What is a reasonable amount?

pinkshoes

I only lived at home for 3 months after finishing uni (I had a job lined up 150 miles away), and my parents didn't ask for any rent as I didn't have any money (only JSA), but... the list of chores was endless!

Why not agree to her £80 a month, but on top of that, she has to cook 50% of the meals, and split ALL chores 50/50, including taking it in turns to pay for the food shop. Make sure all the responsibilities are listed...

If she's as lazy as I think she is, she'll probably volunteer to pay a LOT more rather than have to help out that much!

Holiday or not, I was always expected to do my fair share of chores if I stayed at my parents house, and I think that was quite fair!

Kimitatsu

Kellogs

I cant get my head around your mother feeling that you should give the money to your daughter :eek::eek: Its not her money, its not your daughters money - its yours for all the years you scrimped and saved and put up with no support at all.

I think your solution is to say to your mother that you would like your daughter to live with her for a few weeks whilst she is on "holiday" as she wont listen to you, and let matters take their course. grandma will suddenly realise what a little madam daughter is being and daughter may just get a wake up call!!

Emmajane - you have £550 a month to spend on Christmas presents and holiday fiunds a year? Thats £6,500 a year on luxuries sorry but you will have a shock when you move out of home as you will find that money has to go on bills.

kelloggs36

Wow! What a lot of responses - thanks a lot guys. Just for the record as some of you have asked, she is still at uni and will be there for the next 5 months, but then she will (possibly!!) come home in May - her announcement. Obviously she can't plan ahead for real figures as she hasn't got a job yet and may (hopefully not) have to claim JSA, but even then she doesn't get to keep it all!

I like the 1/3 idea - especially for her saving another 1/3 and then she can waste the rest as she feels she wants to! It will be an interesting time when she comes home but I will only allow her to if we have come to an agreement - she isn't going to be allowed to move back in with a view to sorting it later - as I know that it will never happen. I will keep you posted as things develop.

chloe99_2

Ceridwen, I dont understand why you think a parent "should" only charge their child the actual cost of living at home.

I personally dont think the lessons learnt by children paying rent are financial. Frankly the rent paid to parents is usually peanuts compared with the real world. The lessons are to do with mutual cooperation, respect, responsibility etc. Most teens paying rent to parents would like to consider themsxelves to be young adults and not children - and young adults need to be making a full contribution to society, not being molly coddled and wasting all their money on alcopops and makeup as it they were 12 years old (when it might have been sweets and comics instead)..

McKneff

neneromanova wrote: »

£60 a MONTH?!?! Can I come stay at yours? :rotfl:

I agree with what you say in a way, but only £60 a month doesn't teach them anything apart from to stay at home for a lot longer than they should. lol.

:pJust looked back on here today and re post 22 , and of course, the £60 a month should read £60 a week. doh:o

ceridwen

chloe99 wrote: »

Ceridwen, I dont understand why you think a parent "should" only charge their child the actual cost of living at home.

Well - its obvious to me anyrate that one does not "make a profit" from ones own relatives these days - particularly if they are ones own children. I assume everyone thinks like that these days - I thought they did....

Presumably you would go on from what you have said to think in terms of if a parent was charging their child say £80 per week for their keep - but the actual cost was £60 for instance - then that surplus £20 would be put to one side by the parent as savings for that child when they buy their own home? I presume you wouldnt expect the parent to be making an income of say £20 per week from their own child?:eek:

Does anyone still think like that?

Glen0000

ceridwen wrote: »

Presumably you would go on from what you have said to think in terms of if a parent was charging their child say £80 per week for their keep - but the actual cost was £60 for instance - then that surplus £20 would be put to one side by the parent as savings for that child when they set up home on their own? I presume you wouldnt expect the parent to be making an income of say £20 per week from their own child?:eek:

Why on earth not? £20 a week does certainly not compensate for the lack of privacy that having another adult under your roof brings. We are talking about parents and children, but these "children" are adults and should be making their own way in life.

We want our lives back at some point. Why is that wrong???

Also why on earth would an adult want to stay at home longer than they have to? Having sex with your girlfriend is no fun with mum in the next room!

thorsoak

The easiest way we found to work out how much our children should give us for board & lodging was to add all the bills up (taking out mortgage), divide by 6 - parents + 4 children ... and ask for that amount - showing exactly how it was arrived at!

We excluded the mortgage because at the end of the day we were the ones who would benefit from it - didn't expect kids to pay that - but it was a fair way of working things out. There were a few mutters about X's mum & dad didn't take anything, Y's mum took £15, Z's dad wouldn't take anything, but expected all the housework done ....etc etc etc.

Years down the line, they all say that although they didn't appreciate it at the time, it was a fair grounding on what things would cost as they started up on their own.

jamtart6

a lot of my friends parents have "charged" them rent and then kept it in savings for them so they have to stump up the money so they dont get a shockk when they move out, but also they have a nice lump sum for a house deposit.

discat11

neneromanova wrote: »

Sound a bit like my ex but he is 28/29, only child, lives at home, and has everything washed, cooked, cleaned for him and doesn't pay ANYTHING to his parents. He has a 40 inch TV in his bedroom! He's even looking to buy a £35k car!

Oh and I have his child which he has decided he doesn't want to see or pay for.

sounds like an ideal candidate for the csa to play with!