What's fair rent for working children living at home?

liney

KxMx wrote: »

Hey it's fine to decide what proportion of her wages get handed over in keep, but is it really any of your business what she does with the rest of the money?

If she is adult enough to work and pay her way at home, she's adult enough not to be dictated to regarding what to do with her money.

I pay "keep" which my Mum sets the rate, and after that it's naff all to do with her what I do with the rest of my money.

I don't mean this to be personal because shockingly I have seen lots of MSE parents enforcing what offspring do with their money beyond "keep"... shame on the parents and shame on the offspring for putting up with it!

Then 'she' is also old enough to pay the market rate instead of a token gesture. If you want to be treated like a fully fledged grown up you pay a proper share, not the board that Mom sets.

Parents who 'interfere' are often subsidising their children so that they can save and buy, not so they can have the worlds largest shoe collection!

KxMx

Maybe "she" does pay market rate, but thinks quite rightly her money, her business and not mummy's, what she does with the rest of it.

You can't treat adult offspring as responsible with one hand (paying keep/rent/whatever you like to call it) and like a kid with the other (dictating what they should do with the rest).

Some parents reallyneed to get snipping at those apron strings! Having had to forcefully sever some myself with my own parent it is quite easy for me to recognise patterns of behaviour. A parent always has justification for interfering, but that justification is not always valid to anyone but themselves.

And perhaps if there is a bad attitude towards money (hence you must spend x and save y) parents might want to look and see where they got it from/learned it.

Person_one

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

If they were on JSA they should hand the whole lot over bar about a fiver a week for their bus-fares.

Parents who believe that they should support their children free of charge to live at home until Doomsday are storing up terrible problems for themselves and unwittingly giving their children a most unfortunate sense of entitlement. In my opinion that's not the best way to raise children into become self-reliant and responsible adults. Infantilising them would be doing them no favours whatsoever.

The millionaires among us can do as they wish.

There are many of us who disprove your theory.

rebeccatom

My mum always worked on 25% of income for rent which i thought was fair. then food on top so £225.

It will get her used to parting with the money so when she leaves home she doesn't get into a mess with rent and budgeting (hopefully)

HKitten

I haven't read all the replies but to respond to the general gist of things: when I was working and living at home, my mum asked for 10% of what I earned.

It doesn't sound like much - for my first job I was earning £900 a month as well - but it did mean I saved a LOT of money each month and when I moved out with my equally savvy ex-boyfriend, we had a deposit for a house after a year of being together with our combined savings.

It didn't work out (house fell through, then we split up, etc etc) but I was nearly a homeowner at 21. There's no way I could have afforded that if I'd been paying a significant chunk of my wages in rent.

I'd rather set my kids up with a headstart on savings than worry about market rates. If you can give them a good financial start, along with some common sense about spending and saving, then that's pretty valuable. Especially if you don't actually need the money they pay as rent.

And to the OP - if you don't think she'll do it voluntarily, you could always tell her you'll charge her a smaller rate, but only if she sets up a direct debit to a savings account for immediately after she gets paid each month. A savings account without a card maybe lol