How much board would you charge a 17 year old?

hm71_2

what i did as my children got older and got jobs etc i took all the bills and divided them by 5, so in my childrens case they paid £25 per week. But this was food, inc. It seemed to work out well for us and the young un will have £45 left a week

jellyhead

iammumtoone wrote: »

I would maybe take the amount he gets for income support as this is given to him for living expensives (any you are providing this for him) the money he earns I think it is fair that as he has earnt it, he gets to keep that. Unless of course you charge your son board from any money he earns then take the same amount.

No, I don't charge my son board but I get child benefit for my son, and I wouldn't take his wages, not while he is at school. I would love to be in a position to not need to charge the other boy, but I'm not. My son has stopped gym membership and my youngest has had to stop trumpet lessons and karate because of the extra costs involved.

He can be fed relatively cheaply, but he didn't have any changes of clothes. He's bigger than my son, but smaller than my husband.

RAS

Have you asked if Social Service can give him any sort of grant to help with things like clothing?

Has he considered trying somewhere like freegle for clothing and stuff?

iammumtoone

If you charged him the amount he receives from his income support would this be enough to cover his expenses?

Treevo

Go through the CSA to get financial support from his parents. That won't affect his university financial support.

CH27

Is there a reason the parents are providing any financial support?

msb5262

herand wrote: »

Zero. However the 17 year old should be buying their own food, clothing, toiletries, furniture, household goods etc all you should provide is a place to live, and household bills like gas, electricity etc.

Do you really think a 17 year old at school should be doing this? To me it sounds all wrong!

pollypenny

herand wrote: »

Zero. However the 17 year old should be buying their own food, clothing, toiletries, furniture, household goods etc all you should provide is a place to live, and household bills like gas, electricity etc.

Silly, flippant answer.

It would be foolish for one person in a household of five to buy food and cook separately. It would cost more!

Most meals cooked for a family will stretch to one extra. It's things like cereal and milk which will go faster. Although, two 17 year old lads could demolish a pantry in no time.

No real answers, jelly head. But lots of admiration for you for taking him in.

Dunroamin

j.e.j. wrote: »

I must admit I don't like the idea of 'charging' your offspring (or in this case a 17 year old you've decided to support) to live at home. But I realise I'm in the minority here, and a lot of people on this board think it's good to see an older teenager as an extra source of (needed?) income.

Income Support is the lowest amount the government says a person needs to live on. I am surprised he can get it if he's living with a family, rather than independently?

What does his £71 a week have to cover? If he's expected to have to buy his own clothes, etc, then you need to take that into account. If you really must charge him, make it a nominal amount, or suggest to him that he puts some into savings.

He gets IS to enable him to pay for food, tilities and keep generally, not for spending money.

I think £50 is quite a reasonable amount to charge, but certainly no less than £40. Very few people can feed themselves on less than £20/25 per week and utilities can rise dramatically when a teenager joins the household. When our teenage foster son left home, our utiities went down enormously and the food bill halved.

megan01

Hey OP. I've just noticed that you later mentioned that his father took all of his wages from him. This will have been a form of abuse to him and soul destroying.

If you do want to take money from him for whatever reason, I suggest sitting down with him, and rather than in a strict authoritative tone (not saying that you would), gently explain to him why you want to take money for him, explain a little about your situation yourselves, and show him how much things cost a month, and as someone previously suggested, split all bills equally and show him how much his portion costs. I would then suggest telling him that you won't be able to support him through university, and show him some information on here (I'm sure there must be something somewhere) about what costs to expect at uni, what he might be entitled to, and that it might be sensible to start saving some of his wages each month if he can. This will save problems from occurring in the future I should imagine..

Just my 2 cents