Did You Have To Pay Board When You Worked & Lived At Home?

[Phar Lap]

Chatting with someone a while ago, they were amazed there was something called “board”. She said when she started working her mum didn’t make her hand over part of her wages. Someone else I spoke with said she had to give a certain amount (can’t remember how much) to her mum, and several years later when she was getting married, her mother gave it back to her, with interest. It was her mum’s way of helping set the newlyweds up.

I had to hand over $10.00 a week. My weekly pay was $17.50. Mum didn’t give me any back. Then again, we weren’t rich. Wednesday night  was often known as “poor night” and Mum would ring dad and ask him to bring some hot chips home for tea!

[whothingie]

I paid board. Can't recall how much and we were using pounds back then. Started on £12.50. I got a rise each time I passed an exam and it was agreed that until my board reached at least sufficient to pay for food she was given 50% of the increase. I babysat and worked for the caterers for extra funds and that was all mine, plus as my mothers health wasn't great, the veggie garden and the chopping of the fire wood was my responsibility. She was a great knitter and reasonable sewer so she did those tasks for me.

[Queen]

If I'd been earning money and living at home I would have paid board. My brother did.

I left home to go to university when I was 17 and never went back so it never happened. (I didn't have to pay board when I was a school student although I did earn some money then)

[Liiisa]

No, my mom was happy enough to just have us all out of the house and doing something other than smoking pot in her basement. Plus I moved out pretty quickly.

[scicaro]

I left for university at 18 and didn't come back so I didn't pay board.

[tinaja]

I was back home for 2 months after graduation from the university waiting for a job to come through. No mention of paying rent. If they wanted work done, of course I would have done it. I think that they just enjoyed spending time with me. And relieved that I wasn't partying my ass off.

[Liiisa]

Hmm yes, partying my ass off was why I was living back in my parents' basement and working at an answering service until I moved out

I was lucky to be in a fairly prosperous family in the fairly prosperous suburban USA of the 1970s, so charging rent would have been construed as a punishment in their social class, not a way of paying the bills or setting up the next generation. It's always interesting to see how things were in other countries, so thanks for this thread.

Spawn never came back after school, so I don't have any experience from the parental perspective either. I probably wouldn't have charged him rent unless he was being a huge problem in some way and I wanted him to move out. Which I can't imagine happening, but just saying that that's where I'd draw the line.

[lillielangtry]

Yeah I also left for university, but obviously I came back for the holidays. Rent was never an issue. In fact my parents largely supported me through my undergraduate degree as well, although I did have some part-time work. They didn't have other children and it was not a financial hardship for them. At the time, it wasn't particularly unusual not to work much during the term (semester). I certainly consider myself very lucky on that front.

[Webs]

I was supposed to but I would sometimes forget and my mother never actually asked. I would pay for household groceries, did laundry, and cleaned. I was the only one though.

[whothingie]

I suspect I'm a decade, or two, ahead of many of you, as university was only for the bright and the monied when I left school at 15, which ruled me out. I got some certificates from night school which were treated as exams.
While my mother could have managed without my paltry board payment, it was all about teaching fiscal responsibility.

[ozziegiraffe]

I lived at home while I was at University, my scholarship paying fees, but not living expenses. I had some short-term holiday jobs, but as soon as I could, after graduating, I took a teaching position in the country. A few years later, back in Sydney, I lived with my parents for a while, but it was mostly house sitting while they travelled. I don’t remember now what other contributions I made, apart from cooking.
My friends who still lived at home when they got jobs after leaving school, usually paid board.

[sophie]

I left home before my 18th birthday and never lived at home again, just short holiday stays.

[sprite]

I didn't.
I lived at home for two years while going to university, and again for a few months when I moved back to Canada.
In the first run, I worked full time in the summer and part-time in the school year, but that money was mine to spend and save. I did my share of chores around the house, and paid for gas in the car (we were in the countryside).
In my first year, I paid for a parking pass because my mom and I commuted together, and parking near her college was horrifically expensive. So although I paid nothing, I easily saved her a couple of 1000 dollars.

When I moved back, again I didn't pay, but I did contribute to chores and cooking, and it was understood that I was going to move out.
My parents couldn't afford to give me any financial support, so this was their way of helping.

[lisamnz]

We didn't. I left home at 18 to go to university but did go back home again for the holidays in the first two years (the hostel closed during the university holidays). In the summer holidays I'd work, we all would, but the agreement was that we were doing this to save up to pay for the coming university year, so paying board as well was counter productive, so supporting us during the summer holidays was basically supporting our year of university study as it meant we could save up a lot.

I guess if we hadn't been studying, and/or were spending lots of our earnings on social fun, then our parents might have seen it differently but the summer holidays were usually a time for budget socialising like camping or hanging out at old friends' houses, so much cheaper than the pub visits and club nights we tended towards once we were back at university in the big city with uni friends.

[crazycat]

I didn't pay it when I had part time jobs when studying but when I graduated and got a permanent job, I started paying board. I have no idea how much it was though.

[ruthincanada]

My mum was a single mum and if we were working and living at home we were expected to pay for room and board. If we were at Uni we didn’t pay r and b.
My daughter has autism/ADD/anxiety and finished Uni at the beginning of Covid. She got a job fairly soon after the world shut down, working from home answering questions about the Covid vaccine. So she paid r and b.
She has now moved to the basement and we’ve set up a quasi private- ish suite for her and she pays rent of CAN$1000 a month. She mostly does her own cooking. She still needs lots of love and support. 😊
We used to have one or two Asian ESL students living with us who I’d cook for and we can’t with the suite. They were matched through the university and paid us $1260 each for r and b.

[rikita]

other than student jobs, i started working pretty late and left home before that, for university - during that time, apart from government loans, my parents also gave me money (more than the required amoount) and i worked a bit here and there ... i did live with my dad for a few weeks at the beginning of university until i found my own place, but didn't pay anything there. one of my brothers lived with my mom until he was 25 though, he had his studio in the house at the time (and also for a few years later, after he moved out) - i don't think he had to pay rent, as he was first doing an apprenticeship at a private school, so no income, and then building up his business, so not earning much but working a lot ...

[groo]

I never worked full time while I was at home. When I completed university studies I was posted to a remote farming community called Erina, surrounded by chook farms and a gruelling 4 miles to the nearest surf beach.

For the first two years I stayed with Mrs D at Blue Hills Lodge, where full board cost me around 6 quid pw (my keyboard is US and does not understand how to reproduce the pound sign). I then moved to the Miami at Terrigal, a beachside gesthouse patrnised largely by holidaying hedonists of about my own age, but had to leave because I could not handle the pace - working by day and clubbing by night, so I rented a house adjacent to the beachside reserve at (boatless) Bateau Bay.

Our children had to leave home to attend university. We paid for their accommodation and a living allowance which was based on my own abstemious existence at University. This they deemed to be insufficient so they both found part time employment pretty quickly.

[ozziegiraffe]

LOL at the remote farming community of Erina. We drove up there to see Blue Hawaii at the Drive In.

[groo]

Blue Hills Lodge was quite near that Drive In, on Beach Street - an unpaved track with 3 or 4 houses along its length. Today Beach St is Karalta Road, a commercially cluttered thoroughfare leading to Erina Fair shopping mall.

My immediate past opthalmologist and cardiologist both had rooms on the site of one of those chook farms.

[romily]

different system in Germany. Parents re legally obliged to support children until they finish education – that incudes not only school but also an apprenticeship or university (we don’t didn’t have university fees but living expenses). So paying board would have been an alien concept for me had I even known about it. My sister even took my father to court for chid support when she was 16, he had to pay until she was 127 and finished her degree (27 also being the cut of point for parental responsibility I believe). I messed up a lot in my 20s, started Uni, dropped out, did odd job, did an apprenticeship, started Uni again and didn’t finish, but always had odd jobs – was living with mum all this time, and although I bought some of my own groceries there never ever was a discussion about paying rent or something.

In reverse children are responsible by law for their parents – if parents go bankrupt, or can’t afford to pay for car, the government will take money to a certain extend from the children’s paycheck to pay for it, and then top up the rest.

Also parents can’t write children out of their inheritance – there is a “Pflichtteil” – duty portion – if a parents inheritance that will go to the children no matter what. Obviously you can shuffle money into your partners name toa void this – my sister and I are already geared up fighting evil wife of dad should he die before her for the money that is ours.

The system and the thinking behind it is just totally different.

[riverhorse]

Actually, the cut off point of parental responsibility in Germany isn't 27, that is a well-worn urban myth (as PG found out when having to deal with lawyers etc about child support). These days, parents are only liable to support their children until they finish their education for the "usual length" of the regular university course - these days, just 4 years for a bachelor degree. If they faff around and tack on extra years and years to it, parents are no longer obliged to keep coughing up for them to be a perpetual student.

And as far as the adult children having to support their parents (e.g. pay for their care home etc), the law has changed with that too and you don't have to cough up for them until you earn at least €100,000 a year (which in Germany is a really higher than average income).

[romily]

Good to know, obviously my knowledge is 20 years out of date. Back then it was until you finished your first education (bachelor degrees were now very known!) and my sister studied Phsychology, left school at at 21, 5 years of university was the norm for that kind of degree. She sued my Dad whilst she was still in school (she was 16) ans he thought it would be fun to punish Mum by not paying child support for her as she went no contact with him - she was a bad arse hero even back then. He backed down just before it went to court, I guess the embarrassment would have been to much.

In my days they took money from grown ups to help with parental care down to a minimum living standard - I knew somebody who struggled with this - she actually would have bee better off financially not working and living on benefits than pursuing her career and getting her salary confiscated. Her parents were self employed and their business went bust - it was a bloody nightmare.

[rikita]

i always thought it was until 25 ... but i guess either it might have varied at different times or i just remembered it wrongly ... of course, with abitur taking 13 years and a magister taking longer than a bachelor, 25 was a normal age to be done with education ...

as for kids supporting parents, yes, only if kids earn over 100.000 ... but there can still be problems - like if parents officially gave the family home to the kids while still alive, but that happened less than 10 years ago when the parents start needing care, the house might be taken away and sold to pay for the parents' care ...

[tinaja]

This info of how it goes in Germany is interesting. I left home at 19 when I got married. We were together 2 years and got a divorce. So then I enrolled in college and got government support because I wasn't a dependent on my parents' taxes. I was probably entitled to some $$ from the ex, but being away from him was enough.

[rikita]

you can get support here without the parents' income taken into account (so the parents don't have to pay), but that is if you already worked a certain number of years before starting university ... i think if you are married, both the parents' and the spouse's income is taken into account ...

[lisamnz]

Jan 18, 2024 14:00:50 GMT -5 tinaja said:

This info of how it goes in Germany is interesting. I left home at 19 when I got married. We were together 2 years and got a divorce. So then I enrolled in college and got government support because I wasn't a dependent on my parents' taxes. I was probably entitled to some $$ from the ex, but being away from him was enough.

There was a similar situation in NZ, when student allowances (government payment) were means tested, but not if you were married. Numerous students got married to a friend in order to both be able to receive the student allowance.

I'm not sure how it works at the moment.

[tzarine]

never lived @ home when i had a real job
always worked in high school but those were superparttime

[lillielangtry]

Jan 18, 2024 19:21:11 GMT -5 rikita said:

you can get support here without the parents' income taken into account (so the parents don't have to pay), but that is if you already worked a certain number of years before starting university ... i think if you are married, both the parents' and the spouse's income is taken into account ...

I looked this up out of interest and it seems that, if you are married they look at the spouse first for support and the parents only if the spouse's income is insufficient. Which makes sense, I guess.