To expect my dd to pay for her driving licence ?

[Firsttimemom3]

Did 18 years old is on her gap year. She has a good job well paid and saving for uni next year. We have given her a lump of money for her 18th, we do not charge her rent, we pay for food, phone and extras. We were meant to pay for her driving licence but we just had a massive vet bill, we are stretched. Am I unreasonable to expect her to pay her driving licence ?

Okay, just seen your update. I think you should have had clearer expectations about her contributions from the point she began working and perhaps asked for some money for food, bills etc. Maybe the way forward is for you to pay for the licence but put her on notice that she has to start contributing to the household in, say, a month.

I still think you are being somewhat unreasonable towards her as you are changing the goalposts, however much you think she has it made at the moment, and acknowledging that wouldn't hurt.

5k won't even come close to covering that, I'm sorry to say.

Insurance alone will wipe out at least half your budget.

@fruitbrewhaha unless you’re planning on a very cheap car (which tbf you might well be) that won’t be enough. Lessons are usually around £40 an hour and even good drivers will need probably upwards of 20 hours, plus extra hours with you on top. Tests are £65 plus the theory fee and the provisional licence isn’t free either. My dd passed recently and bought her first car which is a 2014 golf with 100k on the clock for 5 grand, and insurance is £180 a month (which was quite cheap) There are cheaper cars out there but you unless you’re happy with something very old or with really high mileage there’s not much under 5k.
good luck!

We just had an argument and she told me to fuck off so I’m quite upset.

Time to sit down and draw up reasonable expectations including her doing chores and paying rent (you could if you wanted use that rent for uni fees or driving lessons) OR she finds alternative accommodation. By doing everything for her and expecting nothing back is how you raise a spoilt child.

Blimey! I paid for all my lessons and my tests - my mum put some money towards my car but it was very much expected I pay for it considering I was earning money and my mum was paying for all my food and mortgage etc! It won’t do her any harm at all to pay for it herself!

What I did with my son was he had 1 x 2hrs a week
he paid half and I paid half

when he did his test he paid for it
if he passed I gave him back what he paid

took him 3 attempts to pass

I’m a great believer in making people pay something no matter how much money you can / can afford

even now I will happily help him with an unexpected car bill or house bill

his last car bill was 1100 I gave him 800 towards it

Also back to the op’s point (sorry OP) I would be very angry that she had sworn at me but also I would have been paying for her lessons - sorry. Paid for both our DD’s as it’s a life skill they need. However if my kid told me to fuck off id probably think again…!

It isn’t unreasonable to expect her to at least contribute, particularly as she is working. My DC paid for their licenses, tests and any lessons they had. I bought a cheap car they share and pay the insurance. In the end I pretty much taught them both to drive due to the costs of lessons but given your last update I would be withdrawing any offer of help, I don’t help people who talk to me like that, no matter who they are.

Have you lived in the UK for at least a few years? If so, surely you must know what it entails for someone to learn to drive?

Also massive difference between expecting her to pay for the license and expecting her to pay for lessons too.

Not necessarily saying that position is inherently wrong or right, but it changes the whole premise of your post. Your poll might read differently had you actually written it correctly.

A license is like a one off fee of less than £100, lessons can often cost upwards of several pounds. If you had les her to believe you’d pay for it, it’s understandable she would feel let down and annoyed,
but of course was wrong to swear at you.

Do you live in an area where she desperately needs a car? Or can she wait a few years until after graduation? Not everyone needs to learn to drive at 17/18, in fact some are better waiting a few years to drive.

@fruitbrewhaha I too winced a bit when I saw your post. Have you looked up how much it costs to insure a 17 year old?

The fact she told you to fuck off because she needs to pay for something she wants shows she’s a spoiled little madam.
I would massively cut back, she has no respect for you.
I paid for my own lessons at 17, my parents were pretty well off but they taught me if I want things I need to work for them not sponge off others kindness.

So basically her parents have raised her to be spoilt, rude, selfish and entitled, but not to be independent. You have bigger issues than driving lessons. She needs to grow up, and you need to make her - that's your job as a parent not pampering her like a princess and then acting surprised when she acts like one.

I would add a few more k to that
insurance alone will be around 1800 -2k maybe more
lesson and test will easily cost 1k -1500 depending on where you live and the cost of lesson and most need around 20lessons

I think if you said you’d pay and now you won’t, that’s off. We couldn’t afford to pay for our kids driving lessons. So for 17th birthdays we said we would pay for the first 5 hours of lessons, the provisional licence cost and the cost of the tests. But at a time they could afford to continue to pay for lessons themselves.

Our eldest is 20 at uni and has not bothered yet. He’s not really interested, and the part time job he got was 1 day a week that would have fully gone on his lessons. Personally think he should have got it done, but his money and life, his choice.

Our middle son got a full time job when he dropped out of college just after turning 17. He got on a waiting list for lessons as needed to fit around work. Sadly he lost that job after 4/5 months, but I had told him to save all his money and we didn’t charge him rent, so he had some money saved up to cover lessons. He ended up going to CAB to ask for support and help job hunting or help and advice for courses etc as he just didn’t know what to do next and wasn’t having any luck anywhere. They sent him to sign on for universal credit as that got him access to a support worker for finding a job. I told him that he should use his universal credit and any savings to learn to drive, as a driving license would make him more employable, allow him to look further afield, or consider courses at other local colleges that he couldn’t get to without a car. So he’s been doing that. He took his theory test recently but failed as he didn’t know there was a hazard perception element (neither did I as that wasn’t a thing when I did mine) so hadn’t practiced and wasn’t clear from the instructions what he needed to do. So we’ve had to rebook that, and because it’s in a town with no train from our town to it, we’ve had to find an evening appointment so that we can take him to it, meaning another months wait. All of this means he’s going to have to be having driving lessons for even longer (still annoyed his instructor didn’t tell him anything about the theory test despite knowing he had it booked).

So basically it could be a massive expensive and I can see why she’s upset if you previously said you would pay. What I would do, is charge her rent and use that money to pay for her lessons, as you made the promise initially. I would pay for the licence and tests. Although she pays for any resits if she fails anything.

When did you pass your test?

Learning to drive is SO expensive now, lessons are upwards of £40 an hour and many instructors only offer two hour slots. Insurance will cost almost £200 a month for a learner (more for boys, sadly) and gone are the days where you can get a decent, reliable second hand car for £500.

If you’ve told her you’ll pay and now can’t, that’s very different from just asking her to in the first place.

You've spoilt her, my children wouldn't ever dare tell me to fuck off, sorry.

We paid for DS18s lessons and tests and have said we will match what he saves and to let us know when he is ready to buy.

You're not doing your daughter any favours, doing everything for her but feeling resentful. She should have been contributing to the household for years, practically if not financially. However, an argument is not the best time to make changes to what you have previously offered as it just comes across as a punishment. Take some time for everyone to calm down and then have a discussion about how things might need to be different in future. If you have raised her to be lazy, entitled and ungrateful she's not likely to change overnight.

Where's your data for the "most" claim ?

Not talking about 'amongst your friends' I'm talking about all learners across the UK.

As that certainly isn't my anecdotal experience and I suspect it is a claim that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

That’s strange he didn’t know about the hazard perception. Didn’t he think to look up practice theory tests to see what it entails ? You can find them on apps and websites.

Hazard perception has been a thing for a couple of decades now - so as long as he’s been alive.

First time I took my theory test in my early 20s I didn't even think to rely on my instructor for advice on it . I just told him I was taking it and did some practice tests online and read the Highway Code.

Myself and my 2 siblings all paid to get ourselves on the road. Lessons, tests, cars and insurance.

We did all wait until our early - mid twenties, so later than maybe those who had parents pay, but we took it out of our wages from part or full time jobs. There was absolutely no mention of parents paying.

Yes it’s crap that you’ve had to change the plans around paying, but time for a dose of realism I think!

£200 a month insurance for a learner!

where on earth from?

it cost me nothing to add dd as a learner on a provisional. I was surprised but apparently supervised drivers are not a big risk. Especially as they aren’t allowed on motorways etc.

once she passed her test it was an extra £400 for the year to add her as an additional driver.

So insurance in total for me and newly passed dd is about £800 per year.

this was 6 months ago. Admittedly my car is about the lowest insurance class there is and worth less than 1k, but it gets us from a to b.

I would never pay for my kids if they spoke to me like that. We paid for ours but they were polite and grateful. And if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it.

I thinks it’s unfair to ask to ask her to pay when you’ve already said you’d pay for lessons etc. We paid for everything including cars and insurance for the first year for our 3 when they were 17 but it was our choice to live where we do and they needed cars to get about. I’d be less inclined if they hadn’t lifted a finger around the house and told me to fuck off - that’s a spoilt little madam you have there.

That's a big drip feed. You need a discussion about attitude etc first.