Should I pay rent to the 'Rents?

[AlecBGreen]

Ok heres the situation: I am a 23 year-old guy who just graduated college (VA Tech babayyyy!) with a degree in Biology. In August Im going to China to teach English for a year. I currently live with my parents. I sleep in the room where I grew up as a child, though I just got done rennovating it. Me parentes had mentioned earlier (February) that they wanted me to "pay my way" while Im home, and yesterday they made it formal. They want me to pay for food, split utilities, and pay rent. Here is my POV: I am happy to chip in for food (its not free) and utilities (ditto), but demanding rent is out of the question. I have been home for 3 months and will stay for 4 more (April - July). I leave for China in early August. I already do chores around the house and help my parents whenever I can. They admit that its not about the money (my dad is a Financial Planner, mom is a psychologist). They say its to help me "gain financial independence." While I appreciate the sentiment, I feel it is unnecessary. This is money that needs to be put away for my upcoming trip, not to mention money for this summer o' fun. In addition, Im living in a room that I have always lived in and it would be collecting dust if I werent in it now. Its not like Im a 35 year-old unemployed toll booth operator living in my parents basement (not that there's anything wrong with that); Im a recent graduate living with his parents for the summer until I leave the country. I am happy to pay for my portion of the living expenses but I think demanding rent is useless and counterproductive to gaining financial security. OK DU, so what do you think? Any/all opinions are welcome!

-Alec

p.s I would have done this as a poll but I didnt donate this quarter (*ducking moderators*) so a writtin opinion will have to do ;)

p.p.s. Please mention if you are a parent, teenager, college grad, etc. Thanks for your help DU!

[stopthegop]

1. I'm a parent..

and if your parents want rent, you should pay...you're an 'adult' now, and there is no reason they have to support you...

[southerngirlwriter]

2. I think your parents are being unreasonable.

Staying at home for the summer is different from "living with them."

However, if you do pay to keep the peace, GET IT IN WRITING. Should anything happen, the fact that you have been paying rent gives you all kinds of legal rights. Should you and your parents have a falling-out, for example, they would have to give you a 30-day eviction notice before they could evict you. :D This is a little-known pitfall of parents charging rent to their offspring. My state is notoriously awful for tenants, but it's the case here (a friend used it against his freeper parents) so it's probably the case in your state, too.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. Good advice.

If they want to have a landlord/tenant arrangement, they should go all the way.

[AlecBGreen]

12. good points!

I will defintely get it in writing, however Im sure it will bite me in the ass because my dad rents out other properties so Im sure he knows all the little loopholes if he wants to screw me over

[curlyred]

3. how much rent?

If you weren't living with them, how much would a place cost you?

do you have alternatives?

do they think there is any value in the "helping out" you do? Would they ask a regular renter to "help out"? Is the proposed rent reduced based on the "helping out"?


I'm a parent, BTW.

[AlecBGreen]

13. $300/month

for rent and utilities. THere are no alternatives, but if they say "rent or the road" then Im hitting the road and crashing at a friends. As far as helping out, they pay me for some things and not others. Dishes/cleaning/trash/chores etc I do for free. Big stuff like painting and chopping wood I charge for.

[stopthegop]

14. bingo!!! if you charge for 'big stuff'

painting? chopping wood?..you've made it an economic arrangement, not a family arrangement...the fact your landlord is your father is irrelevant...

[southerngirlwriter]

16. That seems excessive.

But if your dad wants to treat you like a tenant, make him treat you like a tenant. A lease, for starters. Tell him you want what other landlords in town offer -- then pull out some fliers from local apartments. First month free, or what have you -- whatever the local landlords offer.

[Nikia]

30. I think that is excessive

I don't know how rent is in your area, but you can rent a small, not in great shape one bedroom apartment around here for that. You only have your room as private and your parents are expecting you to help out and probably aren't giving you much privacy either. If it isn't about money, they should charge you less than $100/month even with utilities. They would keep the heat on, for example, whether you would be there are not. My parents didn't charge me anything when I lived with them over the summer between my freshman and sophomore year when I lived with them. When my sister moved in with them afterdropping out of college and nearly starving to death, they didn't charge her anything even for food while she saved money to get her own place and looked for a living wage job. My parents still have a child at home and make less than median income.
My grandparents had various of their six kids move home for periods of time for different reasons. The agreement was either a certain amount of chores or $30/month (10-15 years ago but still).

[eileen from OH]

4. I'm a parent

And there's a few things that I'd want to know that you left out. Are you working now? Have you been working since you graduated? If so, what do you spend your money on? If not, what do you do all day? Did your parents put you through school? Do you have loans to pay off? Do you have a car? Did you buy that and do you pay for insurance, gas, maintenance?

eileen from OH

[AlecBGreen]

19. I work

I have two jobs: I am rennovating an apartment for my dad and I do landscaping/greenhousing for a nursery. I have had both these jobs for about a month, though I have had to temporarily "quit" my landscaping job and work full time to get my dads apartment up to code (my other boss is cool and says I can come back any time). So far I have earned $1000 and it went into the bank. My only purchases have been food, gas, car maintenance, beer, :smoke: , some wargame miniatures (link), and a gift for my Godfather. My parents paid for my college education so I am loan free. I have a car (1987 Volvo w/ 307k miles). They bought it for me ($2000) though I pay for gas and maintenance.

I realize that they have been generous to me throughout my life, and I have always tried to thank them for it. I just feel that you should be given a little leeway when youre fresh out of school, especially since they know I am leaving in a few months...

[eileen from OH]

28. Okay, there's still a few pieces missing

but here's my take. If you are a recent graduate you aren't just living with your family for the summer - you're living with them for half a year. This is after they finished putting you through school and buying you a car. It sounds like you are a hard-working guy and appreciative of all they've given you - but face the fact that they don't really owe you anything else. In fact (okay, I'm a hard ass) I don't think parents owed their kids college or cars. If they can do it and want to, fine. But there are plenty of kids out there who haven't gotten nearly what you have already.

You're going to be paid for teaching in China, I assume, so I'm not quite sure why you need some kind of huge nest egg before going there, particularly for a "summer o fun." I wouldn't get into splitting things into utilities/food/rent but rather agree to give a monthly amount for all of the above. (Obviously, you buy your own beer and butts on top of that.) If you want to have more than that, get an additional job or better-paying one.

I don't think you are a free-loader or anything, but there is a teensy bit of the entitlement thing going on. Whether or not the room just sits there and doesn't earn them anything is besides the point. It's THEIR room, in THEIR house, and they've already proven, beyond any doubt, that they are generous and care for you. What they're asking in return seems to me to be an entirely reasonable thing to expect of a 23 year-old college grad. It's wonderful that you've always been grateful and thanked them but it seems that an even better way to show your appreciation would be a gracious acceptance of their terms.

eileen from OH

[AlecBGreen]

31. yes and no

yes, its a half a year, which is stretching the line between crashing for a while and being a permanent resident. Your also definitely right about parents owing their kids. I was very lucky to be born to my parents, and twice as lucky that my dad is a financial planner. They told me from day one that they were saving for college and they would pay for it, but i could have the money if i wanted to skip college and go straight to work. Your also right: 99.99% of the kids in this world have it much tougher than me. I try to remember that every day (seriously) so I can be a person that can live to serve them.

I will, however, need a nest egg to get to China. Although I will be paid (and get a free plane ticket) I have to front all the money at first. Thats $1000 for a plane ticket, not to mention the food, transportation, insurance, etc that I have to pay for up front before my paychecks start rolling in.

I DO feel entitled to live in that room, though that is probably a childlike sense of entitlement (ITS MINE!!! ;) ). However, I also feel that I am paying my fair share by paying for food/utilities plus the chores I do for them. I think that between paying nothing and paying for eveything, food/utilities/chores is a good comprimise. Would you not agree?

[wickerwoman]

33. Hey Alec

Your story sounds like mine a few months ago. Currently working in China but needed to crash for a few months at home to save up for the move.

Don't forget if you're moving to Beijing or Shanghai that you have to find your own apartment and most landlord want four months rent up front (you pay quarterly rent instead of monthly.) So you need a lot more of a nest egg than you think you do. And don't bother getting all the medical tests for a visa up front. You'll have to get them all again when you get to China (and probably pay for them yourselves and get reimbursed after working six months or a year- another couple hundred.) There's a ton of costs- I wouldn't even think of coming over here with less than $3000-4000 in the bank.

You probably already know all this, but let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers.

[AlecBGreen]

34. wow

a democrat who works in china and likes whitman. I may have met my long lost twin.

[thom1102]

42. I am afraid I have to go with Eileen on this one.

It isn't their problem that you have to come up with this money up front first. And your "summer o fun," well, you have to learn sometime that life is made of choices, and if you want to go to China, you are going to have to make the choices necessary to do that, and if that means having less fun over the summer than you hoped for, then that is your problem not your parents.

They've done more than right by you and asking you for room and board now is reasonable. If you don't like it, it is well within your rights to live somewhere else, but as my mom always said "as long as you live in my house, you'll follow my rules. I don't care if you are 10 or 30"... for the record I didn't live with my mom when I was thirty. Just wanted to be clear on that.

Good luck, Alec

[Droopy]

5. I think your parents are being unfair, but

If they want rent I think you have to pay.

I'm a college student living at home and my parents do not charge me to live here.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

6. If

they want you to pay rent to live in their house, you should pay, or not pay and find another place, or not pay and see if they evict you.

It's just simply their right to ask you for rent in return for letting you live in their house. Just like it is your right to live somewhere else.



p.p.s. I am not a parent. I am a non-college grad IT worker.

[Cuban_Liberal]

7. Yes, you should.

I'm certain the amount they want is probably token, and you're an adult now. Welcome to the real world, my man! :D

[SoCalDem]

8. If there is an "end" to the stay, I say not.. BUT

if you stay past that time, you should pay a nominal amount.. A friend of mine charged her daughter, and she was FURIOUS, but she paid it..

The pay-off..

When she finally got so irritated at "being treated like a child"..and moved out, her mother gave her the bank statement for the "account" she had been depositing her "rent" into.. She then had money to buy some furniture and a new tv..and still had some left over.. Don't be too hasty.. They might have something like that in mind :)

[southerngirlwriter]

18. I think this is the key -- "an end"

It sounds like he's just wanting to crash there until he leaves the country. That's very different from a "living at home" situation.

If he had an apartment in town and it burned down, would his folks charge him to crash in his old room while it was being rebuilt? :shrug:

[AlecBGreen]

20. EXACTLY

If he had an apartment in town and it burned down, would his folks charge him to crash in his old room while it was being rebuilt?

[Piltdown13]

21. That's a really good point...the "end" to the stay

This could be a rather unfortunate situation due to the time constraints -- at least around here, you wouldn't be able to get a lease term of less than a year, and the few landlords that allow it charge a rather hefty premium for a shorter-term or month-to-month lease (though I suppose there is always sub-leasing, not that that's much of an option around here except during the summer). I can understand parents wanting to instill financial responsibility or whatever, but there might be the appearance of a certain element of taking advantage in this type of situation.

I guess it's hard for me to fully understand, not being a parent. It just seems to me that when the recent grad has a concrete plan for the future and is making an honest effort to save for that plan (not pissing away wages or savings), the need might be less for the parent to "teach financial responsibility" by asking for rent. Yes, the parents are doing the kid a favor by letting him/her have a place to stay rent-free, but my own experience makes me think that lots of parents would view this as one last bit of help they give the kid in getting established. That's how my own parents see it, anyway.

There's also the employment issue -- if my parents had wanted me to pay them rent/expenses while I lived with them for the 4 months or so between college and grad school, it would have been just about impossible for me to have done so. Reason -- the employment market in my hometown at the time was such that there was no such thing as a summer job waiting tables or whatever; if you weren't going to be around in the fall, they weren't going to hire you. Any job I'd have been likely to get in that situation would have paid only enough that I'd have been able to make a realistic contribution to expenses only by basically giving the entire paycheck for the purpose. Believe me, I was and still am extremely grateful to my parents for welcoming me back during that time, and for the fact that they still try to help me in any way they can. I don't expect it, which makes it all the more appreciated.

[Sandpiper]

10. I don't think it's unreasonable on their part

But I don't see how it helps you to gain "financial independence."

And, as was mentioned earlier, I would point out to your folks that once they begin collecting rent from you, you now have a legal relationship as landlord/tenant, and with such being the case, they have the legal responsibilities of a landlord.

[noiretextatique]

11. maybe you should talk to them about it

and present your case. if nothing else, perhaps you can negotiate a lower rent payment.

[CBHagman]

15. I paid rent to my parents.

Before I went off to work as a grad assistant and be an exchange student in Europe, I waited on tables for about six months (school didn't start until well into the fall). During that time I paid a modest rent at home (about what I would have paid for the rental of a room in the city where my university was). It was a chilly arrangement but basically fair, and I liked the fact that I was paying my own way.

I don't find it strange that a grown member of the family pays for household expenses. It's the principle of the thing.

[Sandpiper]

22. I don't find it strange either

But the problem is, parents want you to pay rent like a tenant, but still be able to treat you like a child.

[nini]

17. If you think it's unreasonable..

try and live on your own for that money.

Suck it up and pay your way. I felt the same way back when my Mom threw my adulthood in my face. But she did the right thing. It's not easy to keep a household going and the earlier you realize it the better you will be.

If you get real lucky you're parents will give you that money back when you're ready to go to China --- my mom gave me my money back when I moved out.. sweet wonderful mom that she is :-)

[amazona]

23. I would just move out

My parents were of the, You're 18, you're on your own school but admittedly they had no money to speak of.

For $300 a month, you can likely room with a friend your own age and have a lot more fun. And that is what I would do, but easy for me to talk, I'd been living on my own for years at 23.

Whenever anyone says, "It's not about the money," it's about the money. We love our parents, but they are no different from any other mortal in this matter.

Ask around, and see what friend would take on a roommate for 4 months for, say, $250 a month instead. You'll save a few bucks, you'll have more fun without parents breathing down your neck, and the look on their face when they learn they aren't getting the extra $1,200 will be priceless.

[southerngirlwriter]

24. Another idea.

You could make a deal with them to do some work. Do they need the outside of the house painted and weatherproofed or would they like a vegetable garden started or something? You're obviously far from lazy, so perhaps you could negotiate doing one BIG project for them during your time there in lieu of rent.

I do think your parents (forgive me, but it sounds like mostly your dad) are being greedy. You've earned a college degree and have a concrete plan for the future and are working two jobs. If you need a lesson in responsibility or independence, I fail to see why. :shrug:

[Vladimir]

25. My parents

would be shocked at the idea of me ever contributing in any way while living with them, but I wouldn't necessarily agree with them. I do think though that rent is OTT, but food/bills are probably fair play.

If it was me, I would move into private accomodation rather than pay rent to my parents. But I don't think there is any easy solution to your problem.

V

[Dookus]

26. a 23 year old college graduate should pay his own way

By your own admission your parents have already put you through school so you are debt-free, and have bought you a car. They don't owe you housing.

[AlecBGreen]

27. I agree

They dont owe me housing. I SHOULD pay rent if I were living in one of my Dad's apartment. I SHOULD NOT pay rent on a room in our house that would otherwise be empty. Thats my beef. I am already paying for food/utilities plus doing chores. I think asking for rent is just a slap in the face when they know that Im only gonna be here for a few months. I feel like they are just nickel-and-diming me, and are justifying it in the name of "maturity." Im 23, an adult, and if my parents want to help me (as they claim) then shoulndt I have a choice?

[Dookus]

32. *shrug*

you asked a question. I answered it honestly.

You seem to want to hear one particular answer, only.

When my sister graduated from college, she got a job near my parents. She lived with them and paid rent. That's what being a grownup is all about. It sucks sometimes, but you may as well learn that now.

[NicoleM]

41. IT'S THEIR HOUSE.

It's not "our" house. It's theirs. So, no, you don't have a choice. They do. And they've decided that you're a grownup and you should contribute to the household expenses if you're living there. I think that is extremely reasonable.

[Deja Q]

29. You're lucky

My parents were nice and only made my pay a small amount of rent. All utilities included. When moving out, it was something of a shock.

A lot of credit card debt and a thrice as shitty world later...

Get used to it now. Don't let them be soft. Let them be soft if you lose your job later on and they want to be soft...

[cosmicdot]

35. bill them back for the renovations you made

if that improved the property

fair is fair, right?

keep all receipts, etc.

if and when the time comes when you may have to support them in their senior years, you can become the landlord ... certainly, they'll understand ... it's simply business, not love

[AlecBGreen]

36. i did bill them

it took like 80 hours to get that room done! i never want to scrape another hardwood floor in my life.

[dpbrown]

45. If you can bill them they can bill you, right?

You did work for them and got paid, you're living at their house and you pay them. The way of the world.

[radwriter0555]

37. Pay rent.

Simple as that.

They're right. You need to be in the habit of paying your own way. You're living in their house regardless of the fact that you always have. It's time for you to assume adult responsibilities.

If you don't like it, then pay rent on your own apartment, along with the utilities, cable, parking, water, laundry, showers, soap, shampoo, pots, pans, dishes, glasses.

And what financial security are you talking about? You're saving money to take a vacation to CHINA, so get another job. You're young, you can handle it.

Life isn't free.

[FlaGranny]

46. You seem to have missed the fact that he

is going to China for a job, not a vacation. :-)

[sbj405]

38. Perhaps they are adding to your nest egg and you don't know it

Had some friends who paid rent to the 'rents. What they didn't know was that the 'rents were putting the money in an account which they turned over to him when he moved out.

[Atman]

47. Shhhhhhhh

Our 19 yo pays us $200 a month (just started). And unbeknownst to him, we're giving most of it back to him when he moves out. Just a little life lesson. Ain't no free.

[sbj405]

39. Perhaps they are adding to your nest egg and you don't know it

Had some friends who paid rent to the 'rents. What they didn't know was that the 'rents were putting the money in an account which they turned over to him when he moved out.

[scottcsmith]

40. Pay your own way

You're 23, time to be an adult and stop relying on mommy and daddy to pay your expenses. If you want a "summer o' fun" and a place to live, be a man and pay for it. You mentioned that your parents paid for your education. You don't realize how lucky you are not to have a student loan to pay off. Your parents paid thousands of dollars to get you educated. And you want to bitch that you have to pay for rent and expenses for a few months? Where's your gratitude?

[rene moon]

43. My mother use to say...

"Only white people kick their children out at 18 and make them pay rent if they move them back in" (We are Mexican-American).

The only agreement we had with our parents is that either we go to college or work to live with them after high school. If you didn't want to work, then you were on your own.

I am not sure if I agree with my Mom's statement but if you are working and contributing to the food/utilities, then iI think rent should be out of the question.

[Atman]

48. Aye, work is the key

My son works a 40 hour week. He pays no groceries, utilities, anything. And I can barely get him to take out the trash. The $200 is a bargain for him.

[WoodrowFan]

44. yes. (NT)