This one made me chuckle.
Asher Bird spends just 12.5% of his earnings on rent and utilities each month.
He has an investment portfolio, money goals and a trusty financial planning diary.
But he’s not a millionaire - he’s a seven-year-old
It sounds like an excellent idea. Teaches kids not to depend on bank of Mom and Dad and TANSTAAFL. Paying a ‘Salary’ and deducting a small proportion of charges. Wish my Mum had done that.
Adult children should be paying closer to 100% of the share of costs.
I thought it was a about an interesting tax optimization idea. Nope, it’s a crazy mom.
beyond crazy mom…creating transactional societies, where everything can (and has to be) paid for…
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My sister in law still has 2 adult children at home, a son aged 30 and a daughter aged 27. Both in f/t jobs, daughter is a primary school teacher. They don’t get charged a penny towards their living expenses as SIL doesn’t think it’s right to take money off your kids. To say the pair of them are retarded when it comes to personal finance is an understatement. They seem to just fritter cash away on phones, holidays, cars and JustEat deliveries.
The youngest is way more savvy at age 24, he moved out ages ago and is about to be a dad.
Maybe she should kick them out then. I saw this with my sister: she lived with my parents and didn’t pay a dime, but it meant that all her money was disposible and she frittered it away on nonsense and has kept those bad financial habits until today. She was bailed out of credit card debt, my parents even bought a house for her. I think if you start with bad financial habits, it can be hard to break them.
sounds like your parents are not entirely innocent.
Too true, and if you start with good habits?
Is there any difference between giving your kid f8 a week (or whatever) and charging f2 expenses and giving them f6 a week? I think so.
Unfortunately in SIL’s case it’s learned behaviour. Both her and my OH’s younger brother are mid to late 50s and they were Bank of Mum and Dad because my late MIL used it as a means of control. SIL had loans for houses and cars that she never paid back, BIL never moved out of the house.
Unfortunately OHs dad passed away 2 weeks ago and he has to attend the funeral in London. We already know his dad’s house, savings and investments are all being left to my BIL. I would add he’s welcome to it, he’s ruled the roost since he was a 3 year old.
Forget telling them “as long as you put your feet under my table you do as you’re told”. After all, they’re paying. Better make sure that dinner is on the table after school and the laundry is done! 
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I guess I’m a damned elitist because this looks like the bare minimum. Like being able to read and add 2+2. I’m not illiterate if I know the bare minimum, but there’s a lot beyond that. Putting too much attention on the bare minimum may cap expectations, give the impression of knowing it all and therefore arresting future development:
“I’ve noticed a real sense of confidence in my kids with money,” says Bird, who runs Kid’s Money Skills, a social media channel educating parents on how to teach their children about their finances.
“I learned when the stakes were very high, and it took me a long time to dig out of it.”
She and her husband, Seth, found themselves $40,000 in debt in 2019, accrued by mismanaging monthly expenses and making credit card payments.
She spent a “tough two years” living on a sparse budget and “learning everything I could about money” from free books in the local library before balancing her own in 2021.
“Now I need to make sure this doesn’t happen with my kids,” she says.
I would have lost respect for my parents as an adult if I learned they had troubles with debt and their coping mechanism was to play stupid games with my siblings and me.
My parents couldn’t afford full-time child care, so they brought us along in their daily lives. I was probably in several situations and environments which were not adequate for children. That probably broke my innocence and idealism. But, I saw them chose their fights, when it’s worth to negotiate, when let it go, be assertive, be compliant, learn to use money in the real world, deal with contractors, deal with people who had the power, make decisions with incomplete information, risk taking…I realize today that parents sometimes felt alone and anxious, and just started talking to us about “adult stuff”, but not really talking to us, just thinking out loud.
Basically, don’t underestimate the children. Cognitive capacity maturity is achieved at 15-16 YO, but starts developing well before that. That means cognitive reach adult levels at mid-teens and we’re all in a cognitive development plateau since then. The only difference between 15 YOs and adults is that allegedly we control our emotions better.
The issue with stupid games and recipes is that it predisposes children to be victims of fraudsters that sell the magic solution when they grow up, just as mom and dad had always the perfect answer. If you do this and you keep check of that you’ll succeed, it’s easy. I’ve seen very smart people fall for that. So, careful with the rules and the games. There are no rules out there if you have disposable income.
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A question for the parents out there. How many of your children, even adults, can calculate how much a brand-new iPhone will actually cost if bought from Swisscom with a two year contract? Or Sunrise, or Orange?
Mine can, he is not one for paying more than he has to for anything.
Oh and we charge him rent too but he is a young adult with a well paid job. He’ll be moving into his own place soon enough but in the meantime he can live here reasonably cheaply and build up his savings.
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I charged my parent’s interest when I was 8 or so. I would get a weekly “pay” for chores done, and as we lived and traveled in countries where I couldn’t really buy anything, I would save that for when we came back to Europe in summer.
That said, if mom/dad is holding onto my money for 8-9 months, then I expect interest on that 
Mom has saved one of my interest “invoices”, and framed it… she likes to remind me how much more financially sensible I was as a child
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My sister and b-I-l charged their two girls rent once the graduated from high school. Fast forward some years when the girls wanted to buy their own houses. The bank of mum and dad had a surprise for them. All their rent payments plus interest to help with the down payment.
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