Rent for teenager living at home?

andrewf75

£200 sounds right to me

Lgas

Mojisola wrote: »

Why do you wish they had saved your money and not that you'd saved your own money?

Well obviously I wish I had saved money too but i've always been useless with money, it's taken me until the age of 30 to sort my own finances out so it might have taught me the value of saving! I do have my own house now but putting money in savings wasn't really a focus in my house growing up, so i've always spent it as fast as i've earnt it. My 2 older brothers are exactly the same!

StuC75

Id look for it more to be the bills that he is responsible for generating..

I.e. if he moved out tomorrow your gas \ elec \ council tax and mortgage would still be largely the same.

Id never want to directly profit from my children paying board.. would rather introduce them to the thought of budgeting and what it costs to run the house. and discuss what they think should be paying.

At 19 I would probably let them decide there own eating habits, and if such a conflict of tastes would say that they buy there own.

Some people do it where if they are just trying to teach the children about budgeting and how it would cost more elsewhere, that they unknown to the child put an amount of that into savings to give back when the move or buy somewhere - rather than directly 'benefitting' from 'teaching' there child that lesson..

Lgas

StuC75 wrote: »

Some people do it where if they are just trying to teach the children about budgeting and how it would cost more elsewhere, that they unknown to the child put an amount of that into savings to give back when the move or buy somewhere - rather than directly 'benefitting' from 'teaching' there child that lesson..

That's what Stebiz above does ^

Idiophreak

StuC75 wrote: »

I.e. if he moved out tomorrow your gas \ elec \ council tax and mortgage would still be largely the same.

Tough one...OP said they'd downsize the minute they left...So the bills might actually reduce significantly...

bluep

I'd charge him £300 and explain that part of it was helping with the bills and part of it was going in a savings account so that there would be a pot of money towards a deposit when he decides to move out to rent or buy. £700 per month is a fair amount for a 19 year old with not many other bills to live on and if he stays another couple of years then even if you just put £100 or £150 aside a month, he'd have £2,000-£4,000. I'd have felt that was reasonable if my parents did that when I was 19.

Mrs_Soup

If he is saving off his own bat then 200 sounds fine but if he is just frittering away the remainder perhaps go for the higher figure and save some of it on his behalf. You could also set a target for them and yourselves- eg we will be moving to a smaller proerty in say 5 years time so by then you will need to be able to find your own place. If you say that now it gives plenty of notice for him to plan accordingly. My children are young yet but I don't think I'd be keen for them to move out promptly at 18 but then I would hope they are not still with me at 30.

Savannah02K

We used to do thirds - third of any wages earned for housekeeping, third for spends on whatever they wanted, and the remaining third was saved on their behalf with regular reports on how much they'd got saved up. Helped them to focus on what they were saving up for (car, holiday etc). One of our three would spend their saved third every year on a couple of good holidays the other two saved for cars and then towards house deposit.

penguingirl

I think £200 sounds reasonable. Obviously it would be wonderful if parents could give their child somewhere to live rent-free, but in some cases (such as the OP) it sounds like they are occurring significant costs (having a bigger house etc) in doing so and aren't in the lucky position to be able to just write those costs off. I also think that £1000 is quite a lot to earn without living costs- and essentially is all beer/fun money which would annoy me if I was working hard to pay the mortgage and bills!

I know a few people have suggested secretly saving rent for their children, but personally (as someone in the 20s still) I think this is an awful idea. I don't think it teaches anything about the value of money or saving, instead it teaches that Mum and Dad will continue to think about your finances more than you do and will help you out. I'd have no problem with parents giving their child a choice of paying rent or saving (and insisting that they do!), but I strongly believe that young adults should be encouraged to select their own financial products and understand how hard saving actually is.

vaio

Yep, I'd go for £200 a month and put it up £50 every month until the big gers get the hint and move out