Personal Finance

Should parents charge kids rent?

“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

A parent’s role, even before their child is born, is to protect and provide for them; throughout childhood and into young adulthood a parent is entrusted with the responsibility of providing food, shelter and safety for their children. The question many parents struggle with though is at what point in a child’s life should a parent take a step back and encourage their child to start shouldering some of those expenses on their own? From conversations I’ve had with clients and friends it seems that in some ways, the better the parents’ financial position the harder this question is to answer.

Charge kids rent

Statistics tell us that more and more young adults are choosing to continue living at home with their parents once they start working rather than moving out into a place of their own. If asking an adult child to contribute to household costs is of genuine benefit to the family finances, the request to pay room and board might seem more reasonable than if the parents are in a position to continue covering those expenses. The heart of the issue though, is not whether or not the parents can afford to continue providing for their child, but if asking the child to take on the responsibility of covering those expenses is actually helping to set them up for financial success and potentially saving them from falling into the debt trap.

Living in the real world

Living in the real worldand covering the expenses associated with food and shelter, is often far more expensive than many young people realize. I had the good fortune to teach a financial literacy course through Junior Achievement to a class of Grade 9 students a couple of months ago. Every single one of the kids in that class was shocked to realize how much basic living expenses add up to and how little discretionary income the average working family has after they’ve paid all those expenses every month. On the one hand it’s understandable that parents wouldn’t want to share the details of their monthly expenses with their kids but on the other hand we aren’t really doing our children any favours by sheltering them from the reality of a world they will have to live in sooner or later rather than arming them with information and teaching them strategies for survival.

Moving out is expensive

In my family, both my sister and I moved out of home and into our own places shortly after leaving school at 18 and we both learned the hard way how expensive the real world is and how tricky it can be to get by on a small income when going through university and starting out on our working lives. My brother, on the other hand, stayed at home until he was 32, paid minimal rent, worked hard and saved like a demon until he had enough for a down-payment on a house and a really nice car. Now that we’re all in our late 30s our financial situations are much more even but if you were to rewind the clock 10 years, my brother would definitely be the one who was very much ahead purely because his living expenses were so low.

My parents chose to charge my brother only a token amount of rent because they wanted him to be able to save. Luckily for them, my brother is a great saver and so he was able to do exactly that. When he finally moved into his own house, most of the money that had previously been purposed for savings was redirected to pay for living expenses and so the amount ofhis discretionary “fun” money remained about the same each month. I’ve talked to other parents though, who know that their kids will quite happily spend every extra penny that they have on “stuff” rather than save. This can be a real challenge when the child moves out because the increased living expenses seriously impact the standard of living they’ve been used to and this is often when they give in to the temptation to use credit to maintain that lifestyle rather than cutting back on expenses. These parents chose to charge their children an amount of rent that is closer to what they would be paying if they were living outside the home and treated it like a forced savings plan. They put the money aside (without the child knowing) with the intention of giving it back to the child at a later date, probably when they buy their first home.

At the end of the day though, whether parents charge their adult children rent because they need that money to help with household expenses or because they want to help their kids to save, it seems that giving them the experience of handling real world expenses while still living at home makes the financial transition easier when kids do finally move out into their own place. What do you think? Did your parents charge you rent? Do you charge kids rent? I’d love to hear your comments.

Comments

  1. Jim Yih

    Great post Sarah. My parents never charged me rent but my wife’s parents charged her rent. We both turned out pretty fiscally responsible. She and I have debated about what we will do with our kids in the future. We don’t have answers yet but would love to hear other people’s thoughts.

  2. LifeInsuranceCanada.com

    I’ve no plans to ever charge our children rent, but that would be conditional. They’re welcome to live here as long as they want, for free while going to school, and for as long as they want after school. But if they’re working and living here, I’d expect to see them saving substantially. If they were living here and blowing their income, I’d be a lot more inclined to charge rent.

    However if I did charge rent, I’d set it aside until such time as they purchased a house, and then give them their rent money back at that time.

    • Geoff

      @ LIC – how exactly would you see that they’re saving substantially? Get access to their bank accounts, check their investment returns, etc? Compare income earned to savings set aside?

  3. Marcelina

    I was raised by a single mother. I was charged rent upon graduating from university. It was a nominal amount ($150/mo). I stayed home for three more years. In that time, paid off $18K in student loans and saved up to pay for my own wedding. Also had a cell phone bill, car insurance, gas, etc. All of it set me up for success in my married life. Adult children with full-time jobs should definitely pay rent.

  4. Celeste

    I think that adult children living at home should pay rent! What parent’s choose to do with that money is up to them… save it for a down payment gift or wedding gift or spend it is up to the parent. The value is in making the ADULT child living at home understaand that their paycheck is NOT 100% discretionary income! There are no free rides in life if you have raised a responsible, independent adult. In these times we want to give our kids as much as possible all the advantages but it is not to their advantage if they do not learn to live within thier means after paying living expenses. As adults you should not be checking their bank accounts etc. But you can make the transition to independence (not in your basement) more manageable for the young adult. Let’s not kid ourselves, OUR goal as parents should be to prepare the young adults to leave the nest!

  5. Kate Johnston

    Iv been working more then 20 hours a week since i was 14, and been charged rent since i was 16, i have always been an avid saver, spending the money i did spend on practical and high quality products. And although i do understand 200$ was not very much for monthly rent, in fact it likely didn’t cover my share of groceries and electricity most months, i found it somewhat unfair when i was younger because the 200$ a month equated to 2400$ a year i missed out on in savings.

  6. Chelsea Gauvin

    As soon as I graduated highschool, I was charged $500 per month. I also had to pay $200 per month in cabs to get to work and a $50 bus pass. I had to buy my own supplies, but have no privacy. I was to clean the house top to bottom every week, but still work 10 hrs everyday, 5 days a week. I only had spare money when I got a ride home from a coworker. So I almost never bought anything as a want. I got robbed by a coworker when I took out rent and cab money and bought a new bus pass. My keys were in there too. Mom said I still needed to pay the full rent, and take out the money for cabs and bus and replace all the locks on the house, that’s 3 doors. I had tried to ask if I could move out to live closer to work so I could actually save up some money. I was told I wasn’t allowed.
    Years later, I was finally offered to move out, but only if I joined a disability program. Mom thought it would make me say no, I pounced on the idea. She wouldn’t give me my SIN card or my birth certificate for years. Once I moved out, I finally got my first ID card at age of 23, since she wouldn’t allow me to get one. My family home was a cage that I had to pay for. I hated it and was constantly trapped. There were times I couldn’t open a door without getting yelled at.
    Now, I’m no longer in the disability program, I got out a few years ago. As they program staff had said, I’m at such a high level, I didn’t need the program. I told them it was my only way of escape. I live in an apartment above a garage, but plenty of privacy. I pay $500 per month for the apartment. No cab or bus fees, so I’m actually able to have money as spare. Funny how mom was charging me the same as this place.
    Sadly, my relationship between me and my parents have gone down the toilet. I’m no longer welcome in their home, but I’m also at peace. I don’t feel like a trapped bird with a chain on my leg.
    I wish I could of actually saved up money when I lived with them. Maybe I could of get be to college or university like I wanted. If anything, it’s nice to be free now.
    I honestly believe the rent should of never been so high. I also know it was out of spite because my older siblings were never charged rent or forced to clean the whole home. They were just expected to keep their belongings tidy and do their own laundry. They always owned their own belongings, while with me, mom would take mine saying that while I live under her roof, it belongs to her even if I paid for it myself.

  7. C W Adams

    Great and timely article!
    My mom charged me when I graduated from highschool: $200/mo in 1988, Japan. She saved all the money that I paid to her and gave them to me when I decided to go United States as a foreign student.
    Now I’m in 50s and my husband is a medical doctor who is retiring in 10 years. Our son isn’t motivated at all. He told us he is a B student. We didn’t want to micromanage him so we trusted. Last two years he enrolled 12 credits/semester and all Fs and Ws (withdraw) and got “college dismissal notice, after two probation warnings.)
    I believe that it’s time for us to ask him to pay something while he is under our roof. He applied part time jobs couple times but never followed up. He is sitting comfortably in his room playing video games and bank account with all stimulus checks. We need to burn all his money (probably save them for him for future use such as house, wedding, car) so he can go out and get a job and recover with below 1 GPA.
    Yes, our goal and gift to him is to make him independent and valuable to our society…even he hated us now.

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