Adult Child - Fair Rate for Board

FlorayG

gwynlas said:

So you negociated £400 which he now believes is too much after you have supported him whilst studying and taking two years out.

I really do not know what to say as you as you have already gone over and above caring for him and presumably his siblings. and I expect that you still buy his clothes and do his laundry.
In my opinion you have already done far too much in raising a mummys boy who is not above using your good nature against you. My sister married one of these needless to say it did not last as he resented not having all his wages to himself.

It might already be to late to instil some sense of normality into your relationship of being adults living in a shared house looking out for each other. You need to set boundaries and stick to them. Stop paying for his hobby, let him use public transport to get to work, Stop doing his washing and ironing unless he reciprocates in another way and maybe shops and cooks dinner for the family at least once a week.

I'm pretty sure the OP knows this but can't figure out how to make it clear to the son and then how to get him to actually PAY

njkmr

Tell him it's £200 a month then, but he has to get his own car and insurance, fuel etc.
He will quickly realise £400 is a bargain.
He could easily lose £400 a month just running his own vehicle.
Time to get tough and show him life is not free and you are now expecting him to act like an adult.
You need to be strong on this.
As it happens my son 24  pays £400 a month and didn't like it at first , but renting his own place , food,bills etc would have wiped out circa £1500 per month from his wage. It's a no brainer honestly.
I did tell him half the money would go into a separate account and I may give it to him when he moves out if used for deposit for house etc but it wasn't guaranteed if he chose to carry on p!$$ing his money up the wall.
Cruel to be kind sometimes.

discat11

Drop it to £200, withdraw hobby payments & car usage. Keep the savings you've been putting away.
As others have said he's an adult and must surely know what his friends have to pay -even at home with parents, so I'm afraid even £400 is taking the pi$$. £200 is a total insult.

elsien

njkmr said:

Tell him it's £200 a month then, but he has to get his own car and insurance, fuel etc.
He will quickly realise £400 is a bargain.
He could easily lose £400 a month just running his own vehicle.
Time to get tough and show him life is not free and you are now expecting him to act like an adult.
You need to be strong on this.
As it happens my son 24  pays £400 a month and didn't like it at first , but renting his own place , food,bills etc would have wiped out circa £1500 per month from his wage. It's a no brainer honestly.
I did tell him half the money would go into a separate account and I may give it to him when he moves out if used for deposit for house etc but it wasn't guaranteed if he chose to carry on p!$$ing his money up the wall.
Cruel to be kind sometimes.

My view would be that he should be getting his own car etc anyway, regardless of how much he pays. He is effectively monopolising the OPs car 5 days a week plus any leisure activities he may also be borrowing it for. It feels as if he is using it more than she is. 

FlorayG

Also this "... In his view, he should only be paying his share of the bills as he's lived in his room for his whole life and why should he pay for that. ..."
It's NEVER been 'his' room. It's your room that he's used while he was a minor and you were obliged to provide it. Now it could be let to a lodger if he wasn't in it. He doesn't have any rights to it or own it

sammyjammy

You say he is your eldest child, whats the situation with the younger one/ones?

christineperseus

As he is the major user of the car the insurance should be in his name. Does he pay his own mobile phone bill? He needs to build up some credit history in his own name.

I do feel your pain..........wait until you have to feed the boy/girlfriend when they stay over many nights a week!

DevilsAdvocate1

Thanks for all your replies.  I think I'm going to show him them.  He tells me his girlfriend only has to pay 10% of her salary to her parents.

He didn't know I was putting the money away for him and I feel less inclined to do this now.  Especially as I've now realised how much he is costing me.  He was trying to make me feel that I was ripping him off and I know I wasn't.  Thanks everyone for confirming this.  His dad does live with us but I've always dealt with the finances.  My husband is on the same page as me though.

Byetheway, he's not on minimum wage.  I don't know exactly how much, I thought he said £36K but he is telling me its less than this.  I know its more than £31K, so in that ballpark.  In my last "proper" job I was taking home £1511 or there abouts but I was on £24K.    He is trying to say he gets alot less due to student loan repayments, but I'm sure you don't pay this on whole salary, only the bit above the average wage.

Also, I've been charging him separately for the car, as I said from the outset that it should not cost me money for him to work.  He was playing a game of not putting petrol in and it go so low that it started juddering.  Cost me £200 to get fixed.  So I wanted to put the petrol in to make sure it was not run so low again.  He goes into the office 3 days a week.  Its technically my husband's car my son uses as my husband works from home, so rarely uses it.  Even for this he has not paid me anything since the end of April.

elsien

DevilsAdvocate1 said:

Thanks for all your replies.  I think I'm going to show him them.  He tells me his girlfriend only has to pay 10% of her salary to her parents.

He didn't know I was putting the money away for him and I feel less inclined to do this now.  Especially as I've now realised how much he is costing me.  He was trying to make me feel that I was ripping him off and I know I wasn't.  Thanks everyone for confirming this.  His dad does live with us but I've always dealt with the finances.  My husband is on the same page as me though.

Byetheway, he's not on minimum wage.  I don't know exactly how much, I thought he said £36K but he is telling me its less than this.  I know its more than £31K, so in that ballpark.  In my last "proper" job I was taking home £1511 or there abouts but I was on £24K.    He is trying to say he gets alot less due to student loan repayments, but I'm sure you don't pay this on whole salary, only the bit above the average wage.

Well there's an easy way to clarify that one way or the other............

Flugelhorn

try looking at this site - can add in the student loan to give you some idea what impact it has https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php