[Closed] Charging 23 year old Daughter keep?

I thought £20 / week was a fair amount given she is earning £800/month.

That's generous, £50 a week would be fair.

£20 a week? That's more than generous.

My kids aren't yet old enough to charge keep, but I will be doing so once they are.

My parents tried to charge me £200 per month when I lived at home after uni in 2003 (with job) and I managed to negotiate it down to £100. They have not charged my middle brother at all.

Guess who had the incentive to leave home 12 months later and who lived at home until they were 33?

I charge my 4 year old goddaughter rent and she doesn’t even live with me. I’ll give her the total bill when she starts earning…

Rachel

Bloody hell are you soft or what.
I paid £50 a week to my parents to live at home in 1982 when I was earning £150 a week as a shift engineer.

I even managed to save for a house as well.

After years of nagging him my 22 year old nephew now pays my brother £40 a week.
My nephew is a brickie and earns a pound a brick.
His mum gets ups at 5.30 so she can drop him to work.
Saucy little ****ing shit.

I paid £100 a month from 21 to 23 (earning 750 a month) back in 06-08

I'll give you £30 a week chuck her out!! 😉

Nothing wrong at all with charging a 23 year old to live at home if she objects loudly then a suggestion that you wouldn't object if she'd prefer to find her own place to rent.

At 18 (1988) I was paying a quarter of everything except the mortgage to live at home which was anything between £150-£230 depending on the time of year ( I should point out I'd moved back home after being booted out at 17 and was back on the understanding that I wasn't being kept)

Agreed. £20 a week is nothing.
Every time she moans about it, put it up by another £10.

Earning £800 a month, and she hasnt offered any help with her costs?
She'd be given a talking to about her responsibilities and threatened with eviction here if she didnt offer a reasonable amount.£100/month is very cheap.
In 1986 when I left my parents house, I was giving them £20 a week, I was taking home just under £100 a week then.

Seems reasonable to me.
Paid my parents £100pcm when i first got a job, and when i got a pay rise they did too.

I was paying my parents that when I was 17, nearly 30 bloody years ago! I was doing an apprenticeship, earning peanuts. Moved out when I was 18!

20 quid is surely just a token gesture! If she won't even pay that, earing the money she's on....

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flanagaj - Member
Just had a massive ding dong with 23 year old daughter over having to start paying keep now she has a job. My wife and I thought £20 / week was a fair amount given she is earning £800/month. She is home for the summer until it the snow season starts again and can swan off with boyfriend for the ski season.

I said her mum and I where not here for her to have free lodgings just so she can rack her cash by to live an unrealistic lifestyle.

Anyone charge their grown up kids keep?

£150-200 a month is a very good deal these days, in my opinion.

Thanks all. Reassures us both that we are not being unreasonable.

Terrible behaviour. You're supposed to be a parent not a landlord

Trollolololol

Perfectly reasonable, that doesn't even come close to food alone.

when I was 17, nearly 30 bloody years ago!

🙂

17 posts, and no ones asked for pics?

Standards are slipping round here!

In 93 I paid my parents £150 a month when I was earning £7k a year. They lived elsewhere so that included bills but not food.

I paid for board as soon as I started earning at 18. Think it was only £100 a month, a quarter of my salary (1987) but my parents put half into an account which paid for all my white goods when I bought my first house at 21.

My kids know they'll be paying board when they quit full time education. They don't know we'll be saving half for them. 😉

any pics of the wife?

I seem to remember paying £30 a week when I had my first job after leaving uni, that was 15 years ago.

Think it was only £100 a month, a quarter of my salary (1987) but my parents put half into an account which paid for all my white goods when I bought my first house at 21.

OP is subsidising white goods already

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Flashy - I actually looked like the hairy layabout in that popular beat combo at the time 😀

My mum charged me £50 a month I think, maybe a week. My dad would have quadrupled it but I never asked him...

binners - Member
Flashy - I actually looked like the hairy layabout in that popular beat combo at the time

You looked like Neil from The Young Ones?

I think my grandad would have appraised the situation thus:

"She needs her arse punching".

You looked like Neil from The Young Ones?

Yeah... and to be fair to my parents they turned a blind eye to me smoking weed all the time out of my bedroom window, and fettling motor bikes til all hours, so fairs fair I suppose 🙂

Flashy - I actually looked like the hairy layabout in that popular beat combo at the time

Without the West Country accent, though! 🙂

What are you planning on doing with the money? Maybe think about keeping some aside for her as a deposit for first months rent to help her move on when she makes that choice. Some may think she should be doing that herself anyway, but nothing wrong with helping out.

If you don't need the money, why don't you charge her and chuck it in a savings account so when she wants to buy a house she has a bit of cash. As its very difficult for the young'uns to get on that ladder.

It's not even enough for coke and hookers really, so you need to be charging her more

I think my grandad would have appraised the situation thus:

"She needs her arse punching".

any pics of the grandma?

She is complaining about getting board and lodging for less than £3 per day? She should snap you hand off!

£50 per week would be more than reasonable.

Time for some tough love.

My old man charged me £100 per month when I was working, out of college and that pretty much included food and laundry services.
I didn't always pay, I missed the odd month but I thought it was fair. It was more than fair really. Young people need to learn how to budget, or they'll be screwed when faced with real world costs.

we charge our 21 yr old son £50 a week which even he says is very good and has offered more !
£20 is very very generous and id be showing her the door for any less

What are relative incomes, wealth and disposable income, and how does she spend it? I doubt the Queen ever billed her kids but poverty stricken parents are justified in taking a few pounds off a high-earning, bling-living off-spring. I doubt I'll ever bill junior so long as he can bring himself to be civil. In fact I've agreed to bank roll his next three to five years, so long as he can bring himself to be civil. Flat, fibre connection, mobile phone, food, transport clothes... . He just has to send me the bills and till receipts for everything except drink and drugs.

Bloody hell! Hark at little Lord Fauntleroy 😆

My Mum let me stay in return for baby sitting my little sister after I offered to pay - after Uni but before I got a job at which point I moved out. My Dad didn't know we'd agreed this and asked what I wanted to pay but my Mum told him all sorted 🙂

Flat, fibre connection, mobile phone, food, transport clothes... . He just has to send me the bills and till receipts for everything except drink and drugs.

if they are old enough to have a flat why don't you give them a monthly sum - much better way of educating them on budgeting shurely

Heated wing mirrors?

Oh how the other half....

binners - Member
Heated wing mirrors?

Oh how the other half....

I lived on a grant with no parental top up and it was a lesson in life I didn't need. I'd rather pick up the tab than have him eating out of bins, never using the heating, worrying about the cost of a swimming pool entry, not visiting parents because of the transport cost and being sick of standing around in the rain hitch-hiking... .

Aaawwwwwww... that's really sweet

I see two slightly different, but connected, issues here.

The first is that she can and should pay her way....if her education is complete, then you're not doing her any favours by sheltering her from the real world and the money it costs to have a decent standard of living.

The second is that you see her living what you consider to be an unrealistic, unsustainable or otherwise disapprovable lifestyle. I may be misinterpreting, but I guess you may think that she is wasting her time and opportunities?

Issue 1 - fair enough. Issue 2 is less yours to judge and will certainly cause grief if you get overtly involved too deeply. In my book, you can probably positively influence both by making her pay her way. If you don't actually NEED the money, you can give it back as a lump sum at a time of your choosing...wedding, house purchase etc. whether she knows this is your intention is up to you - could go either way in terms of influencing her life choices.

We had this discussion with Jnr last night... he's 14! Stemmed from him not pulling his weight and generally being an a*se whenever he's asked to help with anything at home - usually just loading the dishwasher.

He seemed to think that when he goes to work he'll be able to live at home for free. I said about £50 a week would be the going rate at the moment - but it'll depend on how much he's earning. We'd probably end up putting some away to put towards his first place.

When my then finance and myself moved in with my parents back in 00, we paid £250 a month keep for 6 months till our house sale went through. £20 a week is pennies these days – but that's just my opinion.

As others have said, £50 is probably near the mark.

We charged our son £50 a week and he was earning £800 a month, TBH we didn't really need the cash but we think it is important for him to get used to paying his own way in life. He would easily eat £50 a week alone so I was still subsidising him. Now he has joined the RAF he doesn't pay us digs and the taxpayer is feeding him so win win for me. 😆

14 year olds think it's [i]their[/i] house, Hammerite. Stashing away the cash to hand back when appropriate seems like a good idea.

I've not been charging my daughter any rent. I'd just be putting it aside for her anyway and she's managing to save it herself so what's the point?

Quite Edukator. He has the "what's yours is mine and what's mine is my own" mentality.

Aged 29 here.....kinda live with my folks, stay quite a bit at my girlfriends too. Don't pay any rent, and earn just over national average wage 😆 😳

In my defence, I'm getting divorced, have only been back a year, and until last month was paying out an awful lot of my earnings on a house that I wasn't living in!

Don't think that my parents would ever have money off either me or my sister really......we don't come from an affluent background at all, and they're pretty chuffed that we've both got okay jobs and have more opportunities to do stuff than they had. Bloody love my folks (although 12 months living back home has been tough at times!)

Was never charged anything for the six months I was at home earning (before going travelling). My father paid my college battels bills/house rent when at university.

I funded the rest (and two years at law school) through life lessons based on holiday work and stretching an overdraft.

What did it tell me? Never be financially reliant on anyone else.

Flat, fibre connection, mobile phone, food,

transport clothes... . He just has to send me the bills and till receipts for everything except drink and drugs

To be honest, your not doing him any favors, sorry.

The two years spent in a shit share house with loads of mates, only eating economy bread and spend all my money on booze were amazing.

And the parents were always there as a safety blanket.

First steps out the door and that.

1979 started my apprenticeship on £21 a week had to pay £10 board and £5 for my FSIE (Thats a motorbike) had to buy all my petrol work food beer clothes tools etc and was expected to save some as well - got a £4 pay rise after a month and never mentioned it at home - when I left home in 1985 I was paying £30 a week probably the equivalent of a £100 a week now, I always thought my parents were skint so never minded only found out recently that they had thousands tucked away. I always tell my kids that my parents turned a profit on me, sadly they probably did. However I think they should pay board if they have a proper job and £50 is more than reasonable

Offer her a deal, she has to choose whether she pays:

30 quid a week, or 1/3 (or appropriate proportion) of the food, power, heating, internet, TV licence, insurance etc.

This will achieve the dual goals of a) making her do some maths/research about how much things cost these days - and may inspire her to go and get a decent job, and b) make her realize how much of a bargain 30 quid a week is, and how generous her parents are.

Having only spent 2 months living with my folks post uni while between jobs the deal was simple, cook when possible, odd jobs etc. In exchange for living there while not working. If I was working it would be a given to contribute. As for 20 quid a week ask her to do a weeks worth of food shopping as above time to grow up and join the real world.

I was paying 50 GBP rent a week from 17 and that was in 1989, but ultimately, its about one of two things, do you genuinely need the income to pay bills or is it about teaching her life skills?

My wife still gives her parents 20% of her salary and she is in her 40's and lives with me, though Asian culture is a little different regarding family structures and responsibilities within it.

Think when I moved back into my parents in 2009 for about a year and a half I paid 150 a month. Which I thought was a bargain given the going rate in Reading was around 400. I also did a fair bit of the cooking as well and periodically took them out for lunch. Worked out around 15% of my take home so not exactly brutal. 30 seems awfully cheap.

Presumably as a seasonaire she knows how to cook and clean. So, abandon the idea of charging her and have her provide a half board catered menu, daily clean and weekly sheet change. Wine too,

I know of someone who was so bad with money that they had to move back into their parents at nearly 30. Having got so far into debt that the flat, car and "toys" were all repossessed. They avoided going bankrupt by about £20.

They spent the next 3 or 4 years having what was left of their wages after paying off the debts paid into parents joint bank account. So board and lodgings was about £10-12 grand a year. Less £30 a week pocket money.

He is FAR nicer to his parents now than he ever was.

My parents never charged me or my sister keep (dad's principle) when we lived at home so I haven't been in your daughter's situation but we both made up for it by helping out in other ways. We both cooked ourselves and for them, bought out own food, do chores etc. We'd even club together and pay for them to have a holiday once a year. If the family car needed tyres, service etc we'd cough up for it (we had our own cars too) as we both knew that we had a good deal. Renting locally would have been close to both our take-home wages as the rent locally was expensive and we were both in minimum wage jobs while getting ourselves sorted after uni.

If we weren't helping out we would have felt obliged to pay rent of some sort so you need to have a word with your daughter about social responsibilities IMO.

[i]I lived on a grant with no parental top up and it was a lesson in life I didn't need. I'd rather pick up the tab than have him eating out of bins, never using the heating, worrying about the cost of a swimming pool entry, not visiting parents because of the transport cost and being sick of standing around in the rain hitch-hiking... .[/i]

There is a huge chasm between not being able to afford to eat or heat the flat, and having unlimited expenses with no visibility of the costs. Sure fire way to drop him straight into credit card debt as soon as he has to do his own finances, and then you'll feel sorry for him every couple of years when he has to come clean and present his £15,000 credit card bill so you can bail him out.

Better just to cover his basic rent and heating costs if you want to, and let him managed what earnings/allowance you choose to give him, however generous you want be.

Offer her a deal, she has to choose whether she pays:

30 quid a week, or 1/3 (or appropriate proportion) of the food, power, heating, internet, TV licence, insurance etc.

This is a good idea. She needs to learn some important lessons about money, and at 23, learn them fairly quickly.

Edukator - I can see why you wouldn't want your son eating out of bins, but picking up all of the bills will only ever delay the point when financial reality has to hit your son. How old will he be when he first has to try to live within a budget ? How many years of experience of sending bills to daddy will he have had by then ?

Apprentice at 16, earning £75 per week (1986).I paid my folks £25 per week. Irregularly. 😉
I Left home when i finished my time at 21.
£20 a week now ,is very fair.

I'm planning on charging my parents when they're too old to look after themselves and have to come live with us 😀

I paid 400 quid a month to my parents when I was 20 (1/4 of my wages). God help me if it was late as well!

When I was up shit creek financially a good few years later they gave it all back to me. It only really taught me how to pay rent, which was a good thing. How to manage my tendencies for over indulgence, not so much!

1976 age 16 i earnt £47 before tax and paid a tenner a week plus the phone bill.. i soon ditched the girlfriend and found another who lived in the same street..

why are you charging her "rent"? Have you actually asked yourself that question?

first of, £20 isn't rent, it's a token. So, if you desperately need the money, then charge the going rate, if you don't need the money (and I'd suggest you don't by the sound of it), it's your child, why would you want to take money from them? (serious question BTW)

Do they really need that lesson in life that nothing is a free ride, even from their own parents*..? (I wonder no longer why their are folk on here with such bad relationships with their kith and kin, that taking money from your kids and siblings is seen as "a right")

Second £800 sounds loads,but has she got loans you don't know about? is she saving for something? student loans? It might be that her available cash is £20.00 a week...How do you know that she already hasn't learned about budgets and has already planned for that money, all we have is you're side of the story after all.

If your daughter and you had a bust up about £80.00 then I would suggest you either didn't approach it right, or there's something else going on.

* Essentially what you're saying here is "Everyone in life wants money from you...Even we do. Suck it up"! Go you...you little neo liberal money machine you....

I'm still paying my parents £150 a month and I moved out 22 years ago

Must cancel that Direct Debit

My parents tried to charge me £200 per month when I lived at home after uni in 2003 (with job) and I managed to negotiate it down to £100. They have not charged my middle brother at all.

Guess who had the incentive to leave home 12 months later and who lived at home until they were 33?

Favouritism! 🙂

I gave my parents pretty much all of my first pay check (£700 ish) to say thanks for looking after me, they used it to go on holiday for a week 🙂 After that I gave them £200 a month.

Whilst I was never in the situation of working and living with parent so this never arose for me I think the answer to this question

it's your child, why would you want to take money from them? (serious question BTW)

Isn't so much

"Everyone in life wants money from you...Even we do. Suck it up"!

as much as

"being a grown up means having grown up responsibilities and part of that is contributing to your own upkeep."

I wouldn't charge my own kid rent , but perhaps expect them to help out with chores etc. personal choice though

As soon as I got a part time job I told my folks to stop my pocket money. As soon as I started work I gave them £4 a week but I was only earning £24.
It's all about paying your way and not being a sponger.
You wouldn't hold back on buying your round in the pub.

as much as

"being a grown up means having grown up responsibilities and part of that is contributing to your own upkeep."

At some point it's not your room anymore 😉 If your life choices mean you can't afford to look after yourself then jumping back to your parents is a lame choice, especially if you don't want to contribute.
For those that would never ever charge their kids rent/upkeep how long does that last? At what point do you say we are not subsidising you any more you're an adult?

At 23 years old the OP's daughter is all the grown up woman she'll ever be.

I'd be charging her market rate for the room and bills and adding a service charge for the meals, washing, cleaning.

At 23 and living with my parents, I was the only one with a job and was paying all the bills.

being a grown up means having grown up responsibilities

Firstly: Is that not a pretty patronising thing to say to some-one?

Secondly: Even your own kids? (and again, there's another thread not far from here extolling the virtues of unconditional love being something reserved ONLY for children)

Regradless, the question being asked by the OP is

"Should you be taking money from your children"

That it's in the form of token rent here, is largely irrelevant, the cost of 3 people in a house in negligible compared to just 2. There are two answers as far as I can see it.

1. your grown up kids are freeloading off you, and you resent that behaviour.
2. You need the money.

If it's 1, then you bear some responsibility for that, negotiate accordingly. If it's 2, then....you bear some responsibility for that, negotiate accordingly...

That the OP hasn't learned those "Important lessons in life" is not necessarily the fault of the child...Might I suggest that you asking for rent here is a form of jealousy?