Mum's moved in with us - paying her board?

missbiggles1

heuchera wrote: »

MSE can see the 'edit post' history..

I was trolled in a similar way a few weeks ago (by another person!)

Sometimes one posts in haste and thinks better of it, rather as Suki has done by deleting the post you quoted.:D

Pollycat

Jagraf wrote: »

If mum has the money and that's going to help the situation, is there really a problem? Of course not, it could be the difference between two very different outcomes.

Something the OP posted makes me wonder if her Mum is as happy to pay as the OP might have expected when this was first mooted:

BabyButton wrote: »

It WAS discussed!

Mum just seems to have forgot that fact and is busy counting all her pennies!

We just didn't agree what she should pay, but a little help goes a long way to paying bigger bills!

TBagpuss

I don't think that there is a single right or wrong answer.

Ideally, you want a situation where no-one feels taken advantage of: You don't want to reach a point where you or your husband feel resentful because you are struggling to make ends meet, you don't want your mum to feel that she is simply a 'cash cow'.

I would suggest that you work out the bills (not any mortgage) and split that evenly.
Work out the food bill and split that - depending on the ages of your childrren, it may be appropriate to count them as half (if they are young) so if you have two small children, didide the grocery bill by 4 (you, your husband, you mum, and the children counting as 1 person)
So mum would pay 1/5 of the utility bills and 1/4 of the normal grocery bills.

That will probably mean that the amount she pays is a bit more than the extra costs of her being there, so you and your husband are better off, but a lot less than it would cost her to live alone, so she is better off.
You all benefit from the economies of scale invcolved in splitting costs.

I do not think it would be unreasonable to charge her a n element of rent also. After all, you presumably have less space, a a little less freedom in terms of your use of the house than you had before. Again, you can agree on a figure which is lower than the market rate for renting a room, but which gives you and your family a little finacial help.

Also discuss and agree on how you will split household tasks.

Presumably when she was living with your dad, your mum was doing her own housekeeping or splitting this with your dad. It would be reasonable for her to do a fiar share now.

I haven't had a parent living with me, but I spent some time living with my paretns as an adult, as I moved jobs and it took a while for my house to sell so I could buy in the area I'd moved to.

We divided up tasks. How you do it depends on what works for all of you - for instance, if you hate ironing and your mum doesn't like washing dishes, you maight have an agreement that she does most of the ironing and you do most of the washing up. It's likely to be reasonable for you to deal with cleaning your own and your kids rooms, and for her to do hers, but to share the job of keeping coomon areas clean and tidy, perhaps with you nad your hsuband doing mosts of this as you/your children probably create more to be cleaned up.

You might want to have an agreement that your mum cooks for eveyone once or twice a week, if all of you are eating together. You might also want to discuss with her whether any of you want to build in options for time apart.

A good deal depends on what you all wanted to achieve byu your mum moving in - I would probably approach things a little differently if this is intended as a shot term measure while your mum finds her feet before finding her own, independent accommodation, or if it is intended to be a permanent / long term arrangement.

Fianlly, although it may sem strange to do so within the family, it is worth consiering having a written agreement so that it is clear to all of you how / if the arrangments can be brought to an end, and what happens if they are. This is particualrly importnat if your mum does start to contribute finacially, so that there is no confusion over whether any payments might start to give her a fiancial claim on the hosue (bear in mind, this might become relevant if she ever has to go into a nursing home, or if there are other family members who might be entitled to a share of her estate on her heath, so it's not about (or not just about) reducing the risk of disputes between you and her in the future.

duchy

My partner's Mum was widowed last year at 86 .
She lives alone (very local) .
She and her husband had a very traditional set up - He handled literally all of the finances - I don't think she had ever written a cheque or paid a bill .

She has such a poor handle on money that she insists she needs to not buy this or that or needs to economize on the other because she's worried about money. The reality is there are thousands in the bank and she owns her own home and there are pensions and even if she went nuts spending money she'd be hard pressed to get rid of it all no matter how hard she tried before she dies but she feels she needs to "count her pennies" as the OP put it.

I'm wondering if the OP's Mum is also financially inexperienced and if that is part of the issue . The getting her bus pass for her resonated =and perhaps she is daunted with the money and paperwork side of things and actually has no idea about what bills come to or what is considered normal financially- because she's never had to think about it before so things we consider as normal just don't occur to her.

suki1964

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Sometimes one posts in haste and thinks better of it, rather as Suki has done by deleting the post you quoted.:D

I haven't deleted any posts

Never have done

mumps

duchy wrote: »

My partner's Mum was widowed last year at 86 .
She lives alone (very local) .
She and her husband had a very traditional set up - He handled literally all of the finances - I don't think she had ever written a cheque or paid a bill .

She has such a poor handle on money that she insists she needs to not buy this or that or needs to economize on the other because she's worried about money. The reality is there are thousands in the bank and she owns her own home and there are pensions and even if she went nuts spending money she'd be hard pressed to get rid of it all no matter how hard she tried before she dies but she feels she needs to "count her pennies" as the OP put it.

I'm wondering if the OP's Mum is also financially inexperienced and if that is part of the issue . The getting her bus pass for her resonated =and perhaps she is daunted with the money and paperwork side of things and actually has no idea about what bills come to or what is considered normal financially- because she's never had to think about it before so things we consider as normal just don't occur to her.

Your partner's mum sounds just like my aunt, in fact I would wonder if it was her if it wasn't for the fact my aunt never had children. So frustrating when you know they could be making life easier and more enjoyable for themselves. An example was between Christmas and New Year she was out shopping, it was raining heavily so she decided to get a taxi home, £4, and told me she would have to "economise" elsewhere to make up the money. She has a SRP of £180 a week, a works pension and half of his pension, a six figure sum invested and a lovely £400k house. £4 is nothing but she makes it a big deal.

Pollycat

suki1964 wrote: »

I haven't deleted any posts

Never have done

I think sometimes if you quote a post that is then deleted, your post is also deleted.

I believe that's how it works if MSE delete a post.
I contacted them once to ask why my post had been deleted and that's the answer they gave me.

I know for a fact that one poster deleted a post on a thread and my post which had quoted hers disappeared too.

engineer_amy

my parents currently have all four grandparents living with them in various states of disability. It was a case of "its either move them all in or put them all in nursing homes", and the decision was made that it was easier, financially, emotionally and even from the point of view of the time taken to go visiting, to have them move in. Carers visit a couple of times a day to help out.


Heating costs ballooned as the heating is on nearly 24/7, however food costs didn't really increase so much as they all eat relatively little, and they buy some food themselves.


Mum and dad would never dream of asking them to contribute financially as the only income is state pensions (work pension for one), although the grandparents will force the odd £20 for shopping into their hands, or if they have been taken to the doctors, petrol money will be given, almost like a taxi service.
The grannies help out with the household chores as much as they are able.


Mainly, for my parents, its the peace of mind that the grandparents are being well looked after, they can keep an eye on their well being and medications and still spend time with them.

Jagraf

Pollycat wrote: »

Something the OP posted makes me wonder if her Mum is as happy to pay as the OP might have expected when this was first mooted:

Maybe the op just needs some financial help - the alternative is for her mum to pay for her own accommodation and to leave.

She may have assumed her mum would help but hasnt, I would have assumed too.

Jagraf

engineer_amy wrote: »

my parents currently have all four grandparents living with them in various states of disability. It was a case of "its either move them all in or put them all in nursing homes", and the decision was made that it was easier, financially, emotionally and even from the point of view of the time taken to go visiting, to have them move in. Carers visit a couple of times a day to help out.


Heating costs ballooned as the heating is on nearly 24/7, however food costs didn't really increase so much as they all eat relatively little, and they buy some food themselves.


Mum and dad would never dream of asking them to contribute financially as the only income is state pensions (work pension for one), although the grandparents will force the odd £20 for shopping into their hands, or if they have been taken to the doctors, petrol money will be given, almost like a taxi service.
The grannies help out with the household chores as much as they are able.


Mainly, for my parents, its the peace of mind that the grandparents are being well looked after, they can keep an eye on their well being and medications and still spend time with them.

Do your mum and dad get carers allowance for them? I don't think the op's mum is disabled.