Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Guest
I understand how life can become difficult with our children. I also understand the rental market as well.
My son went out of state to college, earned an associates degree and decided college was not for him (we were not thrilled), and he returned back home.
That was supposed to be till he got a job and made enough money to get his own place, so we charged him $200 a month to live in our house. A few months later one of our tenants in an apartment moved out and our son expressed a desire to move to that $800 a month apartment, but said he did not think he could afford $800 a month with his other expenses (auto insurance, health insurance, fuel)
We told him that we were not going to take a cut in pay and he would pay us $500 a month and give us 16 hours labor a month (lawn care, snow removal, etc). He agreed and lived there for about 3 years and worked 4 hours a week on the maintenance of properties (most time Saturday mornings).
A few months into the arrangement my mother in law complains to me about charging my son for the rent. She states I don't need the money...I pointed out that it was $500 and 16 hours less a month that he could pi$$ away with his buddies that live with their parents and pay nothing. She asked would he do that? I said anyone, including me, would do that if they could.
I also pointed out that she of all people should not be giving parenting advise (she has a 60 year old son living with her that has not had a job in 30 some years - the original wackadoodle in my life- and he has never paid her a dime for anything...she even pays for his cigarettes!).
My actions might sound mean to some, but it did reinforce responsibility and commitment. Our son bought his first home last spring and he had no concerns with paying a mortgage, I believe he had enough experience with managing his money at that point (and making sure money for the roof over his head was set aside) that he was comfortable with monthly expenses that had to be paid.
I am not sure if any of that has anything to do with your circumstances, I just wanted to share something that worked well for us.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
|
Sorry for the delay in responding to this and thanks again for taking the time to share your story. It sounds like our methods of parenting were somewhat similar. When my son graduated college and was living with us, my husband took the rent idea a step further. Instead of charging him rent per se, he decided to have him pay for the utilities instead. That way my son had the ability, to some extent, to be in charge of the dollar amount that he had to pay each month by being more cognizant of how much he used. My husband and I were already pretty frugal that way ourselves. It worked out pretty well until one day when he was going out for the evening and my husband and I were watching TV. As he walked by, he turned the lights out on us saying he didn't know why we would need them on just to watch TV. That's when we learned the tables had turned in the house.....lol. Anyway, he has always been pretty careful with his money and was about to buy a place of his own and move out when he got laid off from that first post-grad job. Thankfully, he wasn't strapped to a mortgage because 6 months later he ended up packing his bags and moving 10 hours away.
Right now what we have is a pretty symbiotic relationship - one hand helping the other while we all transition. He certainly could well afford to pay the 30% more to rent locally, but with the possibility that he may be transferred again soon, and my husband and I trying to make an eventual move to TV, we just decided to hang tight for right now and see how everything plays out.
Thanks again for sharing your story. I think it is well worth it not to spoil our kids even if we are able. My son is not overly excited about being back in the same household as us, but understands the practicality of it for now. In the meantime, it makes me happy in a sense that he feels that way because I think it shows we have done our job in raising a kid that values independence.