Rent for working older children

[brooksghost]

For those who have older working teenagers, are you charging rent and if so, how much?
DD is 19 and has decided not to return to Uni for her second year. She is working 3 days a week and is earning approx £1000 a month.
We are currently paying for everything still (phone, food), doing her washing...she does nothing around the house. I'll add, she is very high functioning autistic so we are still relied upon a lot to help her function through daily life.
So, at what point do you start charging rent and getting them to pay for their own things like phones etc.
Thanks!

Don't know about rent but make her pay her phone bills and toiletries and social stuff.
Make her do housework.

Hopefully they will find their place in the world. Job interviews are really quite ableist. They don't even tell employers who the best person for the job is, only who can best bullshit under pressure!

I don't see why they have to pay money to you to do them favours, you're teaching them about putting money aside for the future. Even if they did pay you money it wouldn't teach them about all the different bills and how to pay them... One step at a time. These thigs take a little longer with autistic children/adults and that's ok.

I wouldnt take more than 10 percent. How are they spose to save and move out if they have to pay more than that.

This poster has explained their situation with 2 Autistic children, who may be adults but obviously needs are high, and you tell them to 'jog on'.

Deeply unpleasant and unnecessary.

I charge £200, DS seems happy with that, he earns well but runs a car which is expensive as first year insurance etc.

What a horrible reply, seriously. Do people think hiding behind a smart phone or other similar screen makes it okay to just speak to other forum users like that?

Don't leave @LauraNorda It's not your fault. We all have different family circumstances.

Anyway back to the OP and her situation...

I would suggest a quarter of your DD's salary is what you need to charge to keep her under your roof. I remember being charged this from DParents years ago when I worked full time.

@Vettrianofan

Thank you. My rather poorly worded response was meant to mean I wouldn't be engaging Kitkat1523 any further.

DSS is 27 and earns around £27k. He pays us £250 pm. He does his washing but we do everything else inc buying and cooking his food.

That's appalling.

I take 15%, and the other 85% goes on clothes/gigs/holidays/nights out/lashes/hair/taxis. I’m considering putting it up just so she has even less to fritter.

I'd charge at least 25% because the reality is that as adults we spend more than this percentage on keeping a house. It's a life lesson to learn to budget and spend within your means.

Why? Most single young people wouldn’t have £100 a month left over on UC. They’d be going to food banks. UC is paid by the taxpayer for living costs, not as pocket money.

We didn’t charge anything but they all saved a lot of their salaries for house deposits when they moved back after Uni. They all paid for their own mobiles, gym memberships, clothes and for specific toiletries they wanted.

It really does depend on the parents circumstances though, we always said we’d never charge ‘digs’ as long as they saved for a house deposit. My parents took so much of our wages my sister and I moved out at 18 and were better off sharing a flat than having to share a room and pay them £££, it was pure greed on my parents part. We were earning £900 and £800 back then and our parents were taking £600 each from us. We have friends who need to charge their children for many reasons, it’s a very individual thing in each family just don’t be greedy about it.

I could charge him less and he could pay for all his own groceries, toiletries etc. It would seem a little pointless to shop and cook separately. And probably less cost effective.
Or I could work out what 1/3 of the household bills are as he's 1/3 of the household. I reckon it would be more than £200!

OP I guess it also depends if your DD is saving? We’ve had my DD, late twenties, at home for two years as she’s been saving for a flat deposit.
she does have holidays, beauty products etc but she does save very diligently and has a good amount for her deposit, so moving out soon.
we have not charged her anything because of this but I guess if one of my DCs were working but didn’t have plans in this way, I’d charge around 20% of their take home pay and save it for them if I could .

Personally you should not charge a large rent. Maybe a token £100pcm. Younger people of her age are simply not on the same playing field as you had when you were her age. It is so much harder now, even if you do everything right and work hard go to uni etc.

Some autistic people are quite able to work. Some really aren't. Some can live on their own
Sone can't. What do you think the mother should do?

This is totally correct. Also her son is still getting quite a good deal for £200- all their food and bills paid.

You can’t say that without knowing the full situation. Maybe the OP is on a low income and can’t afford to subsidise her son?

Correct.

Anyway. DS has a job now. The first thing he said was "i can pay more rent now. I thought maybe £400 and we can put it up again if it's not enough"

There's a room for rent locally. £750 per month plus He'd have to buy food/washing stuff etc on top. So hes getting a very good deal in his opinion.

Nothing. It's their home, not a hotel.

DH is Spanish and parents charging 'rent' to their DC would be torn a new one by family there. It would be the talk of the town- and not in a good way.

Yet another way in which youngsters have it so hard in the UK compared to elsewhere.

No rent, assuming you own the house and are not paying rent yourselves, but a share of food and utilities. I'd work out what it actually costs to have her living at home, and then consider that relative to what she's making and able to save. If it seems like too much, then you can decide to reduce it but it's good to have the real cost as a starting point. If you're comfortably off and don't need the money, you might take the payment so she gets used to making it but quietly keep/invest the money for her and give it back when she moves out, goes back to school, etc.

A share of the household chores is an absolute must in my opinion, but mine have been doing that all along so it wouldn't change substantially because they became working adults. If she's never done anything, you can either have a conversation and assign her some or just stop doing things for her and leave her to it. Or charge her, as PPs suggested, and add it to the figure you came up with for regular expenses and let he know she can reduce the cost by doing her share.

It depends entirely on what each household earns and can afford to let their child/ren pay. If I could afford it, I’d charge him less but as it is, he pays £365 a month which includes his phone and Xbox. All food included and he buys his own clothes, toiletries etc. If I could afford to put that into savings for him, I would but I can’t. He manages to save around £250-300 a month aswell.

Its impossible to compare situations as incomes and individual home requirements are likely to vary so much.

I would 'charge' them 25 or 30% of their take home pay so they get an idea of what they will have to live on in the real world but would probably put most of that into some sort of savings account and give it to them for their deposit on a house.