We’re not the only ones
Annie, a single-parent, had no qualms. “I simply couldn’t afford not to charge my son rent,” she admitted. “The food bill alone would have left me bankrupt.” They settled on £400 a month, but Mark, 24, also helps with bills and takes care of his own incidentals – namely beer. Simon and Tracey, on the other hand, were far more circumspect. “We talked about it, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to ask Annabel for money,” Tracey admitted. “We still think of her as our little girl, I suppose. I know it sounds silly, but how can we charge our daughter rent? We can just about afford it, so it’s okay.”
It was a feeling I shared. Fortunately, Marilyn is made of sterner stuff. “Nyah needs to learn to be responsible,” she explained to me, patiently and practically. “Growing up is about managing your money, appreciating what you have, what you can afford and that saving for the future is fundamental. If Nyah wants to move out anytime soon, the planning and budgeting needs to be in place now. If not, she might be with us for years.”
This was a sobering thought. It also made perfect sense, until you start drilling down into the fiscal fine detail. In a shared house, bills are usually divided equally and individuals cover their own living expenses (food, drink, clothing, socialising etc), but when it is a family home, the lines are blurred.
Sometimes we eat together like old times, on other occasions we do our own thing. Are takeaways our treat, or a joint purchase? We don’t need multiple digital subscriptions, so who pays for the wifi? Netflix? Spotify? Should the Dad cab service be complimentary? And what if one of us spends nearly an hour in the shower, singing along to Charli XCX with seemingly no thought for the cost or the environment and… well, you get the picture.
So we sat down as a family and discussed it like adults. And it was all very amicable. Kind of.
