Money Moral Dilemma: How much rent should I pay my parents?

VT82

Lily-Rose wrote: »

And who pray tell, are 'the rest of us.' Name all the others who are bored with people complaining about old dilemmas being reposted on here by admin.

Me for one. I'm a busy person with a full time job and a one year old child. I've got better things to do than read this board all day, but I allow myself the luxury of reading the one weekly Money Moral Dilemma, or at least the first couple of pages of responses to it.


Now those paged always clogged up with people saying 'this made up dilemma is scraping the barrel' etc., and now this week with people assuming that anyone who reads the MMD will already have read it in the forum, because they can't for a moment consider that other people might actually use the MSE website and the boards in a different way to them.


People really need to lighten up about the MMD.

annandale

I think it's a bit soon to repeat the thread to be honest. Shows a bit of a lack of imagination on mses part I think.

usernameisvalid

I shall say that two things have gone wrong here

1. It's been set in the email wrong. Sure say it's a mmd but only have the link to the original thread. Right now there's two threads

2. The op bowed out long ago so why is it being discussed now? If it had gone out the week the op started the thread it would make more sense and would possibly see different points of view

The Towers need to get in sync with what's happening here and now instead of trying to intice people here on a dead thread

Pollycat

VT82 wrote: »

Me for one. I'm a busy person with a full time job and a one year old child. I've got better things to do than read this board all day, but I allow myself the luxury of reading the one weekly Money Moral Dilemma, or at least the first couple of pages of responses to it.


Now those paged always clogged up with people saying 'this made up dilemma is scraping the barrel' etc., and now this week with people assuming that anyone who reads the MMD will already have read it in the forum, because they can't for a moment consider that other people might actually use the MSE website and the boards in a different way to them.


People really need to lighten up about the MMD.

Then do feel free to ignore those posts on the MMD that are 'whinging' about the fact that the real story has been edited down & that it has been done to death in the original thread.

happyinflorida

Being a parent myself I would not ask my kids to pay money if I could afford not to have them pay.

I believe in helping my kids to achieve their aims in life and to help them financially if I possibly can.

So my view is this - can this person's parents afford to run their home without any money from their daughter or not?

Or is the £50 the minimum amount that is needed?

I wouldn't ask my kids to pay anything if I could afford the bills without their paying anything and especially if one of them was saving up for something special like this.

As long as you are not wasting your money in any way like buying lots of clothes or expensive things that you don't really need then I cannot see a problem with paying nothing - as long as your parents are ok for money.

tgroom57

My daughter of 30ish has moved back home, and I'm charging her £200 a month. This is just the extra cost of having her live here ie bills that I wouldn't have to pay if she wasn't living at home.

I agree with your mum that £50 a week - £200 pcm - is very reasonable and half what OP would pay in the private sector renting. OP says nothing about heating her room come winter: if that is already included in the £50 then a real bargain. How much else are you taking for granted? TV, Tv licence fee, broadband, Sky subscription.

Pressuring your mum on a subject she is already worried about is not a good look. Show her how well you manage your own money (and how) and maybe she will learn to feel more confident about her own financial future.

bristle66

Of course you ought to pay. Or are you a complete sponger?

£50 a week is downright cheap.

Fletchasketch

Wow, glad I didn't have the majority of you guys for parents!

I moved back home in my twenties in an effort to save for a deposit and paid far less than £50 a week- in fact I think it was less than 10% of my salary, My parents recognised how tough it was to get onto the housing ladder and felt the money would be better spent going into savings (which it did). They estimated that the exra expense of having me in the house amounted to less than £100 a month.

The OP has had a rough time of it and is trying to get back on her feet, rather than sponge. I sincerely hope that if I'm ever a parent I'll recognise genuine need rather than being taken advantage of and respond with compassion.

Honeylife

At what point are you responsible for yourself? At 21, 35. 50 or when your parents are dead and buried. Not one of us asked to be here, but the nonsense that a parent should allow your child a free ride because the parent chose the have them, floors me! Utter tosh! A child become an adult and is able to be responsible for themselves and that why a bird pushes the chick out the nest so that they can fly on their own. (Before someone write in with a list of Exceptions - I recognise they do exist ie some severely disabled children)

Who wants an adult child sponging off them when they are just that - An Adult. If that happen to me, I personally would feel a failure at parenting. My job a a parent is to prepare my child for Adulthood, so that they can stand on their own feet and not carry on being 'children' when they are technically an Adult.

All my children pay rent when they came home from Uni. All paid £50 per week times 52 weeks per year! At the end of the year they left. If they ever came back, they paid rent.

Get a job, get two jobs. One of my daughters wanted to save to move abroad and did three jobs whilst she lived at home paying her £50. One was a 9 -5 weekday, and the other two were evenings and weekends.

Recognise the point of Adulthood and stop being a baby, child, teenager. Pay your way in life. Pay your parents the rent. Its the right thing to do.

Nozama

Honeylife wrote: »

At what point are you responsible for yourself? At 21, 35. 50 or when your parents are dead and buried. Not one of us asked to be here, but the nonsense that a parent should allow your child a free ride because the parent chose the have them, floors me! Utter tosh!

Nice strawman argument you've constructed there. No one said anything about parents giving children a "free ride"; the issue here is choosing to help rather than hinder your children in times of need.

Most reponsible people aim to bring up their children properly, teaching them independence and giving them goals in life. However, life can throw out occasional curve balls that can knock you off your feet, whether it's divorce, illness, unemployment in a tough job market or some other unforeseen catastrophe. This can happen at any age. The reason we don't appear to see much of this in society is because most of these so called "independent" adults have children, and hence will be given a "free-ride" not by their parents but by the welfare state (for the sake of the children).

The original OP happens to childless and single, so she falls in the group which has the least entitlement to welfare assistance from the state. She also suffers from mental health issues which currently limits her earning potential and is not in receipt of any benefits. She is not expecting a "free-ride" from her parents for life, in fact quite the opposite, as she is saving money for a specific goal which will see her leave the parental home to live in another country with her fiance. In other words she is actively trying to improve her life.

In short, given her mental health, she seems to have acted responsibly so far in attempting to reduce her outgoings by moving in with her parents. How can anyone criticise this? Would people prefer that she brought a child into this world without the means to support it and then expect to live off the state when the going gets tough (perhaps forever)? Why is the latter deemed to be a more independent adult than the former?