Money Moral Dilemma: How much board should I charge?

freddy27

MSE_Archna wrote: »

This is a real life MMD so please bear in mind the MoneySaver in question will read your responses:

Please give this MoneySaver the benefit of your advice...

How much board should I charge?

My partner’s daughter is 18 and has just started a full time job. She was at uni part-time before that and my partner gave her £30 per week, plus paid for expenses such as mobile, clothes and gym. She’s now earning over £200 a week and we’ve asked her to pay £30 a week towards board, so she can learn the value of money. She thinks it isn’t fair and says she’ll only pay £20. Should we make her pay up?

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If she is now earning £200 a week, possibly after tax? She is getting £175 + in her bank/hand. She should be paying for board and keep at the very least £75 per week. In the same position myself, my parents took out of my £130 per week £70. I must admit I resented this but paid up under pressure, I did not want to move out. When I married 6 years later. Dad & Mum presented me with a Building Society Savings book with £16000 entered therein. Boy did this help with our first home.

tallgirld

It's difficult for me to comment. When I lived at home I used to pay £40 a MONTH. I made a HUGE fuss about it, used the youngest child argument (as usual) and it got reduced to £20 a month as I was doing my mother's head in!!

When I left home it was an awful shock to have to pay rent EVERY MONTH, council tax, gas, electricity, phone bill etc etc. Only then did I realise that I was basically taking the mick when I lived at home :-)

I totally understand why your partners child would think you are being unfair as that is EXACTLY how I felt.

dave2

£30 sounds reasonable to me! I expect she's arrived at the £20 figure by basically taking something off what you asked for, so if you'd said £50 she'd probably have said £35! Maybe I'm cynical, or maybe this is just how kids try to negotiate with their parents. Sounds like the kind of think I'd have done as a kid.

If she's huffy show her how much just the bills are costing. I bet £30 barely leaves anything after her share of just the food.

Personally I'd have been thinking of charging quite a bit more, but putting some into a secret fund to hand over for a deposit on her first rental.

MDE

freddy27 wrote: »

If she is now earning £200 a week, possibly after tax? She is getting £175 + in her bank/hand. She should be paying for board and keep at the very least £75 per week. In the same position myself, my parents took out of my £130 per week £70. I must admit I resented this but paid up under pressure, I did not want to move out. When I married 6 years later. Dad & Mum presented me with a Building Society Savings book with £16000 entered therein. Boy did this help with our first home.

A lot of people have used the argument of the parents helping children (regardless of age) learn to budget and manage money etc.
Tell me how having a parent take money off you and invest it in a bank account that you knew nothing off helped you become experienced at managing your money? Isn't this just parents doing the thinking for you? What happens when your boiler breaks, car gearbox fails, roof starts leaking? Do we hope our parents will appear with an account book with savings in it that they had put aside for us because we'd been too short sighted to do so?

Compingirl

this is a great thread by the way and very interesting. Ive had this conversation with my eldest son who is keen to leave school at 16 and we have discussed how much board he will pay once he is in FT employment.

Of a suggested wage of £800 pm we agreed £150 as a fair amount board, plus £100 savings towards future cars and holidays. He was shocked that once he leaves FT education I won't be giving him spending money, paying his phone contract, bus fares or sports fees!

OH and me agree that we would like to put all or some of this board money into a secret saving account to give him as a house deposit etc when he finally leaves home

Out of interest, i used to pay £100 board pm 24 years ago - my salary was about £400 pm. My mum used this money to fund major purchases - ie new carpets/beds.

I left home at 16 then soon moved back once i realised how expensive everything was and I was fed up of eating beans!

Marty999

I had to give my parents one-third of my take-home pay and will expect our kids to do the same!

minicooper272

I agree with most of these posts - £30 is a fantastic deal. My sister pays £240 a month to live at home and still saves a fortune on what she paid for rent, council tax, food and bills in her own flat. As a good alternative, my friends mum arranged that my friend pay 25% of her wages each month towards the household bills. This worked well because in the months she had to work less she paid less. You could arrange something like this instead but definitely don't lower your original offer. If you do, then agree to the £20 a month but tell her she must contribute 1/3 to the bills when they come in, or pay towards food.

mrbigd

My daughter's are 15 and 12 and both will go into further education, upto which point as long as they are helping themselves with a job, my Wife and I will help them.

Since my Daughter turned 13, she has been given half the family allowance, she also walks 2 dogs a day which earns her £10 a week. Out of this money she has to buy all her clothes/shoes/make-up etc except anything to do with school.

She asked for this situation and loves having this freedom, whilst also learning a lot about budgeting.

When she wanted a more expensive phone, she paid the additional amount out of her weekly budget.

The 12 year old has requested the same when she turns 13 but as with the older one, we have said she needs to also get a paper round or something similiar.

No matter what financial position I am in when they go out to work then I most certainly would still take something off them for bills.

It's certainly not about the money it's about continueing to teach them about real life, nothing is free, you need to pay your way.

I think a fair way is take the basic bills, Utilities/Sky/Council Tax/food and divide this total by the number of people in your house.

This works out just under £43 a month at the moment for my household.

I think the OP asking for £30 a week is very fair.

Anyone not taking house keeping money from their kids, in my opinion is not helping them to understand the real world!

Gavin83

To everyone who states it should be a percentage of their take home pay, how do you know how much your child earns?

I think you have to balance it up really. Having your child at home won't really cost much more presuming they buy their own food. Therefore having them at home is actually quite a good way to earn a little extra. Charging them a large amount will only cause them to leave, so if your already struggling with money you could find yourself a lot worse off once they go.

I think £30 is fair, I wouldn't really see charging more than this as reasonable though. I really don't buy the whole 'it helps them in the future' stance.

MDE

Gavin83 wrote: »

Therefore having them at home is actually quite a good way to earn a little extra.

So, profiteering from your children then? :mad: