What is a reasonable amount?

RobertoMoir

Emmajane1987 wrote: »

I understand that you need to teach your daughter the value of money and that it is going to cost you more to have her in the house then at Uni but i think the 1/3 of her wages is stupid. Can you imagine that your daughter will probably be on £18,000 if she is lucky straight of uni which is about £1100 a month after tax out of that £350+ rent to you, £350 + into savings that leaves her with just over £350 for herself which she will have to pay out for her student loan back, travel expenses. If you daughter wants to buy a house one day she is going to want to save more then £350 a month otherwise she will never ever move out. Also she won't beable to afford to go on holiday (i know a luxery) but she is young and experience the world as well. Also pay any car expenses or mobile phone charges. I think 1/3 wages is extreme.

I wish I knew where to live for £350 a month all in these days. I paid about £400 a month all in when I was living at home just after finishing my studies, which is about 20 years ago now. And frankly, I was getting a bargain.

I do agree that talking about thirds of this and that might not be helpful, as has been mentioned, the daughter's salary is her own business, not the OP's, just as the maintenance payments from her father are the OP's business, not the daughter's.

Instead how about the OP figuring out how much it would actually cost and showing her daughter that as the starting point for negotiation on a "fair" rent, making it clear that having an agreement and sticking to it is a pre-requisite to living at home...

Or of course just announce that the rent for living at home will be whatever, the ground rules are whatever and the daughter can either take it or leave it. This is what my parents did with my brother and I, though they did try and keep things relevant to what we all could afford (e.g. they didn't charge us anything we couldn't afford to pay but at the same time if the cost of running the house went up so did the cost of staying there).

jellyhead

OrkneyStar wrote: »

My mum did (for both my sister and me)- she had to to afford to live.

My brother paid for things when he was at uni - not rent but he paid for anything that my parents wouldn't not have had to pay for if he had not been living there. So, he didn't help much financially but at least he wasn't a drain. He upgraded their TV and got cable for them etc. and often did shopping, cooking, housework etc.

When kids are at school and college there's still child benefit, and tax credits for some families. the teen also gets EMA in some families. I think all of that stops when they go to uni. My mum didn't get child benefit any more, and she and dad were both working - so once the child benefit stopped it made sense that instead of mum adding weekend work to her job my brother paid for his food out of his student grant instead. Otherwise his grant, which was nearly as much as dole money at the time, would have just been for entertainment for himself.

A single parent would have to pay an extra 25% council tax I think too. There are situations where parents are financially worse off when an adult child lives these, and the government says you need X amount to bring up a child, so if for example a family's income was low so they were getting tax credits and child benefit while the child was under 18 then those costs wouldn't simply end once the child turned 18.

fabforty

This seems to be one lesson she is not willing to learn so far, but I am trying to force her to. She has debt collectors calling me here and sending letters for unpaid bills and overdrafts - yet she refuses to contact them and sort it out. She is driving me mad with her irresponsibility - I'm not paying them for her as it teaches her nothing. She is working and should be able to pay the debts off - but won't tell them when she is getting paid, and so they keep calling!


This seems to be one lesson she is not willing to learn so far, but I am trying to force her to. She has debt collectors calling me here and sending letters for unpaid bills and overdrafts - yet she refuses to contact them and sort it out. She is driving me mad with her irresponsibility - I'm not paying them for her as it teaches her nothing. She is working and should be able to pay the debts off - but won't tell them when she is getting paid, and so they keep calling!


I would give her a week to contact her debtors. If she doesn't, then tell her that the next time that they call you wil give them the information that they need to get in touch with her-i.e. mobile number, current address, employment details etc. Unless she want's them hounding her at work or bombarding her with calls to her mobile, she will have to pull her finger out.

As for calculating how much rent she should pay, the one third rule seems fair, at least as a starting point. I know that at least one other poster disagrees but remember if you do apply the one third rule, your daughter actually keeps/has the benefit of her whole salary and not just one third of it as suggested. One third pays for her room and board, one third she retains to spend as she wishes (like pocket money) and the final third is saved for her future. It's not stupid - seems pretty sensible to me. The ability to save a third of your salary towards a deposit on a house or a car etc is not a right, it's a luxury that many people can't afford. Likewise, so is being in a position to pay for a roof over your head plus bills and still having two thirds of your salary left over to save and/or spend on non-essentials.

fabforty

kelloggs36 wrote: »

...............................................................

Emmajane1987 wrote: »

I understand that you need to teach your daughter the value of money and that it is going to cost you more to have her in the house then at Uni but i think the 1/3 of her wages is stupid. Can you imagine that your daughter will probably be on £18,000 if she is lucky straight of uni which is about £1100 a month after tax out of that £350+ rent to you, £350 + into savings that leaves her with just over £350 for herself which she will have to pay out for her student loan back, travel expenses. If you daughter wants to buy a house one day she is going to want to save more then £350 a month otherwise she will never ever move out. Also she won't beable to afford to go on holiday (i know a luxery) but she is young and experience the world as well. Also pay any car expenses or mobile phone charges. I think 1/3 wages is extreme.

No, she gets £1100 for herself, or at least she gets the benefit of it. £350+ pays towards her board and keep (the food, electricity, gas, etc that she consumes cost money), £350+ she can save to spend on her future and £350+ can basically be spent on whatever she chooses. A holiday is a luxury, so is a mobile phone, and a car. Many people on this forum (in fact many people in the real world) live pay day to pay day - i.e. they pay their bills, rent, buy food, childcare and have little if anything left - certainly not two thirds of their salary.

Savvy_Sue

ceridwen wrote: »

EDIT: Surely no parent would even think of charging their child any "keep" if they were still at College/University would they????? Please dont anyone make me even more depressed about human behaviour than I already am - by saying that they would...

OrkneyStar wrote: »

My mum did (for both my sister and me)- she had to to afford to live. At the time my sister got a grant and could sign on in the summer. By the time I was at Uni I got a small grant, a small student loan (in my final year), and worked in Boots. By the time I went to Uni my dad had died also so funds were not great in our household. Why is it odd to expect a student to pay their way at home any more than away ?

And I've read posts by someone else whose parents did, to the extent that that poster couldn't AFFORD to go home at Christmas and Easter, and TBH I wasn't clear whether the parents were charging because they NEEDED the money, or on some matter of principle.

BTW, ceridwen, I've been intrigued by your comments which seem to suggest that if an adult daughter still living at home gets pregnant, she should be shown the door pronto. You may share the tabloid illusion that all a single pregnant woman has to do to get a council house is present at the local housing office, but the reality is far removed. I don't have daughters, and my sons have been told that it is DEATH to get a girl pregnant out of wedlock , but it's hardly the baby's fault and I personally would be prepared to make serious sacrifices to give a grandchild a half decent start in life.

Mind you the happy (!) couple would still be paying me rent out of whatever benefits they were entitled to if they wanted to bring up bubba chez moi. And I might well charge for babysitting too!

JoolzS

To kelloggs36: Have you considered simply telling her that you don't want her to move back home? It appears from your posts that she is unappreciative, and causes disruption to your household. No parent is obliged to let their adult children live in their (the parents') home once they are adults.

Unless I've misread something (very possible), then I believe you have five months or so before she is intending to return home. I would suggest informing her right now that unless she is willing to pay X-amount per week rent, sort out the creditors, and obey the family rules (mainly that you are in charge and not her) while she is living there then she is simply not welcome as a full-time tenant - although always welcome as a visitor. As others have suggested, she could go and live with her grandmother.

Julie