Tired of being broke, need help budgeting?

[Gailete]

Is paying $100 per week a necessity for your parent(s) or can they afford to allow you to live at home for free? Perhaps ask them to consider allowing you to live at home for free?

As a parent I personally feel that it is important for a child living at home once, they are legally adults, to be paying into the family coffers while living at home. This helps them learn responsibility and that adult life has costs to it, one of which being room and board. Depending on how the parents are situated financially, they could use the money as needed as perhaps they can't afford those extra costs or they could set the money aside until the child finds a place to live and they could contribute to the costs of setting up an apartment, etc. but kids do need to learn just because parents took care of them as children, once they become legal adults it is their own responsibility to take care of themselves.

Her biggest need seems to be earning more money and giving up some bad habits. There is nothing like never having enough financially to spur a person on to working harder and smarter to make something out of their lives.

[Eagle]

As a parent I personally feel that it is important for a child living at home once, they are legally adults, to be paying into the family coffers while living at home. This helps them learn responsibility and that adult life has costs to it, one of which being room and board. Depending on how the parents are situated financially, they could use the money as needed as perhaps they can't afford those extra costs or they could set the money aside until the child finds a place to live and they could contribute to the costs of setting up an apartment, etc. but kids do need to learn just because parents took care of them as children, once they become legal adults it is their own responsibility to take care of themselves.

Her biggest need seems to be earning more money and giving up some bad habits. There is nothing like never having enough financially to spur a person on to working harder and smarter to make something out of their lives.

I was thinking more along the lines of a trade off for rewarding good behavior... Katie makes good decisions (gets full-time employment, works on an emergency fund, quits bad habbits such as smoking, etc) and is rewarded by her parents.

In my mid-twenties I moved back home with my parents for 6 months. I paid them rent during that time. When the time was up and I moved to my own place they gave me the 6 months rent back... And helped me pay down my car further.

Just saying... Something to consider.

[Gailete]

When my youngest wanted to keep living with me after he graduated HS we agreed but when we noticed him taking advantage of the situation like walking in at 11PM wanting me to cook for him, leaving his room a royal mess, etc. we set down some rules and made him sign a contract saying how much he had to pay us each month, etc. This was the year that I got so sick fighting off every illness that came my way before it settled into rheumatoid arthritis. I could barely get him to bring me a glass of water if I needed him to. But when he didn't pay, didn't follow the rules, we decided some tough love was needed and told him he had to leave. This meant for him that he had to go live with his dad. Not long after that he started making some mature choices, including getting his own place. He is now 30, has his own apartment, pays all his bills and is paying off his school loans as fast as possible, has a 401K, savings and stock account as well. Oh yes as I have mentioned before here, my youngest is high functioning autistic. He is a fine young man and I think a lot of that came about because we expected him to be an adult. I knew one day how much he had changed as I was having a bad day and literally couldn't get my spoon up to my mouth, he gently reached over took the spoon and started feeding me.

[MarcJoe]

I earn on average, 250$ a week from work. I work part time as well as studding a course through distance education for university. I live at home and have to pay $100/week for board. My other expenses include: Phone bill ($20/week), cigarettes (There are weeks I go without them because I can't afford them) fuel for my car, saving for a rainy day and feeding my dog. I'm horrible at budgeting and my mother isn't much help either. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm so sick of living pay check to pay check.

Budgeting is all about discipline. Try to do the following:

Record your expenses.The first step in saving money is to know how much you are spending. For one month, keep a record of everything you spend.

Make a budget. Taking into consideration your monthly expenses and earnings, create a savings category within your budget and try to make it at least 10-15 percent of your net income.

Set savings goals. Setting savings goals makes it much easier to get started. Begin by deciding how long it will take to reach each goal.

Decide on your priorities. Different people have different priorities when it comes to saving money, so it makes sense to decide which savings goals are most important to you. Part of this process is deciding how long you can wait to save up for a goal and how much you want to put away each month to help you reach it.

Make saving money easier with automatic transfers. Automatic transfers to your savings account can make saving money much easier. By moving money out of your checking account, you'll be less likely to spend funds that you wanted earmarked for savings.

[Gailete]

Sad to see once again that the original poster never seemed to come back to the discussion that they started. They may have looked at the reply's, but never responded to any of them that I could see. I always hope in these circumstances that someone else with much the same problem will be helped.

One of the last issues of Money magazine dealt with adult children moving back home and how parents were supporting them. I was rather astounded that some of these kids that "couldn't afford to live on their own or pay all their own bills" made MORE income than my husband and I bring in in a year! How can the two of us have our own home and car, buy groceries, pay our bills including huge medical bills that I'm sure are on par with school loan costs able to live on that kind of money and these kids can't?

I realize that every family has their own situation, but it seems that the more money there was when the kid was growing up, the higher the financial expectations they have and their parents just keep on helping out even though the magazine had several admitting that it was affecting their own retirement plans. Grow up poor and there isn't as much to come back to!