How much board should I be paying?

thorsoak

silvercar wrote: »

But the running costs of the house are decided by the parents in the choice they made when buying/ renting the prbperty eg we have an older property and therefore our utility bills may be higher than the average, to expect our returning graduate to pay one third of the gas bill - when we have chosen the property would be unfair. Also if one child moves out that increases the share of the bills from one fifth to one quarter say - is that fair?

Of course, as each one moved out of the family home, the costs went down.

thorsoak

poet123 wrote: »

Really? When my eldest left home I didn't notice a reduction of anything like that and he was permanently plugged in to something!!;)

Pre- or post- mobile phone era? In the land-line only era, my phone bill was horrendous when I had teenagers ....had to resort to a phone lock at one stage!!

poet123

thorsoak wrote: »

Pre- or post- mobile phone era? In the land-line only era, my phone bill was horrendous when I had teenagers ....had to resort to a phone lock at one stage!!

Post...the landline only ever rings for us now!!

[Deleted User]

Dunroamin wrote: »

In my experience (having been in this situation with a teenager in the past) buying your own food doesn't include buying all the basics that mum and dad just happen to have hanging around the kitchen freely available, neither do all toiletries include things like loo roll, washing and washing up stuff etc.

When ours left home our utility bills (which admittedly included the phone) went down by about £40 a week, which, with the above extras, wouldn't be covered by the OP at the moment.

£160 of basics a month for one person? I'm sorry but I think that's slightly far fetched, my Mum spends that on her whole food shop a week including those products that I know.

SmlSave

£160 of basics a month for one person? I'm sorry but I think that's slightly far fetched, my Mum spends that on her whole food shop a week including those products that I know.

£160 a week on groceries!!!!! OMG that's crazy, we're a family of 3 and spend £200 a month and food drink nappies cleaning stuff etc.

[Deleted User]

SmlSave wrote: »

£160 a week on groceries!!!!! OMG that's crazy, we're a family of 3 and spend £200 a month and food drink nappies cleaning stuff etc.

Sorry I meant £40 a week probably should have mentioned that, £160 a week would be crazy!

Soleil_lune

thorsoak wrote: »

Pre- or post- mobile phone era? In the land-line only era, my phone bill was horrendous when I had teenagers ....had to resort to a phone lock at one stage!!

WOW! :eek: BLAST-FROM-THE-PAST alert!

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2439/3902981587_270ca8daf5.jpg

I literally had erased those from my memory: or rather they were deep in it... very deep. Your post (and my pic) took me back to 1983 when my mother used one to stop me ringing my boyfriend and talking for hours on end.

The one quarter was 3 to 4 times more than normal! (About £65-£70 for the quarter instead of about £20.) She went mental. I did pay my parents some back though, out of my paper round. When I had paid about £20 back, my dad said I didn't have to pay any more.

Still, after that; that was when my mother put the phone lock on, and supervised my calls for good few months!

mumps

Person_one wrote: »

Social housing was never really going to be an option for me. I'm single, able-bodied, working, no children and not in danger of becoming homeless. There are thousands of people (rightly) ahead of me priority wise, and not enough to go around.

I'm actually a big fan of social housing, but there isn't nearly enough of it, and what there is tends to be in areas with more than share of social problems around here. (Salford/Manchester).

In some parts of the country social housing is almost impossible to get. Where I live I am told people in your position wouldn't stand a chance of getting social housing.

Soleil_lune

SmlSave wrote: »

£160 a week on groceries!!!!! OMG that's crazy, we're a family of 3 and spend £200 a month and food drink nappies cleaning stuff etc.

£200 a month on a family of three for ALL regular shopping? - like £47 a week on EVERYthing? Food, nappies, detergents, alcohol, baby food (unless you breast-feed) cleaning stuff, all groceries? Where do you shop? 1989?

mumps

poet123 wrote: »

Really? When my eldest left home I didn't notice a reduction of anything like that and he was permanently plugged in to something!!;)

When my youngest went off to uni I was expecting the gas/electric/water/phone standing orders to go down. They didn't, admittedly prices were going up, at the end of the year w e hadn't paid enough so I am sure mine didn't use anything like that amount. In fact if you look at six of us in the house, me OH and 4 kids, that would be £240 per week pro rata. :eek: