What is a reasonable amount?

anguk

I used to pay my parents £10 a week over 25 years ago, my wage was only £25 and I had to pay £5 each week for a bus pass!

sp1987

I paid £225 a month for my shared student accomodation then approx £20 in bills on top of that per month. I dare say adding in the 25% extra council tax I'd cost my mother I would expect to pay circa £250 if I lived at home now? I moved out before I had even left uni so did not return home afterwards to see what I would be charged versus what I might offer, so a bit of a moot point. My share of the rent alone is over £300 currently. I'd hope mum would do free non-rental extras for me (ie, cooking, lol) if I were at home but I certainly would not want to cost her anything. At the moment I pay for a bill at home...but I guess it is an exchange on my part for some of my stuff still cluttering up a bedroom...that is £20 and I am not even there, lol. She has never asked me to continue paying it but it is one that has always come from my account.

I think your daughter needs a reality check. If she was going mad saving up her earnings and offering a bit more then maybe I would be more sympathetic but she is not. I would probably charge her what you need (if you think this is £150?) to sustain her plus a further amount that you (silently) save for her and return to her to pay off her debts/as a deposit for her first rental on her own when the time comes. If you took £250 you could be saving her £100 a month as it does not look like she is managing to keep money in a positive way.

Pitlanepiglet

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

DS1 is moving out after Christmas, to the other side of Bristol, he's only been paying me £200 per month including food since he came home from Uni this summer, so make me an offer! :rotfl::rotfl:

Funnily enough, in the near year I'm moving to lodge with a friend of mine who's daughter has finally flown the nest (mid 20's), I'll be paying less and I swear it's my friend's way of ensuring that boomerang girl can't come back again and if she does they've got a benchmark of a reasonable rent!

carolinosourus

princessleah_ wrote: »

Oh & my student loan repayment is £11.25 per month on an income of £1375 gross so that is a negligable(sp?) amount.

Really? I'm on a similar amount but my student loan repayments stand at around £78 per month! Mind you, when I was temping they stood at £2 per week, so I'd rather get it paid off sooner than later...

ceridwen

GobbledyGook wrote: »

I lived with my Grandparents and when I started work they done a calculation to show me how much I cost them. The did not expect to profit from me, but once I was working they did not expect me to cost them much, if anything.

Why not work out our household expenses, divide that by the number of people and show your daughter the figure. Don't forget things like extra sky boxes, extra electricity if she's unable to turn of a light (that was something my Nan charged me for lol) behind her etc.

That sounds about right to me - not forgetting that the Council Tax bill is static (so I wouldnt factor in anything for that - unless the household was a single person one if the adult child wasnt living there anymore - in which case the child would be expected to pay the 25% Single Person Reduction that wouldnt happen because they were living there).

I certainly wouldnt agree with charging a proportion of salary. I instantly calculated that - even at my low level of salary - that I would be no worse off living in a bedsit than living in my own parents house - and then duly move out into a bedsit. In fact thats precisely what my calculations were all those years ago - and I came to the conclusion that my parents were charging me so much that I would be no worse off moving out and duly moved out. I took the view that if someone was going to "profit" from my housing costs that I would rather it was an anonymous landlord than my own parents (as I didnt want to feel I was being badly treated by my own parents - whereas obviously a landlord would be doing this as his means of making a salary - so that would be fair in my mind).

So - in your position - I would charge the extra costs involved in having that extra person living there - no more no less. Unless of course she expected me to do any of her share of the housework - in which case I would charge her what a well-paid cleaner would expect per hour of that housework done for her:D (so she was paying me a salary for being her "skivvy") - not forgetting that I would expect enough "salary" to cover me for 5 weeks paid holiday a year and Bank Holidays....

The reason I would charge her a salary for me doing her housework would be to stop her passing it onto my shoulders in the first place - but, if she did, then I'd be thinking "right - you made me do 5 hours of your share of the housework this week = so thats £50 salary you will pay me for that".

atwitsend_2

I say stick to your guns! You are teaching a big life lesson that she will thank you for one day!

I know someone who has 4 children (eldest 30, 29, 25 and 20) and they charge them £20 a week each all in if they work fulltime, and that includes all food shopping, clothes ironed sat on your bed for when you get home from work each day!!) hot meals cooked, if not in then its sat in microwave ready to be warmed up! Each of the 'children' have left home at different times, lived in the real world and been home within a year each time, now they can't get rid of them! They know what side their bread is buttered on!

When I was 16, I left school to earn 17k a year, my parents don't have a mortgage on their house and didn't need my money, but my mum charged me £500 a month (her idea of getting me to budget). Despite this I was stupid with money and blew ridiculous amounts on alcohol, going out etc.
When I left home at 18 into my own place, she gave me a stash of cash, she had saved all the months 'rent' and gave it back to me to put towards the house, something I was totally not expecting. I remember feeling guilty as when she was taking the money off me, I just saw it as less spending money for myself

Kimitatsu

Kellogs

You know you are in the right and 1/3rd sounds reasonable - after all that way she will have paid her student loan out of it already if she is on 18k a year (full time).

Student accomodation with all the bells and whistles up here is £95 a week (not including food but includes a telephone internet cooking and washing facilities) so based on a take home of £1100 a month then she is still making a profit to my mind :cool:

Stick to your guns, as she does need to learn the lesson, otherwise she will be sorry later on. As for the bailiff, as Sue has said dont let them through the door, and as it is not her main residence they should not be able to take anything anyway unless they can prove that she has put stuff in your house to deliberately keep it out of their hands.

Ah the joys of children eh

Eagle_1

I dont think you can say Daughter should pay this or Daughter should pay that, dont you think you need to look at the situation as a whole ?
How much will she earn ? Does she have transport to pay for ? Does she have commitments which have to be met ?
Its ok people saying £80 is not enough but we dont know everything. How I see it is if my DD was at home with me and saving money for a deposit on house, saving so she could afford to go alone then id do everything I could to help her, so if that meant her giving me £80 then yeah im happy with that.

However, if she was on £200 a week and was blowing it on fags, booze, partying etc then obv im with the OP and she would pay a lot more.

Pigget

How is your daughter paying for her accomodation at Uni? From her student loan?

I'm living at home and I pay my mum £90 per week.

Not only because I want to because I cannot exist for free! But also, because it is teaching me an important lesson about life. When I leave home I won't have the sudden shock of losing £x amount from my income because I will be used to it.

zzzLazyDaisy

I haven't read the thread in full, but I just wanted to say it is normal to want to help your child, and difficult to stand by and watch when they get themselves into a mess, but you will be doing yourself no favours if you let her get away with dictating to you how it is going to be before she has even moved in, or if you bail her out with her debts.

With the benefit of hindsight, I'd tell her what you want for rent and exactly what the ground rules are, and make it clear that if this is not acceptable to her then you will be happy to help her find a house share somewhere else. Trust me, I am speaking from experience!

But I have to say I don't agree with taking a percentage of her wage - it will only lead to her being secretive about her salary, and really she is a young adult on a reasonable wage, so her salary isn't your concern. You simply need tp work out what YOU feel is a fair amount for lodgings and tell her it will be subject to annual review.

As a benchmark, my friend stayed with me for a few weeks while she was working this way, she gave me £50 a week, which included all bills and some of the basics like milk, coffee, bread, washpowder, toilet roll, cooking oil, and the occasional meal. But she also helped me a LOT around the house (I am disabled and pay £10 an hour for a carer to come in and help me, so that was a huge financial help to me).

She is on about £18,000 and also still had to pay the rent, CT etc on her flat while she was away from home - and she still thought she had a good deal.