Once your kids are earning should you charge them Housekeeping?

oops_a_daisy

silvercar wrote: »

My parents never charged me a penny, and I still managed to budget and save.

I wouldn't charge my kids, unless I needed the money to pay the bills.

We would have the running costs of the house whether the kids were living at home or not, so I think to charge them any more than the extra costs that them living at home brings (eg phone bills) is unfair.

I would be happy for my children to live at home as long as they wanted to and certainly wouldn't charge them for the privilege!

exactly the same here silver car :T apart from my parents made me pay and not my sister - I resented it

Jacks_xxx

:T Thank you SO-O-O-O-O-O much everybody for responding. :T

:A You're all FAB! :A

If truth be told, I don't really know what I think about this issue but I tend towards the

"They should pay something significant - but proportional to their income - for their own good as much as anything."

camp.

I would like to treat my kids like adults once they are wage earners, and adults don't live for free.

Hubby sort of agrees that it's a valuable financial lesson to learn, and would love it if we were able to save it up for the future for our kids, but is kind of uncomfortable with the idea of charging our children "Rent" to "live in their own home."

I point out that it costs US rather a lot of money to "live in our own home!" :eek:

But I know where he's coming from...

and so we go back and forth about it.

Hubby says: We have supported our son for the previous 19 years so why would we stop doing it now???

Because he earns £1000 a month now and he can afford to contribute something now - that's why! :eek:

He's a good kid, and he's been fab about us "being poor now" - but he's very excited about having all this money to burn, and wants to spend it all on boys toys and beer.

Which I totally understand!

But I'm not going to let him.

Huh.

It turns out I DO know how I feel about this after all. :rotfl:

Thank you all so so much for helping us (me! ) to work this out.

I'm going to show Hubby and our son all your posts and we'll have another discussion I expect - but at least now I know firmly what I think about it.

Big HUGS guys, :kisses3:

Love Jacks xxx

shop-to-drop

Glad all our comments helped. I would just like to add that I think charging your sons rent also shows that you respect him as an independent adult now and also shows respect from him to you too for all you do and have done for him.

Hopefully he will be mature enough to agree with you about this.

Hope the conversation goes well.

Helonearth

I'm going to butt in as a 23-year-old living at home.

When I started work, my parents started charging me £200 a month in rent. After about a year, knowing they want to get mortgage free asap, I started paying £300 a month.

I appreciate this is much much less than real rent, but equally, I never squandered the money I didn't pay as rent. I saved to travel a bit and buy myself a decent car, and for the last year, I have been paying a mortgage on a flat in another area in addition to paying rent at home. My parents agreed that I could drop back down to £200 as I was paying the mortgage as well.

I know that I am still paying a lot more in rent than most of my friends, but the money goes towards my parents being able to sell the house and retire, which is worth a lot to me. In the long run, I'll get it back in inheritance anyway!

Charge them a reasonable amount so that they can still save enough money each month to work towards something important to them, without being tied to the house because they are skint.

nearlyrich

I didn't charge my children when they were working part time and studying, in fact I subsidised them to prevent them getting into too much student debt. Since they are both working they now pay £150 per month board for which they get great food and washing done, although they have to do a share of this and other household tasks. I buy basic toiletries but they have to buy their own expensive stuff, both think it's fair and having lived away from home they know it's good value. I have a savings account withthe money in at the moment as we don't need the money although the food shop would be a lot less for two adults rather than four (or six sometimes when they bring their partners to stay.

itsnever2lateisit?

Primrose wrote: »

Yes, I definitely think children should contribute to the household once they're earning, otherwise they end up with a very false sense of living for free. It will also help them to budget and get used to the idea of paying their way. It doesn't matter whether the income is needed or not. Parents can always secretly put the money away in a savings account somewhere and give it back if their children are saving for a house or getting married.

Exactly what my parents did when I started work, my father insisted on 20% of my take home pay.

When I bought a house in 1982 he return the whole lot, with interest, £962 was a huge amount of money back then 5% of the purchase price, and out of the blue too, what a godsend:T

flossy_splodge

You have my sympathy! Just going through the same with one of my DD. Really love having her back home after she worked abroad for a year and I suspect she knows that and thats why its all proving a bit difficult! I like the idea of 1/3 to half their income!! It would DOUBLE the money I have available to pay MY bills!
Not much hope of that.
Principles are great, the difficult thing is carrying them out!
Good luck to all in this dilemma.:eek:

reehsetin

think you should be charging, i want to contribute at home even though im not working full time, but parents wont let me, barely even let me pay for household shopping etc
works ok for me though as my money is generally saved but my brother doesnt save anything! so think it would be a great lesson for him, he's always being bailed out i cringe when i think what will happen when he moves out

x_raphael_xx

My mum never wanted to take anything off me, but I always paid her £25 a week. I felt like I was showing my respect to her, especially when I think of what she spent on me all those years!

geordie_joe

I started work in the 70's, but when I did and started paying board my status in the family changed.

I went from being a child who was looked after by his parents to a man paying his own way. I was treated differently, not asked where I was going or when I was coming back every time I went out etc.

This made me feel like grown up and so I started acting like a grown up.


I had been brought up to work for my money anyway, I got pocket money but was expected to do little jobs round the house for it, and if I wanted more money I had to do more work.

Not sure if any of this applies to kids these days. So many of them get everything for nothing and kick and scream when they find theyhave to start paying for things they don't want to pay for.