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

I could never live at home and not give my parents money, they could refuse to accept cash but then I'd just go and take the council tax bill, electricity bill etc and pay it myself.

My son pays £200 per month and we have just started asking him to also fill the freezer once in the month as well so probably another £30/40. I cook him a meal every night he is at home and his gf is normally staying over twice a week. He sorts his own breakfasts/lunches.
He is in his final months as an apprentice electrician and makes around £1800 per month.

Absolutely do this. It’s lovely she is still living with you as young people are struggling so much to establish themselves nowadays and she is saving a huge amount of money by being with you. Rent is insane at the moment.

She won’t want you guys to struggle by letting her still live with you. She is 26. She is old enough for the situation to be fair for everyone.

@Hungryfrogs23 @SpaceRaiders I always cringe at comments like this. I can only think you must assume everyone is on a high wage like yourself. £200 per month is incredibly cheap where can you live for that? Even £50 a week in groceries as a single person isn't that much.... that doesn't even factor in OP is providing hot water, electric, gas and council tax.
Common curtesy works both ways, I would help my parents and be happy to pay £400 a month. It would still leave OPs dd plenty to save for a house and go out too.

OP, think you should be honest and tell your daughter that you're struggling financially and would need an extra £100 from x month.

Re. laundry, could you have a rota, or ask her if she'd like to add her clothes when doing your laundry? I'd stop the ironing altogether!

I paid £200 20 years ago and I was on £15000 per year at the time. My mum did the washing but only because of cost of doing separate loads. I did however do the family ironing and had my meals cooked however did cook for them as well and try and make my own meals.

I'm charging nothing while ds is studying or training full time. My plan if he's living at home and working FT is to take a deep breath and charge him market rate for a room in a house share, which round here might be about £350. And no laundry services.

My rationale there is that I would probably need to rent the room out if I were struggling. Adult children are supposed to contribute. Tbh they should want to.

Also I would lise my council tax single person discount if he were working, which is a big chunk.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I wish I didn't have to charge at all but physically cannot afford not to.
I think I am going to have to have the chat about increasing the rent. It will make such a difference to us.
She has a lot of savings already. Which is good, as that will help with buying a property eventually.

I really don’t agree with charging children to live at home however if you must it should only be to cover the extra costs that are incurred by them living there. Your mortgage/rent, council tax and insurances don’t change so she shouldn’t be contributing to those however extra costs incurred with gas and electric and food should be covered by her but I have a feeling it won’t be more than £200 per month.

So really the question is are you looking for your child to subsidise you?

@Newshoess Cringe away, I’m not ashamed to go against the grain here. Op asked for an opinion and I gave mine. No judgement at all on my part at all. And no, I don’t consider myself well off yet, i’m a single parent! In fact, I will happily pay various bits and pieces health and dental cover well into adulthood.

Yes it is reasonable to charge more, 200 a calander month is 46 a week, that is not very much. Prefer to call it house keeping and not rent as it is her home, but she is an adult and working earning a salary and is no longer a dependant child, so should pay to cover her living costs. And since she is benefitting from living at home she should be saving for her future. I paid house keeping when I was working and still at home, as I ate food, used gas and electricity and the phone. You should not be out of pocket.

You would have to pay for these even if they weren’t there.

For many that isn't true, they could or would get a smaller home and have cheaper bills and rent themselves

I really don’t agree with charging children to live at home

But they are not children. They are adults. If they continue living in a weird parent child dependency they can never grow.

It should be their home, but home when you are an adult costs money. Ultimately older children (SN/ND aside) are only staying with parents because they can't afford to move out. Better to housewares and be treated as adults, than live by parents rules.

This is true for me. Not just single council tax discount but water/heating water especially, dishwasher, washing machine, heating and especially food would be significantly cheaper without other people living with me.

If you're struggling she should definitely pay more - even £300 a month would only work out as £75 a week! Ds (20) is home from university and is struggling to get any holiday work atm eg 4 days last week, 2 this week. I am asking him for £30 a week aa he is paying rent for his university house. We are on universal credit and he eats a lot!

I work in a warehouse part-time on slightly more than minimum wage. A full time worker would earn £440 a week. If your daughter was earning even this salary after paying tax, ni pension etc I imagine she would still be left with a sizeable amount - and an extra £25 a week would still leave her able to save a lot a month.

I'd love to be able to do that but it's a struggle to pay the bills, food etc for me, dh and dd3 (15) so another person would sink us. Obviously I don't want to make a profit on my ds (20) but I can't afford to subsidise him. My older 2 dc are both married and own their own homes. They do give me help when necessary.

There is always cars work available

This thread goes a long way towards explaining why so many of these young adults fail to make a relationship work when they move in with a Bf / Gf .

They are completely spoilt by all these years of having live in staff who wash, iron , clean and cook for them while expecting minimal or no contribution to the work and costs of running a home.

They are poorly prepared for the teamwork and mutual responsibility of adult partnerships.

Oh fgs, I paid more than that to live at home in the year 2000 when I was only 21.....I paid the going rate and more than the other lodger as I had the larger room... But my mum needed the money..
Put it up!! Why would you think you should provide for a 26 year old who earns more than you?!?!

Seriously, what you actually charge is up to you and depends on so many factors like what you can afford and how much you want her to stay and is no one's business... Find the number that feels right..

Might be a bit “outing” but here goes. I live in an large extended three bed ex council house - now with four bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs. I asked my neighbours what their bills are (we are friends) and subtracted that amount from my own. That extra was split between my adult children. They pay £200/ month each. One doesn’t eat “my” food, due to shift patterns. The other has food provided and pays an extra £50/ month for food.

I should add that my kids do their own laundry, and washing up. And if they eat what I cook, that’s fine. But if they want food at other times, they make their own. They paid for their own driving licences, cars and phone bills.

Sorry but it’s Board & lodging not rent & for £50 a week she should be ,
Definitely doing her own damn laundry, cleaning her room, taking a turn at cooking the evening meal, making her own breakfast & lunch, paying for her own Toiletries, Cosmetics, phone, travel & incidentals.
she should also be paying a fair share of Electric/Gas, internet, water, etc.

£50 a week is nothing & probably doesn’t even cover the groceries for the food she eats, And if you’re paying rent she should be paying a portion of that too.
Double it, £100 a week is far more appropriate, she’s an adult & should be paying her way, you’re spoiling her & teaching her to be entitled And making sure she Never learns the real cost of living & how to pull her own weight.
allowing working adult children to live with you for next to nothing is a mistake , even if you can afford to support them financially, you shouldn’t.

I would just feel very wrong charging them to live in their own home, irrespective of age

this always gets trotted out in these threads and I genuinely don’t understand it. It’s ‘my own home’ too and I still have to pay to live here?

at 26 and earning more than me, I’d be going 50/50 on all bills and buying our own food. Also 50/50 on rent of renting, or a token amount if I owned.