The mother of 3 explains why she is paying her children’s rent, food and utilities

A clever mother of three has revealed that she pays her three children’s rent, food and utilities.

Milly, a UK-based mother who runs the TikTok channel budget with milly, detailed her unique approach to personal finance in a video shared on the platform.

Read more: The best savings accounts for children and teenagers

Personal finance is one of those issues that every parent has to talk to their children about at some stage. Unfortunately, the reality is that many simply aren’t.

In 2022, a CNBC + Acorns Invest survey of 1,149 parents found that only 15 percent of moms and dads surveyed said they talk to their kids more than once a week about family finances.

They found that 13 percent of these respondents talked about money with their children once a week and 16 percent did so once a month.

Read more: How a personal finance expert teaches her kids about money

Meanwhile, another 24 percent admitted to discussing financial matters less often than that, while a surprising 31 percent admitted to never having these kinds of conversations with their children.

Milly said Newsweek her mother never taught her or her two siblings anything about money. “My mom didn’t know anything about finances and money,” Milly said. “She was in debt, lost her job, and we’ve also been homeless living in a bed and breakfast and so much more.”

Milly taught herself everything she knows about finance and is determined to pass that knowledge on to her children, Stiffany, Hannah and Jordan, who are aged 8 to 12. “I didn’t want my children to go through what my siblings and I did with our mother,” she said.

Read more: The best checking accounts for teenagers

That’s where the idea was born to charge from their compensation for rent, bills and utilities. “We wanted to give them a sense of what it’s like to pay the bills, and that’s why we charge them for rent, food and utilities at a pound each, out of their £5 payment they get every week , for doing chores around the house,” Milly said.

Milly is a sharp advocate for making your money work for you. “My only advice for someone getting better with money would be to learn how to earn, use and multiply money,” she said.

This is something she has sought to instill in her children. While charging them for rent, food and utilities helps them understand the importance of financial planning and the value of money, Milly is constantly looking for ways to further expand their financial literacy.

“We also want to give them an understanding of how to use the rest of their money for investments, savings and spending,” she said.

As a parent of three children, she sees this as her duty and something that, without her intervention, would be missing from their lives once they reach adulthood.

“The school system doesn’t teach kids about the real world of money and finance,” she said. “This causes young people in the future to struggle and live paycheck to paycheck and be in high amounts of debt.”

Her decision to make her children pay the bills from a young age has not been without its critics on social media. Commenting on the TikTok video outlining her approach, one critic said: “So you choose to have a child and then pay them rent when they’re under 18” with another asking: “What are you going to do if they don’t pay?

However, some were all in favor. “This is amazing,” said one. “Your kids will understand prioritizing bills over luxuries when they grow up.”

Milly hopes her video will spread awareness of the positive ways parents can set their children up for the future. “I believe our children have benefited from this as it will help them in the future and not be afraid to handle their money and their daily bills, not be in debt and be able to handle their finances theirs,” she said. .

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