How much rent to charge adult DC?

[Lentilcakes]

Both DC will be living at home from the start of July.
One works part time in a nice retail job / trying to launch career.
One will have finished uni and is applying for jobs. He has a lot of savings as he worked for a year prior to uni. He has a big appetite cos he’s a tall lad - eats about two times my food consumption. When he’s home the food bill skyrockets.
DD will buy ‘extra’ food for herself as she’s not always keen on my meals as we have very different tastes in food. DS will eat my dinners as he likes me cooking.
I agreed w DH that we’d charge nominal rent of £50pcm each as we do want them to save, but I think as adults they need to contribute to the household. Obviously they clear up after themselves, do laundry, keep their rooms and shower room clean etc - that goes without saying. If they start working f/t then we will increase the rent.
Does sound fair (they’re 22 and nearly 24)?

I’d say you’re still living there whether they move in or out - I’d only charge the difference in your bills (and I know food is a big one but realistically electric & gas won’t be hundreds extra between them). So it’ll be closer to £100pm each. It’s extremely low they won’t get anywhere else at that low price.
On 1 hand you chose to have children (hopefully not just with the caveat they’d move out at 18), and with the average first time buyer age becoming very high and it’s very difficult to buy a home now, they don’t really have a choice and can’t move unless spending their entire income on rent.
On the other hand, they are adults, and if renting would have to pay for everything themselves.
It’s a bit difficult as 1 is only part time so you’d be taking a larger % of their income. And the other has no income so giving you the £100pm will just be less savings for them until they run out.

@FunnySam- yes, I’ve thought of all that but DS has extensive savings - thousands. And DD just doubled £150 on getting a tattoo so I don’t feel ‘bad’ about asking them for the £50 each. The extra food and use of hot water/heating will be the main expense. We don’t heat their rooms in the winter (obviously),
ot got nothing to do with choosing to have them. They’re adults so need to pay their way a bit. We have been extremely generous to them / paying thousands in rent when they were at uni is one example. DD ended up being there for 5 years (long story!).

Don't take the money for yourselves. Get them to put it into a private pension. You can never do this too early.

DD will be contributing £200 once she finishes uni, but I’m a single parent so I guess it’s a little bit different. If everything goes well my plan is to save it for her and then give it back once she decides what she wants to do.

I’m originally from a culture where your children are never expected to contribute unless the family really, really struggles and frankly after being here for a long time I completely changed my mind. It’s the best way of preparing your young adults to the concept of bills and what it takes to run a household.

If the plan is them living at home to save for their own places I wouldn’t charge them any rent ideally, and encourage them to save as much as possible.

I think £50 PW is fair. This is what I charged my DS for many years and I paid for super fast internet and Sky cinema and Sport in his bedroom too. It allowed him to save really hard for deposit. After he left to move into his own house we moved to much smaller I ternet and cancelled his Sky to his room and with buying less food saved about £60 per week.

DS is 19yo and we have said £200 each month as he gets all his meals made, laundry done, Internet WiFi access, heating etc paid for by us.

He is currently working for an agency for part time work.

Food is costing us a fortune. They eat so much!!

I charge £250 each per month despite a massive difference in their salaries. They do cost me a lot in food etc.

Mine are in their 20s never charged them rent they are all saving for deposits. Will take a long time as property is so expensive. I can afford not to charge them rent at the moment but would if I needed to.

This! If you can afford it. My parents are mortgage free and they still charged me £350 per month! I’m tiny and I didn’t eat much at all… AND I’m an only child! their reasoning was ‘we paid for your education etc etc’??? I, personally wouldn’t charge my children rent if I could afford not to. I fully thought my dad was putting it in an ISA or savings for me but they in fact put it towards their holidays!

I think £100 is reasonable though x

If they are going to save then they are going to save, a couple of hundred per month isn’t going to stop them.

They agreed to £50 pcm and gave paid their first month. DD may be getting a full-time job soon and DS is already loaded so he’s fine with it (also just got his deposit back from his student house - which will help!!).

We take all the bills, divide it by the number of adults in the house and review it every April. This gives an insight into what you have to pay for, council tax, contents insurance etc and also encourages wise use of utilities.

There’s no “one size fits all”. I really believe that it depends on the child. I always believed that if you could afford it, you should allow them to stay rent free and allow them to save. This worked well with my sensible DCs who have since bought houses.

Until we got to my youngest DD who is in no rush to move out. She’s living the high life, blowing all her wages every month and living like a Queen while muggins here is still keeping her in her mid-20s. She won’t even find a proper full-time job because she’s more than happy with her £1000+ a month pocket money and no overheads. I’m tempted to start charging her the going rate for a house share (£600) and hope it gives her a kick up the arse.

And obviously the situation is different again for parents who can’t afford to keep them.

You should definitely start charging! Tbh I’m
Up for charging a small amount (really it’s just over a tenner a week) to the DC who aren’t working full time to give them a kick up the arse to get a job - plus they are here for most meals and using more electricity w lights on (like Blackpool illuminations) and cooking their snacks and mini meals. Probably cost me less if they were out of the house for 8 hours a day.
They have savings and £50 pcm is £600 pa so hardly a barrier to saving.

This is what I had, youngest daughter and boyfriend lounging around, him here every weekend. Charge her £400 per month she has loads of disposable income I was out of work for several months. Her dad bought and paid for her car, phone, holidays. She’s finally moved out and she’s getting a huge shock at the cost of things. Drove me crazy to at as the last nd trying to get her to even consider moving and she’s 28!!!!!!

£50 a month is too low if anything. They'd be paying hundreds elsewhere. People can save while renting, they also learn lessons about getting along with people, rent, utilities, budgeting. Its not easy but life isnt easy. I imagine theres a back story but the one working part time... sounds like a good deal if only contributing £50 month. If I were them and had a good set up/relationship at home, id stay and not increase my hours

its all relative to people’s affordability, we barely charges dc , but then husband left and left me on just my wage and in order to stay in a house so they have a room each and food costs ( they eat a lot, athletic boys) I now have to charge them £200 - original plan when dh was here wS £100 a month and we save it, but lifes not the same now and i have no choice but to charge them so we can stay and survive

I posted the same a while ago and was told if the grown up kids had an income then split it between the household.
Me and hubby were doing packed lunches and evening meal , err and washing drying etc... however from that post we did put the rent up a tad!

I’m going to charge mine a ridiculous amount if they want to live at home after uni so they find their own place to live asap. I’m loving my freedom now they’re gone a few months a year. I may consider returning it all to them once they move out

£50 a month is less than £2 a day, which is not even going to cover their food costs. I charge £200 a month and most months put £100 into savings for my DC which I will give to them when they move out to set up home.