Should my conscience bothered me.

nicki_2

When I lived at home and at uni (I was paid £100 a week to attend the course) I paid £40 a week keep, I paid for all my own taxis (so I didn't ring my dad at 3am after being kicked out the bar or in some cases at 6am when I'd finished working at uni), I bought myself 3 meals a day, paid for all my bus fare to uni and I bought myself a mobilephone and paid approximately £100 a month (including calls) on the resulting bills. When I left uni I went onto benefits so my mum dropped my keep to £10 a week as she knew I was trying to save up to move out and I had train fare (to see my OH as he lived in another town) and my mobile phonebill to pay. All the time though I still contributed to the housework.

My sister pays £80 a month keep and works nights stocking shelves in Tescos. She can walk to and from work but quite often asks Dad for a lift. She rarely helps in the house as she spends most days sleeping. However she spend the rest of her wages (close on £800 I think) on clothes, her mobile (she's just bought ANOTHER new one), DVDs, drinking etc. She has no savings and constantly sells/buys things on ebay. She also insists on getting her hair done at the hairdressers at £30 a go.

Guess who is the one is who is great at sticking at a budget and can tell you the price of apples in KG and lbs, the difference in price for 6 pints of milk between Asda and Co-op :rolleyes:

If I was you I would charge her keep and put the money away. Moving out of the family home is an expensive thing to do, we only managed as our old landlady said we didn't have to pay a deposit as she trusted us and we had numerous hand-me-downs and furniture already in the house.

Polly

I had a friend whose mother produced a Building Society passbook on the day of her wedding with over £10K in it which was her keep for the previous number of years. What a fantastic surprise for any bride! My kids are too young yet to be charging them, but I'll def do this when the time comes.

lipidicman

Spendless wrote:

The arguement I used to give my dad was that things like council tax (cos 2 other people lived there also), water rates and tv license remained the same cost even if I moved out.

My response:
'Yeah, MY bills wont go down if you move out - but YOURS sure would go up if I kick your sorry ar*e out!'

End of Conversation

kirstyreanne

I suppose it depends on where the money goes.

I used to pay my mam £100 a month board which I thought was unfair. It wasn't that I didn't want her to have the money, it was more the fact that there was rarely any food in the house, she used to spend the money to pay bills on a new item of clothing or a night out.
If this wasn't the case then I'd be quite happy to have paid her more.

At the moment I've moved to live with my grandparents who do not charge me any board at all & I've founf my money a lot easier to manage with their guidance, I now have several savings accounts where parts of my wages go each month & financially I have more money to fall back on if needed.

Galtizz

I think this thread is better suited to the families board as they have loads of experience in dealing with this sort of thing so I'm going to move it over there

Js_Other_Half

XBigman - you don't say what she is going to do in September? I assume she can't sign on in the interim, so how is she going to fund herself from now on?
You'll only continue to get Child Benefit for her if she is registered for looking for work/courses:-
http://www.direct.gov.uk/Audiences/Parents/Money/ParentingMoney/ParentingMoneyArticle/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4003036&chk=ELAmW4

Once the Child Benefit stops, I assume that'll impact dramatically on your benefit situation too?

All things to discuss with her I think!

jellyhead

my mum's reasoning behind charging us board if we were working but not charging if we were at college is that she continued to get child benefit for us during the college years but it stopped if we left full time education. there wasn't tax credits back then, i think she got a bit of income support for us, i can't remember, she worked part time and the rules were different. i have a vague idea that absent fathers also pay maintenance if a child stays in education so there were plenty of reasons why lots of parents didn't charge board if their kids stayed in education (apart from the obviuos - we didn't have any money lol!).

i think it's really important to pay board, even if it's not a large amount. we always paid our own phone bills too. my sister was rubbish and never paid so stepdad got stroppy and got hold of a payphone lol! it was an old pub one and took the old 10p coin, we had to buy the coins off him and he made enough profit to pay the line rental :rotfl:

Xbigman

Thanks to everyone. Loads of things to think about but in the meantime I've had an initial chat with her. She's looking for a job from monday, in a shop as she has a bit of part time experience and currently helps out in a charity shop one afternoon a week. I've also suggested she looks at agency work as there's loads around.

In the chat we talked about the various bills I pay and what she costs to keep. I think I'm going to charge her only what she costs until she's 19 and then charge rent too. I've made it clear she needs to save something regularly or I'll charge rent earlier. Why 19? Well if she goes back to her mother I'll have to pay the CSA until she's 19 so that seems reasonable.

From my own experience. at 16 (in 1979) my parents offered me a deal. £12 a week keep or £15 a week of which they would save 5 until I was 18.
I went for the £15 option and as I recall I got around £700 when I was 18 and bought my first motorbike.
Regards



X

jellyhead

why would you have to pay the CSA if she returned to her mothers? if she's left full time education you don't have to pay maintenance, correct me if i'm wrong?

Bendybops19

Sorry to be a pain, but i really dont agree with charging your children rent.
In my opinion, i think that they are your children, and you chose to have them...(ok i know no one else is going to agree !!)

I understand the cost of having a child, and all the things they demand. But i think that you should maybe ask your child to to the food shopping once a month, or something along those lines, rather than actually taking money off of them fo 'rent'. - Obviously i would expect for the child to be fending for themselves in all other ways eg buying own clothes, own money to go out etc.

Just my view!