Money Moral Dilemma: How much should we charge our daughter for living with us?

These threads have been done to death and always get the same types of responses again and again:

1. The "Pick a number out of thin air" response where someone specify's an amount they think is fair with no justification whatsoever - I think this is a poor way of doing it because you have no way of knowing how much this covers in relation to the actual bills/increase in bills based on the OP's circumstances.

2. The "Percentage of their wages response" which is usually suggested as a fairly high amount of around 25% - 33% - again this doesn't take into account of actual bills and at these percentages is likely to result in a profit for the parents.

3. The "Split bills by number of adults in household" or "Pay the extra costs" response - These are one of the most fair ways of doing it because you actually know exactly what they are covering and also shows your on top of your household budgeting which you can explain to your kids.

4. The "Don't charge them anything" response - With this one at least your not charging an arbitrary amount and if your well off and don't want to charge then there is nothing wrong with that. But this obviously doesn't apply to a lot of households and most people asking what they should charge are likely not looking for this answer.

5. The "Save some/all of the money they pay and give back for a house" response - This is one of the silliest ways to do it in my opinion. Whats the point in secretly saving money for them they aren't little children. If you don't want the money then teach them the importance of saving themselves and how to get the best interest rates. Secretly saving just shows you don't trust your children to handle money correctly and then you get the slightly twisted scenario at the end where you give them back all THEIR money and expect them to be grateful for it.


The most popular justification for them paying at least some money is that it teaches them some kind of lesson about living in the "real" world and teaches them they must pay bills. Now i can understand this to an extent but this is only relevant if you actually go through the household finances with them and explain what a house costs each month and what bills need to be paid. By the time they are 18 and out working they should understand this already. But them simply paying an amount each month is not teaching them anything useful.

Some people also talk about having a "shock" when moving out at the cost of living this definitely shows they didn't prepare properly before they moved out. The most valuable lesson that a parent can teach their children about money is how to budget properly. If your children know how to budget and plan ahead then they will never be "shocked" at the costs when moving out.

Although if your someone who also thinks that a child should pay their lodge/board by "Direct Debit" then you should definitely do a lot more reading up on personal finances before you teach your children anything....

clogmaker wrote: »

T£60-£80 per week, set up on direct debit is not unreasonable!

Pete998 wrote: »

Think your Daughter should, at the very least, pay £325 per calendar month so she has a fixed amount that she could pay by direct debit & budget for every month.

lesbro wrote: »

I charged my children half their earnings and put half of that into an endowmant policy that paid out when they were 21. By then they had both moved out and the money was appreciated.

A good old response number 2 with the added bonus of the " slightly twisted" appreciation of getting their own money back because they weren't trusted to save the money themselves .