Should you charge your children rent?
As more 20- to 34year-olds return home, Amelia Murray finds out how much they add to household bills
It can be an awkward conversation but one that may be taking place at many more kitchen tables: should a grown-up child who has moved home to save money contribute to household bills? If so, how much? Parents are at a loss, new research shows, as to what to charge their “boomerang kids”. Returning to the family home as an adult is a growing phenomenon, and the number of millennials living with their parents is at record highs. Escalating living costs are outpacing salaries, leaving more than a quarter of 20- to 34-year-olds residing in their parents’ home – around 3.4m, according to the Office for National Statistics. But while many parents embrace the return of their grown-up children, opening up their arms, front doors and fridges, they say they struggle to know exactly what to charge them for their keep.
On average, parents ask their adult offspring for £68 towards their mortgage or rent each month, £31 for bills and £33 for food, according to research by comparethemarket.com, the comparison site. This adds up to £132 a month or £1,584 a year. Yet Aldermore Bank suggests it costs parents an additional £4,996 a year, on average, to have their grown-up children living back in the nest.
More than half of parents say they don’t know what to charge, and 19pc admitted to being “too embarrassed” to ask their children to cough up for their keep. It can cause tensions at home: one in 10 millennials has outright refused to contribute to their parents’ bills while living at home, according to the research.
Katie Nash, 23, said she was happy to offer money to her mum when she moved back to the family home in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and started earning. In her final year of university, Katie’s rent almost doubled to £160 a week. She decided this money could be better spent – on running her car, for example – so in 2014 moved back in with her mum and younger sister, Izzie, who was studying for her A-levels.
Katie’s mother, Helen, a physiotherapist, didn’t charge her anything for the first year while she finished her studies. “I’m not that mean,” she said. But when Katie graduated in 2015 and started working as a primary school teacher, they had a “mutual understanding” that she’d start contributing.
Helen, 55, said when Katie started working she lost her 25pc single person discount, which increased her council tax by £68 a month. She also took into account how much more she’d be spending on gas, electricity, food and toiletries. Based on these calculations, the pair decided £100 a week was fair.
When Katie’s sister, Laura, 21, moved back home after finishing university in July, Helen suggested each daughter pay £300 a month. Katie said she’s been able to save
‘The whole point of them living at home is so they can save money for a deposit’
around £350 a month since she started working, although admits she’s also spent “quite a bit”. She puts £200 a month into a Help to Buy Isa, which she’ll be able to use towards her first home. The Isa currently holds just over £1,500. The rest goes into another savings account, which she uses towards holidays and travel.
Katie admits she could have saved more were it not for a few expensive trips. For example, she went to the Dominican Republic in 2014 with her boyfriend, which cost around £1,200 each. She said as she’s not looking to buy a home with her boyfriend, who’s in the RAF, until at least next year, she may as well enjoy herself.
According to comparethemarket. com’s online calculator, which suggests how much parents could charge their boomerang kids based on average rent, food, gas and electricity prices in their postcode, Helen could ask her children for £720.80 a month. But she said she wouldn’t: “What they contribute is a great help but the whole point of them living at home is so they can save money for a deposit for their own place. I don’t think they’ve got a bad deal but if I could afford to charge them less, I would.”