Is it reasonable to ask an 18-year-old apprentice to contribute?

[ThatVividPinkOtter]

Whats your opinion on taking lodge off a 18 year old. My son has a apprenticeship and brings home between £300 - £400 a week. Initially I just said for him to cover the extra for the council tax but he wants to give £25, which im grateful for as my household income has dropped since he left college (im a single mum).

Im a bit p@@@ed off that a few people have said i shouldn't take anything off him. I only earn the minium wage and work full time.

Whats your views? Thank you 😊

£25 a week sounds very reasonable to me.

I think it's completely fair enough to expect another working adult to contribute towards council tax (if you've lost the sole adult discount) and food. Maybe a bit towards bills as well tbh.

It's not nothing to lose Child Benefit if you're on a low household income.

My eldest has left home now but he gave me £50 a week to account for increased council tax and my reduced benefits when he did an apprenticeship he still saved and ran a car. Saved enough for a house deposit.
My dc 2 and 3 will be staying home for uni and will help with the household costs (a sum to be decided) as they would have to budget for it living away.
Im ill health retired so have a small pension and get some disability benefits I won't be able to work ever so its either they contribute or I get a smaller home which isn't big enough for us all to live in.
I think some people dont realise that sometimes its necessary to do these things.
My dc are paying for their driving lessons at the moment (I cant afford £120 a week for two of them) but their friends parents are apparently aghast I'm not paying in an ideal world i would but in an ideal world i wouldn't have become disabled in my 30s with 3 primary aged dc. Needs must. My thoughts have always been I will not profit from them being home but I will need them to pay towards their share of council tax, gas, electric, water and food to make ends meet.
Your dc sounds very mature and obviously more understanding of your situation than some people you know.

That sounds very reasonable. If my kid was at home I wouldn’t charge her but that’s because I can afford not to! Also she would be very serious about saving as much as she could. My son would just spend it all so I’d ask him to contribute more and put it in savings account for him.

Dd started her apprenticeship at 16. We took £25 a week off her. I used it to help pay off her car loan but needed her to learn you have to pay for things.
She's 19 now, in her final year and finally on minimum wage for her age. We take £50 a week off her now, it goes towards things for the house and holidays but we tend to treat her more now she's contributing more.
In those 3 years she's learnt a lot about finance and budgeting and is managing fine.

Whatever you decide to do, I think it’s so lovely that he wants to contribute. You must be really proud of him.

I’d take the council tax change and food money, as food is really expensive these days.
£200 spending money a week is a huge amount, and many grown adults on here working full time have a lot less after all their bills are paid.
it’s really important to learn about being an adult and how much it costs as soon as possible.
congrats that your child has an apprenticeship

On your shoes, I'd say £50pw was reasonable. Lovely lad to offer.

I wouldn't hesitate to take keep money from my son. It teaches him responsibility for paying his bills when he leaves home.

Absolutely he should contribute.

Good on him wanting to give you something, although 100 pounds a month is very little if he earns bwn 1200 to 1600 a month. It a good idea for offspring to contribute, whether parents need it or not.

Back in the early eighties, my unemployment money was about £57 a fortnight. I got to keep £7 - the rest went on board, though I did have a huge argument with my dad at one point re the actual cost of me being there which led to me living basically on Spam for about three weeks to prove I was being over charged!
As others have said, it’s both good of him to recognise he needs to contribute - especially if your costs have gone up - and it’s the start of good practice in him realising what things cost.
it might be worth sitting down with him and running him through your budget, just to give him an idea of the reality of costs and actually how many there are. Otherwise the danger is he starts to think £300/ wk spending money is standard and he could be in for a real shock when he moves out.

I think he’s getting off lightly with £25 a week! I paid my parents £20 a week in 1982! I was earning a salary of £4,800 a year in 1982…I remember being super excited (and feeling very rich) when it went up to £5200, as I’d reached the ‘heady heights’ of £100 a week. At that point my parents asked for £25 a week so my raise was virtually wiped out 😬😂

Why are parents so afraid of asking their adult children to contribute to household costs?

OP…your son is earning a pretty decent amount of money…he should be contributing to your household properly now!

My DS got an apprenticeship at 16 and has paid £25pw board since he started This also covers his phone bill which is still in my name.

My DD turned 18 in July and has been working in a bar for the last 8 months - pretty much full time hours and earning about 2000 a month. I decided not to charge her for the first year so she could build a decent amount of savings (which she has - about 10k) . She is now off travelling tomorrow morning for 2 months and is paying for it herself (she is chatting to friends on the phone rather than doing any actual packing hence me being on MN!) .

I decided to start charging her when she’s back. I think it will be somewhere around 200 a month. I’m a single parent too OP and I know it’s the done thing on here for many to charge rent and put it to one side for when they move out but I actually really need the money and I think it’s fair enough!

I'd be taking more than £25 a week personally.
It's great that some families are wealthy enough to support working adult children but most working class families need all adults to contribute - that's normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. My Ds paid £50 a month in his first year of his apprenticeship, he’s in his second year now so he had a payrise and he now pays £200/ month. He also pays all his own car/ travel costs, lunches and snacks and saves every month. He’s still richer than me!

@Yikes101 yes this is my situation too. DD has WAY more disposable income than me!

I would charge more. Age is irrelevant. If he’s earning, then he should be contributing towards household expenses. £1,600 a month is a very good income when you’ve got no rent or bills!

If I was a millionaire I would not GIVE my children things. Rather I would give them the opportunity to earn them. Its a bloody tough world out there and the sooner the kids learn that there are no free lunches the better.

If buying a house didn't take up such a ridiculously large proportion of a salary I would agree but realistically for someone to save up for a deposit and then buy a house they need to be paying as little as possible in terms or rent/expenses etc whilst living at home and if as a parent I can enable that then I will. If my DS wasn't saving but splurging his money it would be different.

We always took money off ours if you need it or not isn’t the issue ( saved the majority of it for them but that was because we were in a position to do that they still don’t know that )
but we took only what they cost us never profited from them
your min wage and on your own tbh id be steering towards £40 just for council tax and food
but go through your budget with him

budgeting is a life skill

these people who take nothing off there kids do them no favours

DS is 16 and doing an apprenticeship, he earns £400+ per week and pays £60 pw digs. I put half of that away in savings for a car as he is useless at saving but I didn't tell him that until recently. So he contributes £30 but I still pay his phone bill and have to drive him to work every day.
I can afford not to take money from him but that teaches him absolutely nothing about real life!