<p>An interesting factual question came up in a discussion I was having with someone else. The assumption of the someone else was that most young people would be able to live indefinitely long with parents after adulthood without having to find separate living quarters, and thus would save all the money it costs to pay rent. My observation of many young people I knew in my generation, and my recollection of College Confidential threads I've read in the last year, is that some number of young people (how many?) have a deal from their parents such that they need to pay rent (to the parents, or to someone else) after reaching some defined age. </p>
<p>What do you observe? Do your youngsters get to live in your place for as long as they like, free of charge? Or, if you are a young person today, do your parents say that even if you don't attend college you can live at home rent free? What do you know about the situation of neighbors or high school classmates in regard to this issue? </p>
<p>If anyone could find some official government statistics on this issue, how many young people who do NOT meet the FAFSA test of "independence" from parents </p>
<p>Our kids are welcome to move back home after graduation. HOWEVER, our expectation is that they will have some kind of job full time AND they will contribute in some way to the household expenses. </p>
<p>I will tell you what my dad did for my sisters AND me. I was the eldest and was sworn to secrecy. He collected a modest sum of rent from me when I moved home after graduation. He banked the entire amount. When I moved out, my dad gave me a check for the entire amount to help me with my first apartment. I was so stunned. I was sworn to secrecy as were the younger sister's (until the last one got the same dividend). It was so thoughtful. We were held responsible for paying to dad...but in the end...he made that a gift to us. I have sworn that I will do the same for my kids if they ever move home.</p>
<p>through high school has been my experience.
When my older daughter lived at home while volunteering with Americorps, she contributed her living stipend to household expenses.
My younger daughter living at home, contributes her share of the food bill.</p>
<p>I like your parent's idea thumper.
my mother did something similar. she moved to Fl for the winter and I rented / house sat for her before I was married. She banked the money and gave it back to us as a wedding gift.
I don't see our family being in such as situation due to the nature of their majors though.
I would love to have them back but it isn't going to happen :(</p>
<p>My D ended up moving home after college because she just happened to get the ideal job in her field within an easy commute of our home. (She had been looking at opportunities in several cities and fully expected to be elsewhere, but this is what happened.) We are not charging her rent but she was paying us $500/month to purchase at book value a car from us, which she needed to commute to work. (We sold her my H's car and he got a new one.) She just made the last payment on the car so it is now fully hers. Of course, she also pays her share of the insurance.</p>
<p>She is also paying off her (modest- Stafford only) student loans while saving for grad school, which she anticipates starting in the fall. At this point we are not charging her rent, although we feel we can renegotiate the arrangement at any time. But she has been helpful around the house and with her younger brother, does grocery shop and not expect reimbursement, and occasionally takes the family out to dinner. We think it makes sense for her to live at home while she can and build a cushion for her future. Plus we have paid off our mortgage so our housing expenses are not that high. However, I do realize it is giving D a false sense of what real life is like -- she does not have to budget as she would if she were living on her own. But she does seem to be making decent financial choices and not splurging. She of course handles all her own medical and personal expenses. </p>
<p>She has a serious boyfriend (whom we very much like) and spends a lot of time with him on weekends. (He has his own apartment in the city of which we are in the suburbs.) We do think that making her life here at home a "good deal" makes it less likely that she will make a premature move into another situation, although we all fully expect that to happen in some way at *some *point. We are encouraging her to **take her time **with her plans for all aspects of her future (grad school, personal life, etc.).</p>
<p>We are not in that situation yet. This reminds me of "should we let our baby sleep with us?" I loved having my babies in my bed, but everything I read said it's a bad idea. My husband did everything he could to get them out of our bed. I would love to have my girls stay home after graduation, but I know in my heart it wouldn't be good for them.</p>
<p>I think each family has to decide what works. In my family, college was an expectation. Once we graduated or left college ... which came first varied among my siblings ... we didn't even CONSIDER staying home rent free. No one told us we couldn't. We just didn't.</p>
<p>My kids are 19 and 16. Neither plans to live with us after graduation. Each hopes to be able to live within his/her means, even if that requires a bit of sacrifice.</p>
<p>Our two older kids have moved back home after college. Both have FT jobs with benefits in their respective fields.
We charge them a very modest rent, which may end up in their pockets when they fly the coop. They are also paying back Stafford loans; one has a car loan and all the requisite insurance/maintenance costs.
The expectation is that they use this opportunity to do some serious saving, and they both are doing so in retirement and personal accounts.
We enjoy the benefit of having 'housesitters' when H and I travel; and the occasional meal preparer, grocery runner, Netflix movie sharer. Our expectations are that of adult roommates; it works for us.</p>
<p>They can live here rent-free if they are students, or suffering hard times through no fault of their own. Otherwise, I'd charge them at least a modest rent + household chores.</p>
<p>Any time the kids are in school it is free- so home for a summer class, or something like that, free room & board.</p>
<p>Any time for a transition, say a few months, would be free.</p>
<p>Anything that becomes long term we would charge rent, then like Thumper's Dad, we would plan to rebate the $$ when they move out. It feels like it is smarter to get them accustomed to budgeting</p>
<p>I am a college sophomore and currently live with my parents. I do not pay any rent to them. Although I wanted to go away to college, they did not want to pay for room and board as we don't have an extra $10,000/year and there's a top-ranked institution relatively nearby.
Naturally, I would like to live on my own sooner or later. My parents made it clear that they while they will not sponsor such a desire, I am welcome to live with them rent free until I am firmly standing on my own two feet. They did not give me any time line, but when I mentioned to my dad that some parents charge their grown children rent to live with them, he scoffed at the idea. Then again, my family is one of immigrants, so perhaps his viewpoint is based on our culture.
I can safely assume that as long as I am in school, I am welcome in my parents' home rent free. If I am working, I would feel guilty not helping out with the household expenses, but I would also be want to be living on my own, so it's a moot point.</p>
<p>Some families pay for their kids to go to grad school. Our kids know that grad school is on them. So as we see it, allowing our D to live at home while she saves for grad school is one alternative to our paying for her grad school. That is the approach that just happens to feel right to us. Again, NONE of us, particularly D, expected that she would end up with a job offer in our area. It just happened that way, and it seemed silly for her to rent an apartment within 15 minutes of where we live. So far, this works well for all of us. But we do consider it to be a relatively short-term arrangement.</p>
<p>Assuming there is good health, and no really really unusual circumstances, I see it this way:</p>
<p>I cannot agree with the very first assumption presented by the Op- "The assumption of the someone else was that most young people would be able to live indefinitely long with parents after adulthood" In our family, a college grad living at home is not considered an adult. Despite what the dictionary may say, our family adds "self-supporting" to how we define an adult. If I'm paying the persons' bills at 21 like I did when he was 10, then he isn't yet an adult as we see it.
Wifey and I haven't set definite time limits, but since our 1 semester left sr in college is currently living in his own place(with our help) we don't expect him back. We expect he will get a job- even if it's not his dream job, or even in his chosen field and then begin to support himself. Our plan is to help him financially briefly after grad, tapering off to no regular help. Don't get me wrong, I'm 50, yet every now and then my mother says "here's some gas money" to me. We'd do the same thing for S, he'd just soon realize he couldn't count on the regular flow of dough like he has these firsr 21 yrs.</p>
<p>Kids are fine to stay as long as they wish. But they have to do some chores around the house. No rent needed. This is a cultural/ethnic thing with us.</p>
<p>Our kids could live rent free with us but we would need some major groundrules. Currently D1 is trying out her independence and isn't as helpful with household chores as I think she should be. I am partly to blame for not forcing the issue when she was younger. Our only disagreements center around her family responsibilities/obligations. We'll see how it goes!</p>
<p>We, too, have not had to deal with kids moving back. D1 was accepted to a grad program across town and opted out because it was 10 min from her father's office! Instead, she is at BC. Oh well... In the end, it is a good thing...living in an apt and using public transit to get to school.</p>
<p>Back in 1983.... my mother gave me three months.
Rent was only about $150, though, and I got married the following year (yikes), so it wasn't too bad.</p>
<p>Post college and/or grad school we have always charged $50 a week and not given the kids the money when they moved out. This covered all expenses though including use of our landline phone, food, alcohol, occasional car use if they didn't have their own, etc. Even dry cleaning and shirt laundering with one S although my H and I had different opinions on that.</p>