeaway once a month but if she’s saving I wouldn’t put pressure on her to.

She can pay her own phone - put the contract in her name. I wouldn’t charge my child rent but I’d hope they’d be saving more than £50 out of £900! She could be saving half, especially if she wants a car! At £50/month she’ll get saving for years!

I don’t think £200 is a lot to be honest. If you don’t need the extra cash I’d be tempted to pop it in a savings account and not tell her. She has £650 of disposable income a month. There’s plenty of adults that don’t have that much so it’s not like you’re depriving her. FWIW I used to give my mum £150 over 20 years ago so no £200 isn’t excessive

I think it depends entirely on your household income - if you need the money then totally reasonable to charge whatever they cost living there. But if it’s just for the look of the thing, I can’t get on board with money flowing up the generations not down!
My parents never charged me a penny, and I’ve gone on to be a higher rate tax payer so can’t see it did me any harm having an easy life at 18! No intention of charging my kids anything either - but we’re in the fortunate position that we don’t need to.