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

Why on earth do you feel guilty? She’s 26 and earning more than you! Of course she should pay her fair share.

FWIW, once they’d graduated and were earning reasonable money, I charged my dds £60 a week while they were still living here - roughly half what they’d have had to pay in a flatshare locally.
And this was 20 odd years ago now!

They didn’t resent it - we’ve always had a very good relationship.

I will add that when they eventually wanted to buy their own homes, we did help with deposits.

I always made sure it was classed as keep not rent and was annoyed if he called it rent because rent would obviously be much more .

20 year old, earns £1400-£1500 a month. He pays £375-400 to me but i pay for all meals inc stuff for lunches at work and his phone is still on my contract. My son is ASD though and really struggles to manage money so me covering everything with what he gives me works best for him at the minute.

£450. She has lived a home with us since she was 22, now age 36.
We have moved a lot and she always comes with so houses have been bought with her needs in mind too

When she moves out, presumably OP will be entitled to single person council tax which where I am would be around £50 a month less for a start, plus all food and most toiletries plus energy usage for one person would absolutely be at least £250 a month? OP is not making a profit here!

Adult child here is charged £150. If I earned more I would still charge but save it for them.

Over 25 years ago I was paying my parents £250 a month when at home in the holidays from Uni, so I'd say £400+ (or 1/3 salary) was perfectly reasonable.

I never charged my adult children rent so they all could save for a deposit for their own homes, which they have now. My parents wouldn’t take any money from us either and their parents didn’t take anything from them, so perhaps it’s a tradition in our family.

My 21 ds and 23 dd don’t pay anything. Dd is moving out soon, and has saved up her money instead. Ds is doing the same.

I reckon our food bill etc will be so much cheaper when they move..

It helps if you pay rent to your parents. In the real world you would have to pay your way. Always gave my mum money would feel like I was taking her for granted if I didnt.

I never paid anything at home either. My parents bought me my first car etc.

I never took anything for granted. Neither do my children. It just means they could save their money and they have. That’s a pretty good gift to be able to give them.

You're being far too generous, in my opinion. At least It should be a proportional split of bills, which I'd imagine with council tax, internet, food and utilities would probably come out far more than £200 by itself.

She's an adult. She earns more than you. And you're not teaching her how to stand on her own two feet by doing all her cooking and washing at your own expense (both time and money) while she has more disposable income than you.

I paid £50 a week back in1996! I also had to do my own laundry, various chores and pay my part of the phone bill. If my children are still living with me when they are adults and earning then I will charge them an appropriate amount. I certainly won't be doing their laundry though! They are currently 15, 14, 11 and I only wash the 11 year old's laundry and the school uniforms/sports kit for them all, mainly so that it actually gets done on time! I will also be expecting them to help with chores and cooking, as they do currently. It's not a hotel!

I think it depends.

Firstly, if you’re struggling, then all adults in the household need to be aware of this and as adults, to discuss together how costs can be covered.

Beyond this, I think it depends if her living with you is a short term or long term arrangement. If she has always been there and has shown zero interest in saving for a house or moving out, as a long term resident, I think she should pay her share, especially if earning more than others. The time of it being the ‘duty’ of parents to house and feed their kids is long gone. Otherwise, when does an adult child who lives at home long term become financially indeoendnet? Would you still be paying when they are 40? 50?

If however, they have been away and are now home temporarily, whilst saving for a deposit or to rent own place, I’d only take a token amount to help them save. However, this probably needs to be a short term arrangement if a couple of years. I’ve known people do this and take rent from their child who was saving and then give it all back at the point where they’d saved a decent amount or were buying a flat.

As parents, we like to help our young and not so young adult chiLdren. Fine. However, because they are our kids, doesn’t mean we have the level of responsibility to support them we had when they were children, in a never ending way. It infantilises them to tree at them as children and not let them become financially indeoendnet. Good parenting invovled helping our kids learn to manage their money and treating them like small children doesn’t do this. Likewise, doing ll their laundry and cooking all their food isn’t doing them a favour.

I have four adult DC who still live at home. The 2 eldest pay £350 per month. Third DC is at uni but stays at home, we don’t charge him but likewise do not give him any money, he has to make do with the minimum maintenance loan. The youngest is on an apprenticeship wage and pays £200 per month.

They are all adult men, they do their own clothes washing and cooking if they don’t want the same as us. I’d like them all to move out but I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon as we are in the south east plus eldest has ASD and will never probably earn enough, will need to get onto the council about him as we will want to downside in future and do not intend to bring any of them with us!

Why wouldn't you, if you were doing your own (washing)? I can never understand why people separate out all the washing - in our house it goes into one basket and gets separated by colour, not owner/wearer.

DH does his own ironing, I don't really do any. DS does none!

OP I'd tot up everyone in the house's earnings, and then divide the bills in proportion. As I said on another thread if you have 3 people in the house - one earns £50K, one £30K and one £20K and the monthly bills are say £2K to make the calculation easy, the person earning £50K contributes £1k, the next one £600 and the last one £400. Does that make sense?

If she's 26, earning more then you, and you are struggling fincially she should be paying her fair share. This could be percentage of all costs depending on the number of adults in the house, market rate plus for food or she can sort her own, or whatever it is you need to continue housing and providing for her.

When I got my first job and was on minimum wage I was doing this because I had to because it was the only way to keep a roof over all of our heads because of the loss of benifits from me finishing education. It taught me about money and I bought first property at 22!

If costs are going up of course she needs to pay more - sounds like she’s paying very little anyway but I guess you want her to save for her own place?

Stop doing her ironing right now. If you do the laundry make sure she does other housework in kind. Do you really want to cook every night? Unless you love it she needs to take on half the cooking, or have some DIY nights. You can allow for two showers in the rent hike and/or put a timer on it.

She’s 26 years old. Charge her close to a fair rent for your area. Round here a room in a shared house is £500 minimum plus bills. So I’d be Charging £400 inclusive of bills and then letting her do her own dinner!

I do believe that parents should hold off on charging their children rent if they can afford to. But by 26 they should be paying their own way. Especially as she earns more than you do! Don’t feel guilty about this!

I don't see what's funny. You are massively taking advantage of your own mother. She needs to wise up!

Why are you doing her washing/ironing?

so odd at 26 😂

How much does she earn? That sounds very reasonable. I moved out of home a lot earlier than that and at 26 was managing £800 a month. I think £300 is more than reasonable to still get the benefit of living at home and saving for your own place etc. Particularly in this climate!

I would be expecting an equal contribution to the cooking and house work for a start. At that age, she should be cooking and ironing herself.
I would also expect them to be paying a lot more to get ready for the real world. If I didn't need the money I would put it in a savings account ready for when they need it to set up their own home.
Our job is to raise children to be responsible well functioning adults. Do not feel bad for expecting her to pay her way, especially when she is earning more than you.

Doing laundry together is reasonable but I still don't see why the OP has to do it alone. I am sure her daughter could save money in a similar fashion by washing clothes for the family. It doesn't sound as though she is contributing very much to the household in terms of sharing chores.
Maybe I am an unpleasant parent but I always teach my kid that responsibilities are shared between people who share the house and that she and her dad are not "helping me out", they are simply "doing." If a 13 y/o can grasp that, then I don't see why a 26 y/o shouldn't be able to.

My DS pays £500 a month to cover utilities and food. We are both adults and its more like a house share now. He shows no signs of moving out, does his own washing and will cook too.
He also saves a considerable amount and has joined the work pension.
Just because I am his parent I don't see why I should subsidise his living expenses.