How much rent do you charge your adult children?

[Redandpinkstripes]

My daughter is 26 and earns more than me. She pays £200 a month. She has 2 showers a day. Dinner cooked and washing and ironing done. I feel bad but with everything going up I am considering asking her to pay £100 a month more as we are struggling financially.
I just feel guilty that I can't provide for her.
How much is fair to ask her to pay?
Thank you x

By the time they are old enough to pay keep at home those skills should already have been learnt , it’s too late when they hit 18/21 . Charging someone £180 per month doesn’t teach anything as it’s totally unrealistic with what it actually costs to run a house / flat . You are better off teaching them how to save and the benefits of doing so and also how to be good , useful housemates .

I don't agree with charging 'children' unless you are really desperate. End of the day, if you take the money off them you aren't giving them a chance to get out in the big wide world- they go from education straight to finding cash for bills. It might be "life" but I also see it as you had the choice to have children so when parents make kids bad for staying home but also take money off them holding them back from moving out each time they take the cash I just don't get it. Let them go out and get drunk etc it's their youth, it's their memories. One day they'll be in their 30s and do barely anything and be living off memories from "the old days".

Same time though, tough out there- I get why you might need to. I think though you should sit down with her and set the bill situation out and agree it as a group. She would respect it more.

We supported our adult kids but while we were doing that we expected them to save for a deposit, which they did. I wouldn’t have allowed them to stay rent and bill free if they were frittering away their salaries with more disposable income than we have.

Blimey you guys are cheap. I pay my mum £370 per month. No laundry done, food occasionally as I work evenings. I am a fully grown adult though.

Ds had already learned budgeting from age 13. He is quite good at managing his money although not perfect. I do not insist he saves for a deposit as only the upper classes can afford to buy property these days and we are not that in the least.

My son turns 24yrs on Sunday. He has not been paying any house keeping for over 3 months. We are struggling so much that we went through 2 months without food to pay bills.

He now has a job and I received this following WhatsApp messages from him at 1.02am, yes this morning. Please note there was no prior discussion. He has outstanding bill to pay, which he has been paying off for over 12 months, again no discussion.

"Sent you £80 for food will increase payments gradually once other bills are paid over the coming months"

"Next payment will be £200"

"Then eventually £400 max"

What really angers me is he will not clean his room. I wash his clothes, cook for him, he never offers to help his dad or myself to do anything. I'm epileptic and I had a seizure yesterday. Thankfully his dad and brother were in tge house with me. He was in his bedroom and had no idea.

If he lived by himself he would have to pay his rent and his outstanding bills.

It's one thing asking adult children to chip in for food and bills but charging them rent like a money grabbing landlord is beyond the pale.

@JustLikeMummaUsed2Say

Well stop doing his washing and cooking for him for a start

I'm 59 now and I paid my parents £250 a month and still went out every weekend to have a good time. Didn't get drunk mind.

Payment for food & bills is his rent. He finally told us that he wanted to, not had to, wanted to pay off his contract so that he could start paying £21 a month and control his monthly spending to keep his bank balance in the black every month.

Crikey it must be nice to be able to stipulate how much you'll be paying. Might try that with the mortgage company and see how it goes down 😁. I hope you're doing OK. I think as parents it's hard to work out what's fair and forums like this don't help. All adults should be contributing I think (unless genuine reasons of course) and should understand how much it costs to live...or it will be a massive shock when they move out. It really is unfair to expect their parents to go without.

My 20YO step son has typically lived between our house and his mums, so max 3 times a week. In the last 6 months him and his girlfriend have alternated between 3 houses, and we haven’t charged rent because of this.
They have recently asked us if they can move in with us full time while they save for a place of their own. I’d be keen to get people’s thoughts, experiences and also ideas on how much rent to charge them both, to cover food, increase in bills etc.

I wouldn’t ask my DC to pay towards a mortgage, bills etc unless I actually needed the money. I started working PT when I was 17 and I couldn’t believe how many of similarly aged PT working friends had to give their parents half or even more of their wages when they were in a two income household (both parents working). It’s shocking really. I made it clear to my parents that I wouldn’t be paying them anything from my £3.25 an hour pay check as I had to pay for driving lessons, bus to college, my own clothes etc. Their mortgage was paid off before I turned 16 and they both worked FT so didn’t need the money.

£370 is very cheap. Its not even £100 per week. There's a huge difference between a 16-18 year old working part time and studying and then there's a 25 year old working full time living at home!

Ds1 (29) pays £400 a month. He buys his own lunch at work during the week and I provide all other food and cook his evening meal 7 days a week. I do all his washing but he cleans his own room to his standards and the bathroom he shares with ds3.

Ds3 (18) has had a part time job, which pays really well, for the last two years so apart from his food and his washing he self funds and sees to everything else himself. He does have almost exclusive use of my car which I fuel but he pays his own insurance. When he starts working full time in August he will start paying £400 a month too. He’s quite happy with this.

I bet they are happy with paying £400 / month for rent, bills, the use of a car with petrol provided, laundry services, and all meals .

There are very few places in the country where you could rent a room in a shared flat for much less than £300.

Bills in a shared flat could be at least £60/ month, plus a share of the council tax for those who are working.

The Food for meals for most young adults would be at least £50 / week, let alone the cooking of it .

Plus a share of the cleaning for shared areas and laundry. And that’s before you factor in the free car.

So yes they are still being massively subsidised by their parents . Which is fine if you are rich and that’s what you want to do with your own money .

It’s less fine when they parents have less spare cash than their kids who are sponging off them as grown men . Or when the parents have to work longer hours or pay less into their pension, so their adult kids can have fancy cars / clothes / holidays.

@AndyMcFlurry we are definitely not rich but very frugal and if my boys were were spending their money unwisely I would rethink. However they are both saving hard for a house deposit. Ds2 (27) bought a house and moved out last year and they both want to follow his example and do the same. They are also very good at popping to the shops or doing odd jobs for me. I can’t really complain.

Sounds like an amazing wage for the time if you are 59 now. Wt was your job?

People saying they wouldn’t charge their ‘child’ to live at home. My son is 28 years old and not a child any more. When I was 28 I was married with 3 children, including him! He has a good job and pays £400 a month. He does his own washing, cooking etc he has plenty of savings and travels a lot for fun. He doesn’t move out because he doesn’t see the point of living on his own. He has a g/f so maybe they will move in together one day. But in the meantime, he is perfectly happy with the £400 a month and doesn’t feel ripped off at all.

So many young people in their late twenties living at home and having meals cooked for them. It’s quite sad. When I was in my 20s the only people I knew still living like that did so because of cultural or religious reasons. Everyone else was out at 18 for uni and then into a houseshare otherwise they moved at 20/21 at the latest. I would not have been able to take a man approaching his 30s and still in his childhood bedroom seriously.

I know times have changed and a lot of it is due to the economy. I work with a lot of people in their 20s still at home so I know it’s the norm now. I just think it’s another example of the way this generation of young people has been screwed over.

I would love to know your age bracket cause this is no longer a choice for many, we have had stagnant wages for 14 years, we have a housing crisis and landlords are often price gouging the ass out of renting costs, not many 20 year old make enough to pay £700+ per month for a 1 bed flat, then ya have countil tax, mine is the guts of £200 a month, then fuel, they just tried to put mine up to £250 a month for 2 people in a small 2 bed house, travel ain't cheap, food prices are through the roof and the quality of the food is abysmal especially fresh food that goes mouldy within a couple of days. I'm in my mid 40's and the world is a much shittier place for youngsters now that it was for me back in the 90's and early 00's.

Exactly! Sounds like you have done a wonderful job to me.

6% of her gross income

dd does her own grocery shopping, her own laundry and a bit of housework. Also pays for subscription tv

Shortly will be moving out as has [purchased a house with her boyfriend

As youre clearly her maid not her mother yes id charge her at least a hundred more and cut her down to one shower a day. Unless shes doing something extremely physical, smelly or has a condition once a day should be more than enough!. I do not understand this sudden rise in people still cooking and cleaning for their adult children?!