22 yr old contributing to bills

[zrorjaei]

My 22 year old daughter graduated from uni in 2024, she came home for 6 months and worked 2 jobs to save to go traveling which she did and got back in July. She has been looking for jobs since and we have supported her job search by not expecting her to contribute to anything. - we also did this before she went traveling. She now has a full time job. My husband and I disagree as the heather we should ask her to contribute towards bills. My husband thinks we shouldn’t and just let her save for when she leaves - she currently has a job locally but is wanting to move to London. I feel we should ask her to contribute something. We are lucky enough to be in a situation that we can afford for her not to contribute but I feel
it is part of a life lesson.

If you don’t actually need it, why not ask for a contribution, save it and then give it back once she moves out?

Is she likely to save money well while living with you, or fritter it away? If the latter then ask for say 25% of her income and save it to give back to her when she's ready to move.

Agree totally that working dc should be contributing. Mine pays £300 (I am saving £50 of this to give back when dc leaves)

Don’t do this, it’s infantilising.

Either ask her for a contribution and use it, or don’t ask her for a contribution but ask HER to save at least as much as you’d otherwise ask.

I agree with you it's good for her to contribute.

A good place to start is establishing what her share of the fixed costs is by totalling the utilities, council tax, insurance, broadband, food, etc and divide it by the number of people in the household.

Then either agree she should pay all or a percentage of it, I believe this is fairer than some arbitrary number. and will help her understand the cost of living.

When she moves out, she'll already be used to a realistic cost if living.

P.S. I wouldn't include the mortgage or rent, but I would tell her what her "share" would be.

Our eldest paid £250, which was a bargain as she got all her food including taking lunch from home. We didn't explicitly save it to give back, but when she moved nearer to work (the commute was way too long time wise to do indefinitely) we paid her rental deposit for her and bought her items like a vacuum cleaner and other one off items like a basic tool kit and first aid kit, as well as a cupboard basics "hamper" (herbs and spices, nice salt and pepper mills, oils, condiments, some dry goods starters like pasta and rice and a few jars and tins - the things you usually have in and don't buy all at once). We also hired a van and did the move with her. We probably paid out more to help her move out than she'd paid in board, even though her board barely covered her food and bills.

Private rent for a room near us (without food obviously) starts at around £350 a month if you're lucky and unfussy, but there's not much under £450.

Judging by other comments and reading MN in general seems to be a popular option.

We don’t ask for rent but have made it clear we expect the rent amount to be saved each month. I also expect to see this/have proof, if it’s not done then DC know they will have to pay directly to us.

I prefer to just let them save as no money is being passed to me then passed back. I have a feeling HMRC would see this as rent that needs to be taxed.

You can rent out a room in your own home and the income is tax free up to £7500 per year, so you wouldn't run into that issue unless you were charging at least market rent, or charging two or three adult -children an amount that came to over £625 a month in total.

Thanks @NotTheSameTwentyFourHoursdidnt know that :-)

My sibling is staying with me at the moment. He’s in his 30’s.
I have told him from day 1 that I expect him to pay rent. He has a job etc.

i was a single adult occupancy and so his arrival has impacted my council tax.
i take the increase in council tax out of his rent and have been putting the rest into a savings account.
when it’s time for him to move on, I’ll return his money to him so hopefully give him a boost. He doesn’t know this

Taking rent isn’t a bad thing. Profiting from family, IMO, is.

My 19yo dd is on her second year out, saving for uni and travelling, I still ask for a contribution towards housekeeping 🤷‍♀️

If you didn’t need it I would still take a contribution - possibly saved for something

has she offered ? If no the amount asked for would be higher than if she had

If she is actively saving money for the move to London then I wouldn’t ask for monthly contributions from her especially if you can afford not to. If she isn’t saving anything and just talking about wanting to move then I would be taking monthly contributions if she is showing no real intentions of moving out.

Realistically how many years would she have to save for a place in london? She will probably want some kind of quality of life, by being able to go , go on holidays, buy this n that. Are you happy for her to pay nothing for many years?

DD21 lives at home, works full time. She pays us £150 pm at moment but that was on her starting salary which is now almost doubled so it will be going up to £300 after Christmas . We don’t need it but we feel it’s an important life lesson. DD1 lives in London and pays £1k pm for a room. So DD2 is getting a good deal but we are also getting something for her keep. She is sensible and has a lifetime ISA and a stocks and shares ISA( she works in financial planning) and wants to move out in the next couple of years. She also runs her own car. We helped her buy the car( half) as she didn’t go to uni whereas DD1 did.

Agree. Say you won't ask provided she is saving.

I think as long as she's saving at least what rent and bills living independently would cost her, it's fine.

I suspect that this may be partly cultural (my parents are Indian) but I find the idea of asking children to pay towards living in their family home really weird. My sibling and I were not charged anything when we lived with our parents, and used the money to pay off student debt and save to buy homes. And it is so much harder for young people now, way more student debt, insane rents and massively increased house prices etc.

Unless you genuinely can’t afford the extra in bills, or you think she needs to be taught about money because she is overly frivolous, I would let her save and enjoy her life a little. Why make one’s children’s lives more difficult than they need to be? What have we made money for, if not to spend it on making sure those we love are as happy and life is as easy as possible?

I get what you’re saying but there is a middle ground of charging a small amount of rent.I have friends who do t charge anything and their chn are still living at home, squandering money in their 30s. When my mum out my rent up I decided I could move out and not pay much more plus have my independence

If the child was taking the piss by not working hard or putting anything away, then maybe I’d think about it. But I honestly can’t conceive of any other situation whereby I had money and still charged my child to live in the family home. As I said, life is way harder for children now than it was (in financial terms) so they need to save so much more and pay off so much more. I don’t want them to just live to work when the additional rent, however small, means nothing to me. I want them to have a fulfilling life. They can’t avoid “life lessons;” I see no reason to hammer them home where not needed.