Do you charge your children "keep" or rent? Do/did you pay it yourself?

BennoUK said:
I never paid rent, I didn’t have any money left over to! On my 17th birthday my dad presented me with a new Corsa - he had got a decent deal and it came with 2 years free insurance - nice you might think, only he had only paid the deposit the monthly repayment was to go from me to his bank every month. It basically took most of my wage each month from the weekend job I had, all of it to put petrol in the tank so I couldn’t afford to do anything else except go to friends houses with it. I just remember being in 6th form and being in discussions about what everyone was doing at the weekend and I was just working to pay off my debts I hadn’t even asked for lol

Still in two minds about it now. My dad wanted me to have independence (and didn’t want to be my taxi), wanted me to learn in my own car (I passed my test a month after turning 17 so it did work) and it taught me never to go into debt again. On the other hand I missed out so much fun in my late teens…
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I would say he was teaching you a lesson on real life. You don't get something for nothing and life sucks
 
Zefan said:
Is the last paragraph really that much of a problem?

I don't really have massively strong opinions about it, just something I discovered about my feelings on it while typing the post. Your example about being short sort of proves my point, a man is likely to be in less danger by making the mistake and learning the lesson of being short on landlord rent than their female equivalent.
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My personal feelings is that with the way the world is going with divorces, same sex relationships or even just females wanting a single life.. it doesn’t harm them to learn how to be independent.

I believe that most of the females in my family manages the family income or at least a large part of it. We do have accounts, financial advisors and girls that work in different parts of the financial industry. Heck if you left the budgeting to certain males in the family, they will spend it on toys and holidays.. lol
 
I'm not sure if you're treating this as if it's some sort of zero sum thing but it feels that way, and that's not what my view is. One can foster an attitude of independence completely outside of any rent arrangements. My view is twofold:

1) Charging rent to females has a particular negative aspect which doesn't apply to males, in that it may contribute to factors that make them more likely to make a decision that impacts their safety. This does apply to men of course, but not to the same degree.

2) I don't believe supporting a male is good for them beyond a certain point. I think that, no matter the logistical/financial benefits, a man's mentality will likely be impacted/his sense of personal responsibility will be stunted/delayed by being supported in to adulthood. Again, this of course applies to women to, but I don't think to the same degree.

It's not that I think anyone who does A or B or whatever is wrong or right, I simply had the unexplored feeling while thinking about it and wanted to express it as I thought it was interesting.
 
nightwish said:
My parents's didn't charge me (though I moved out of my own accord to go to uni (somewhat late-ish after a gap year)), never to return full-time and I probably wont charge my kids (they are still young). We don't need the money (or at least, don't at the moment). But I don't think adult kids living at their parent's house forever is good for them either, so may think of some way to encourage them to move out once they're in their 20s, if they're still around.
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It's a tricky one, with the costs of buying a home pretty much out of reach for anyone on their own earning under 35k, you're either stuck renting for a very long time, or having to live at home.

After moving back home after uni and securing my first job, I was very thankful my parents didn't charge me rent. I think they didn't do it on the privisio that I was saving the majority of my money for a house deposit. Had I gone out every weekend, or buying new bits of tech and going on holiday frequently, I'm sure their view would have changed. I was at my GF pretty much every weekend, so was only mon-thu at parents. After a few years we decided to rent a flat, and eventually bought a house.
 
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BennoUK said:
I never paid rent, I didn’t have any money left over to! On my 17th birthday my dad presented me with a new Corsa - he had got a decent deal and it came with 2 years free insurance - nice you might think, only he had only paid the deposit the monthly repayment was to go from me to his bank every month. It basically took most of my wage each month from the weekend job I had, all of it to put petrol in the tank so I couldn’t afford to do anything else except go to friends houses with it. I just remember being in 6th form and being in discussions about what everyone was doing at the weekend and I was just working to pay off my debts I hadn’t even asked for lol

Still in two minds about it now. My dad wanted me to have independence (and didn’t want to be my taxi), wanted me to learn in my own car (I passed my test a month after turning 17 so it did work) and it taught me never to go into debt again. On the other hand I missed out so much fun in my late teens…
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Wow, that's...a lot.

Bit controlling IMO.
 
Best thing you can do is take a chunk of their salary / part-time job as "keep money" use some of the money if you need to for shopping/elec/gas etc but put as much as possible into a savings account for them. When it's time for them to leave home for real, they will already have a nice chunk of a deposit saved without realising it.
 
I paid £120p/m board which sucked because my take home salary was about £650p/m around 2005. On top of that I had my little red Fiat cinquecento sporting I had to run and insure so i rarely had anything left over.

I absolutely have every intention of asking my son to contribute when he starts to earn a salary in the hope that it teaches him to budget. The money will more than likely go into a bank account to help him out financially when it comes to buying a house or car.
 
alexakasloth said:
I moved back home after uni (2011) and paid around £200 a month plus contributed to gas/electric and food.
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We based my sons board on a percentage of what he earned, we did charge the daughter a slightly lower percentage when she moved back in(a couple of times). However when she moved back in with her partner and daughter we reduced it more because they were saving up for a deposit but they bought their own food as they had gone vegan.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
We've never charged our kids one penny.
We have one back at home and even though she's 36 and earning £42K a year she still doesn't pay a thing and that's the way I want it.
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Has she moved back home after a broken down relationship, or never left? If the former I can perfectly understand that, people can get into a bit of a financial mess after a break up, and last thing you'd want is your child to be homeless regardless of what age they are.
 
tonys said:
Not controlling, life lesson
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You think its a life lesson to force a debt on your child when they never asked for it?

Just to be clear - the poster didn't ask for a car. His dad bought it for him with no consultation and then forced his son to pay for it. This is COMPLETELY different from the dad consulting with the child and both agreeing to the decision.

Sure, the child could have refused it but thats using older person experience/thinking to come to that conclusion. 17 year old kids aren't considered mature enough to vote so why would we think they have enough life experience to decide on this properly?
 
Richie said:
You think its a life lesson to force a debt on your child when they never asked for it?

Just to be clear - the poster didn't ask for a car. His dad bought it for him with no consultation and then forced his son to pay for it. This is COMPLETELY different from the dad consulting with the child and both agreeing to the decision.

Sure, the child could have refused it but thats using older person experience/thinking to come to that conclusion. 17 year old kids aren't considered mature enough to vote so why would we think they have enough life experience to decide on this properly?
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That is the life lesson sometimes you just don't get a choice in the matter.
Just to add I don't think it was right
 
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Semple said:
Has she moved back home after a broken down relationship, or never left? If the former I can perfectly understand that, people can get into a bit of a financial mess after a break up, and last thing you'd want is your child to be homeless regardless of what age they are.
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Yes but she didn't leave until 26 and we never charged a penny then.
Obviously we've been fortunate that we didn't need their money, if we had needed it they would have paid.
 
Not at this stage yet, but i will be charging board if they come back after Uni - intention being to save it and gift it back as a deposit for rent/mortgage etc.

Daughter's boyfriends parents charge him £600 per month, 50% of his wage :(
 
ivrytwr3 said:
Not at this stage yet, but i will be charging board if they come back after Uni - intention being to save it and gift it back as a deposit for rent/mortgage etc.

Daughter's boyfriends parents charge him £600 per month, 50% of his wage :(
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£600 a month, imagine profiting off your own children.
 
When I got my first job, my parents asked for contribution to teach me the value of money.. They then proceeded to spend it on very expensive bottles of wines... :o
I'm not sure if I ever quite understood that lesson.
 
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