Adult daughter expecting us to lend money

BitterAndTwisted

Treevo wrote: »

Why do you think it's wrong for the daughter to run a car but not her parents who are on less money?

I'd be interested to know what you consider more realistic 'keep' than her share of the household bills? Should she be paying more than her share? Maybe she should be paying all the bills in your mind?

I didn't say I thought it was wrong for her to run a car, just that I was surprised that she could expect to be able to afford to on such a modest salary. But what do I know? I'm in my fifties and I've never had one but from friends' experience they can be a money-pit if you're not careful.

A fair amount of keep is whatever her parents decide it should be, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a strict percentage and I have no problem with the idea that hers should be a slightly higher amount when she earns two grand a year more than her parents do combined. My own parents decided that a third of my take-home pay was what I should pay, so I did. I had no idea at the time what their costs were to run a home. Although I had a better idea a bit later when I moved out and had to support myself in a grotty bed-sit. Living at home in retrospect seemed like living in the lap of luxury.

silvercar

I'd be interested to know what you consider more realistic 'keep' than her share of the household bills? Should she be paying more than her share?

Seems to me there are 3 options for what she should pay:
1) nothing - your (adult) child is always welcome to live in the family home
2) one fifth of the household bills plus possibly a contribution to the rent if things are tight
3) the extra it costs by having her living at home - extra spent on food, electricity plus bit of gas and water (if metered).

silvercar

Daughter earns £13,000 a year. We earn jointly £11,000.

Does that £11,000 include child benefit/ child tax credit/ any council tax benefit/ housing benefit?

ajgrist

silvercar wrote: »

Does that £11,000 include child benefit/ child tax credit/ any council tax benefit/ housing benefit?

No it doesn't. But we don't get any council/ housing benefit.

Spendless

ajgrist wrote: »

I can assure you we are not making a profit out of our daughter, she pays a fair amount for the money she earns. We are comfortable with the money we earn, we have little debt and we can afford to do the things we want. We holiday every year and run a car. We budget carefully with the money we have.

That's the question I was going to ask you, I thought you'd be good at budgeting with the incomes you were on. I see you've offerred to help your daughter organise her finances and she refuses, could you make this conditional - 'after we've sat down and worked out a budget I will go and buy your bus pass and you can pay it back pay-day' so she has no choice but to comply? Not an ideal suggestion when it's Sunday evening -I realise-lol.

rising_from_the_ashes

I think a chat is def needed - if she's only recently been used to getting a wage and is not managing to cope between paydays already, then the danger is that it's a habit that sticks .... longer term disasterous for when she eventually gets her own place.

She is on a decent wage for her age and while I can imagine how tempting it must be to spend it all & buy nice things - she also needs to make it last.

Do an SOA with her and see how much she has left once everything is paid (incl all car stuff, board etc)

Suggest this is divided up into envelopes - there will be an amount for clothes on the SOA so this goes into one, entertainment another etc etc - that's what she has to spend for the month on those things or she takes the surplus (and maybe tries to save a little!) and divides it up into the number of weeks until next payday - and that's what she can spend that week. HTH

I'd offer the bus pass - it lets her get to work and that's all that matters!

tesuhoha

If you are managing well on your present income, you have the luxury of deciding how much you think she should pay, rather than how much you need her to pay. Therefore, you could be generous (as you seem to be) and just encourage her to be careful with her money. If you tell her this month is the last month then stick to it next month and remind her of what you said.

FATBALLZ

ajgrist wrote: »

Both me and my husband work, we get the usual tax credits, child benefit etc. the figures given for household bills are a very rough guide, we only used rent, gas/electric, phone/tv/internet, food, water, insurance and council tax and didvided into 5. I have become an expert in budgeting and saving for the things we want.

Whilst I agree with your actions in terms of offering to buy the bus pass rather than petrol, and with the general sentiment that you need to show your daughter a bit of tough love, you seem to have been very disingenuous about your income, clearly you have a very significant income topup in the form of welfare, you say this is "usual", however for a lot of people, their wages are the money they live off and they don't get anything from the state. Clearly your income is much higher than your daughters.

ajgrist

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Whilst I agree with your actions in terms of offering to buy the bus pass rather than petrol, and with the general sentiment that you need to show your daughter a bit of tough love, you seem to have been very disingenuous about your income, clearly you have a very significant income topup in the form of welfare, you say this is "usual", however for a lot of people, their wages are the money they live off and they don't get anything from the state. Clearly your income is much higher than your daughters.

My income is irrelevant, the problem I have is my daughter expects me to sub her money if she runs out! We do get child tax credits and working tax credits but the money we earn is £11,000 combined. People do seem to be more concerned about how much we earn.

FATBALLZ

ajgrist wrote: »

My income is irrelevant, the problem I have is my daughter expects me to sub her money if she runs out! We do get child tax credits and working tax credits but the money we earn is £11,000 combined. People do seem to be more concerned about how much we earn.

I agree it's irrelevant, however despite this you mentioned it in the 3rd sentence of your OP. I don't know your motivation for posting it, but it could be interpreted as playing the sympathy card without fully disclosing the facts. It does get a bit frustrating when people post about being low income but neglecting to mention they get thousands in welfare payments