value of board and lodging

[dancecaller]

One of my daughters stayed with us free of charge for 6 months while moving and buying a buying a house locally. And she had somecash towards her house purchase.
I am passing on an asset to the other (as it is something she will use).
I don't want either to feel hard done by, though obviously we are not counting to the nearest penny.
Want value would you put on a room and food?

[bednobs]

the general concensus is that you should pay about 1/3 of your wages on rent/mortgage, so you could either work out how much 6 months x 1/3 of daughter 1's income is, or 6 months x 1/3 of daughter 2's income. or to be simpler, look in the local paper at how much rooms with families are being rented for then add on how much more you paid for your food bill while she was there. or to be even more simple (and to save you money) just let daughter 2 know she would b welcome to stay with you at any time she needed to

[dancecaller]

mmm, thought I'd save myself the trouble of buying a local paper by seeing if anyone here knew how much rooms cost to rent.

[bednobs]

well it depends where you live, and how big the room is

[Buenchico]

I had some time to kill in St Ives (Cambridgeshire) a few days ago and I found myself reading lots of signs in newsagents windows. (It's amazing what people will do when they're bored!). I remember noticing that there seemed to be a standard price for renting a room of �350 pcm.

I've also got Saturday's local paper (from Ipswich) here on my desk. The first ad that I looked at also quoted �350 pcm (including bills) for renting a room within a flat.

You must have some idea of what you spend, per person, on food. If you cook your own stuff, it's probably no more than �25 per week. (However, if you live on Mark's & Spencer's ready meals, it will be more than double that).

Based on those figures, I'd estimate around �450 pcm would be a sensible figure for room & board.

Chris

[dancecaller]

Thanks, that gives me a figure to work on.
Strangely enough, looking back , my groceries spend (discounting any top-ups that I paid cash for) didn't rise much last year. �26/week in '04 for two, �29/week in '05, �30 in '06 with 3 of us half the time. Maybe my calculations are wrong.

[samsong7]

I had my daughter move back in to my home after her relationship broke down. My electricity bill has increased by �10 per month and my gas bill has risen by �7 a month. I was living on my own so was out of the house most of the time. My daughter pays �100 per month. I know this is absolute peanuts, but guess I am lucky as I don't really need the money from her. As with most offspring, they only think of the cost of the food they eat. They don't take into account gas, water, electric etc.

[Dassie]

How about 26 weeks @ �50 = �1300.00 seeing it is your own daughter.

[msemma]

If your daughter was allowed to stay with you free of charge then surely she might feel a bit hard done by if you suddenly start totting up what her bill was. Just match the amount you gave her towards the house purchase. If you offered it free of charge then it should stay free of charge.

Sorry to be blunt, but I do think that it is the parent's responsibility to always offer somewhere to live (within a limited time span) if your child needs it, and if you did not wish to put a financial agreement in place then re: bills and food then you shuld not suddenly decide to now.

Seems a bit petty - how long did each of them stay at home for after finishing education? Did they come back after gong to univeristy (if they went)? Should you comapre how long daughter 1 lived at home for compared to daughter 2?

You do not know what the future holds, say your daughters are lucky enough to have children later on in life. are you going to only let daughter 1's children stay for the same amount of time as daugher 2's children? Will you charge a premium on top for additional siblings?

[dancecaller]

I see your point, but it's not quite like that.
The asset is something hard to value, could be worth half or double the cash the other daughter had.
So I wanted a figure to make a guess at who I was being more generous to.