Rent/house keeping

[Bushwoolie]

My eldest is just starting work and will bring home approx 1600p/m (take home)

I have always said that once any of the kids are earning, they should pay "keep". This isn't a post asking whether people believe it's right or not. I know it generally divides the masses.

I am just asking those who do charge their adult children, how much do you charge?

He has other outgoings he'll be taking over from me. Car payment/insurance (335) and phone bill (38). I have been paying those the last year (phone longer).
He will be putting 300 into an ISA each month and 200 into a regular savings account to cover any large expenses (if the car breaks down etc).

My aim is to put half of what he pays to one side and gift that to him when he moves out. The remaining will probably just go towards our food shop 😂

Thanks!

My DD is 20 and brings him around £1500 and we take £125 from her. She's currently paying for driving lessons and saving for a car.

This conversation cropped up in our wider family recently and it seemed that most people who were charging rent/keep were charging between 20-30% of their monthly wage. As he’s putting a lot into savings I would go for the 20% personally.

I earned £1,000 p/m and my mother wanted £350 p/m household contribution, so I moved into a bedsit for £300 p/m!

My dd24 has moved back home after 6 years . She takes home £1800 a month and we charge her £200 a month , that includes everything though occasionally she buys herself lunch stuff . She said she has £3k of debt and is saving to go and work abroad , I haven’t asked her how much she is saving it’s not my business , she’s an adult .

When my sister and I started work, my parents rule was that a third of our monthly pay check went to them for housekeeping. That covered all our food, bills, toiletries etc.

Then we were supposed to save a third and spend the last third on “fun”. Clothes, CDs, going out etc.

That helped us get in the mind set that rent or a mortgage would likely be the biggest bill we’d have to budget for, when we left home.

Some of the children mentioned above are going to be in for a big shock when they finally have a home of their own and realise how great a percentage of their take-home pay actually needs to be spent on the roof over their heads!

I am from an era where a third was paid, as that's how mortgages used to go. A third morgage/rent, a third to save and the rest to enjoy. Sounds like a good chap tho, already saving, kudos.

My son is 18, in an apprenticeship and earns ~£1650 per month.
He pays £30 p/w 'dig money', which just about covers the Tesco shop for his lunches.

His outgoings are few; driving lessons, dig money and £70 p/w to savings.
Once he's driving, he will be responsible for paying for his car, fuel & insurance.
He is still free to eat anything from the kitchen as normal but he often buys his own stuff form Tesco or the odd takeaway.

He got his first wage to do what he wanted with. Second wage and onwards it was digs and savings.

Ds21 is a third year apprentice. Earns good money with lots of overtime. Also works with his dad at weekends. Has a work van, his own car and an enviable social life. He gives me €50 a week towards food, bills etc. I don’t particularly like taking it but he’s 21. If he moves out he’ll pay a hell of a lot more than that and without his washing done and a dinner handed to him.

That sounds sensible and fair.

My son has started his first job and I am going to ask for £250 per month. But for this he will get his laundry done, his meals, his phone, and we have a takeaway once a week. I consider that is reasonable since he will be having a lift to and from work too.

OP encouraging your son to save that amount is brilliant. I know some people are saying let him enjoy it, it’s a lot - no! Have him used to saving it and not seeing it as fun money, as this will set him up a lot better later in life getting into good habits now. My parents did the same with me (I’m 38 now) but I’ve always had the mentality to save and I’m in a comfortable position because of the approach my parents took. I was charged £200pm and my dad also made me (strongly encouraged me) start putting into a pension from 18. It wasn’t much - but 20 years later I’ve certainly noticed the difference and am incredibly greatful for their advice.

We charge £400 a month. When we started doing it was about a third of his income (with the notional idea he would spend a third and save a third). It hasn't gone up as his salary has increased though. For comparison, that's about half of what it would cost him to rent a room in a shared house and pay for all his food.

From the time I left school (1960s) my parents treated me like an ATM. The attitude was to get a job, any job, and pay for my "keep". Any aspiration for improving my lifestyle was looked at with suspicion. Wanting something better than your forebears was disrespecting them and not "knowing your place". Many working class people felt like that in those days. I began in the civil service and the amount I gave my mother for my keep would have no relevence now. I resented every pound because it went straight onto the back of my sister, their golden princess. I changed jobs and was earning 25% more in local government as an antisocial hours bonus, I never informed my parents. I was paid by bank transfer and from then onwards they did not know what I earned. I had all my correspondance sent to an accommodation address. If you are grabby with your adult kids then you will live to regret it. They will pay you back in kind.

I started work 30 years ago and earned a little over £500, I gave my mum £100 a month housekeeping.

i moved out, but when I moved back I paid £100 plus a share of the council tax and food shopping. Also, being the only driver in the house, I actually took her to do the food shop rather than her struggling to do it on her pushbike.

HTH xxx

Our DS earns about £27k per year. We get £150 per month which when we sat down recently and did a total of the household costs (excluding mortgage and ins) and divided by the number of adults was pretty much the right figure. He manages lots of holidays, he owns a nice car and he has a big deposit saved for a house already (His girlfriend cant match him which is causing delays).

His sister has just started an apprentice which is a higher income but we cant justify taking more than £150 off her as she is still technically in education and also younger. So she is going to have a quite astonishing spare income per month.

As long as they are both saving towards their futures i am happy that £150 is enough to make a contribution whilst not impacting their ability to make future decisions. I believe strongly that they should contribute something.

I earned £1,000 p/m and my mother wanted £350 p/m household contribution, so I moved into a bedsit for £300 p/m!

So that wasn't far off the third people are mentioning. Do you think she planned to save it for you and hand some back eventually? I suppose the bedsit gave you freedom and independence but you'd have bills like food on top of that and maybe less family home conveniences.

We worked out what his share of the joint costs were (3 adults in the house, so a third of the water, gas, electric, broadband) plus an amount to cover joint food/drink. We review it every year and he takes the annual increase very well lol. When energy prices went bonkers for a while, he paid a bit extra, especially as he was working from home a lot at that time and his computer seems to use a lot of electricity!

He doesn't spend much on socialising and is saving quite a bit for a future deposit, but quite honestly the rest of his spending/saving is nothing to do with us 😜

I tried to type something and it just didn't work. I hate technology. I will try again.🙈

I used to pay my parents £200pcm at aged 18 (nearly 25 years ago) as "keep" as did my 2 siblings. 🏠

Every month on payday I would buy mum flowers and either a bottle of wine or chocs to say thank-you 💐
We would take it in turns every week to drive her to the big supermarket for the weekly shop (mum didn't drive) 🚗

Then we would have to pay for our own car, insurance, phone bill etc.
My dad was a big proponet of the "50/30/20 rule" for budgeting, which has served me in good stead 💰

Edited to add. I honestly think charging £400 keep pcm to live at home is reasonable if they are earning £1600 pcm.
That quarter of their income (25%) includes housing, electricity, gas, water and council tax.
That's extremely cheap, it can enable them to save and is still a lot less than if they lived in a house share, etc.

My 19yo earns approx £21k and pays a nominal £100pm - which covers the loss of single adult council tax and a contribution towards utilities.
He also shops for his own food and cooks himself. Both of us will pick up things like milk which we both use. He also buys his own toiletries, other than loo roll.

Ours pay £250 a month each, food and toiletries I buy with the grocery shopping are included but the pay for their own phones, etc. Of course they don't pay anything when they're studying or not working. I'm being kinder than my Mum, she took half my wages every month when I started work!

I don't think £300/mth into an ISA is anywhere near enough. He'll have the luxury of not paying market-rate rents, and should absolutely take advantage of this by saving as much as possible into an ISA. Interest rates are coming down, so he may want to put half into ISA, and the other half into Stocks & Shares ISA. But either way, he could be saving an absolute minimum of £500mth into ISA's, and still do the £200/mth regular saver.

I don't know why people are saying he should 'enjoy his salary', that's exactly the type of irresponsible attitude which leaves adult children still living at home into their 30's and even 40's, as what happened with my siblings. I, on the other hand, saved like crazy, and bought my first car in cash at 24, along with my first house at the same age.

When I was a teenager working I paid one third of the total household costs. So if you must charge rent that's a starting point. I also obviously paid for all my own expenses.
I didn't charge my DC anything, nor did I need to do that "charge and save" thing for them because I taught them about financial management and they saved and invested for themselves.

Just read the comments on 1/3rd of take home. I could honestly go part time if i took that money off my children. Must resist the temptation :-)

Agreed. Mine opened a Sipp, a s&s ISA and bought a house at 24. The years before you have a mortgage / family are the best to save for the future.

Our DD paid 250€ a month in the life phase where she was earning a qualified adult salary and before moving out. That probably only covered her share of bills and food without genuinely contributing to "rent" in all honesty. She was earning a bit over 2k€ a month take-home and running a car.
Her commute from home was really long and tiring so we helped her move out by paying her rental deposit and other moving expenses and buying her quite a few things for her flat. It wasn't a literal case of saving her contribution and returning it, but what we spent helping her set up in her first flat was at least as much as she'd paid as board (even though, as I said, her board money probably in reality didn't cover much more than her food and share of gas and electric and other bills).
She pays 900€ per month rent including some bills (water/ sewage and the equivalent of council tax for rubbish collection etc and service charges are included) and about 100€ for the rest of the bills now, plus her own food obviously - although she also earns a bit more. She was definitely getting a bargain at home - where we live the absolute cheapest room in a house of multiple occupation or student houseshare is 350€ and those are rare as hens teeth and not places anyone would choose to live (loud, cold, run down ) - regular "nice" rooms in house or flat shares are 500-600€ a month.