Reasonable Living Expenses

look at those expenses over the last year (October to October, since he moved in there in November), average them out for those 12 months, and divide by the number of people that had been living in the household during that year.

Good idea. Thanks

Are you kidding - an 18 year old can eat you out of house and home.

And those long showers - LOL.

Seriously, I'd add $75 per week for groceries and add 10% increase for household utilties. Is he taking care of his own phone/internet? What about laundry? And cleaning?

If he were at school, he'd be paying a lot for room and board - about $1,000 per month.

Good suggestion, chai.

She said in her original post she's already got 2 18 year olds living in the house, so I'm guessing she knows how much they can eat. Plus those 2 teenagers will be in the average.

Of course, I round the numbers up, or add 10% to whatever I came up with, for my labor of preparing extra food. Food everyone will be eating that is.

If the nephew has a thing for sushi, truffles or something else expensive, that's his deal.
Also, I'd be expecting him to do his own laundry, and obviously keeping his own room clean.

To keep things simple, I'd come up with a dollar amount to give the parents for room and board.

Hmmm...actually, I'd first try to feel the parents out as to what they were thinking. They might have a higher dollar amount in mind right from the start.

I know if I were sending a teenager to live with a relative, I would have already come up with and generously padded an amount to give the hosting family.

What's the deal with the nephews parents (and the poster) that they haven't already long discussed this before the guy moved in?

I hope the parents of the nephew didn't think they were going to throw $900 in grocery gift cards in the pot and think that's all they had to do.

The parents have come to Tenn to visit twice. Both visits we were going to talk about living expenses but got busy. It is a hard topic to approach. This last visit we all got sick......with the flu. The only discussion then was from my husband and it was "Who has a gun & is willing to shoot me?" Last week however, when Sue (the mom) asked me to come up with an amount I decided to ask others that where totally objective. I had some good feedback and plan to do what Chai suggested. Thanks peps!

Oh shoot I almost forgot. Sue also mentioned that when we go on our vacation to the keys for a week this year that they were not going to charge us rent for the week!

Not sure of the circumstances, but a week is a visit. A year is moving in.

Yeah, I don't get this.
I can't imagine even thinking of charging someone for staying a week at my place, wheter I was there or not.

When all is said and done, I'd tell the parents I need $500 a month.

They'd never get such a deal, on or off campus.

I'm thinking it's a vacation house, that the rent out when they're not using it.

That would be one of the circumstances I admitted I was unfamiliar with.

Ya gotta learn to cover your bets around here, huh?

Tell his parents to send the money directly to him (he's 18 and has presumably got a bank account), that'll take you out of the loop and he can buy all his own stuff..

Huh?

They do. They do. They give him money for gas and clothes and all kinda stuff.

Huh?

The huh was for a previous comment

The huh was for a previous comment not this one!1

I'm truly lost amongst all the "Huh?s" You didn't say if you were visiting the parents, just taking a vacation, or maybe renting someone's home for a week while they were away. Again, "Not sure of the circumstances". You may choose to provide as much as you wish, or none at all. It's exactly the same to me. If "huh?" is a specific question, you might even flesh it out a bit.

Huh?