A household is a group of people sharing a home, with their own relationships, work, needs and changing circumstances. Open HOME → Household to understand how that shared Life is working.
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Use this chapter when: you are living with parents, sharing costs with a partner, welcoming a housemate, discussing responsibilities, helping an adult child settle into independence, or preparing for someone to move out.
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Overview brings together the residents, current arrangements and anything needing attention. Members lets you look more closely at each person. Home Life covers responsibilities and the way you share the space. Finances explains contributions and your own share of the costs.
The populated Household Overview is shown in 11. HOME, Housing, Assets & Places. That chapter covers the property, renting, buying, repairs and moves; this one covers the people living there.
Depending on the Life, residents can include parents, a partner or spouse, children, adult children, friends and housemates. A resident is the same person you know through Family, Relationships or People, rather than a separate household copy.
Open a member to review their relationship to you, current circumstances, contribution and responsibilities. Their profile can lead back to the relevant Family, Relationships or People view. Residents continue with their own education, jobs, relationships, Health and later-Life circumstances. Sharing your address does not freeze their Life.
A young adult can remain at home with their parents. Moving out is a decision, not an automatic consequence of becoming an adult. When you are an adult living with parents, your normal household responsibility is board.
Board is your contribution to living there. You do not take over the parents’ full rent, mortgage, utilities and other household bills. Your parents remain responsible for the rest of their household costs and retain their own employment, retirement and changing circumstances. Your own personal commitments, such as travel or debt, still belong to you.
You can plan a move through HOME when it suits the Life and finances. Staying with parents can be a sensible arrangement while studying, beginning work or getting established.
A partner who lives with you can contribute towards appropriate shared costs. The arrangement may be an equal split, or one person may carry more; it does not have to be exactly half each. Their full salary remains their money.
An adult child can stay at home while their education, Career, relationships and plans develop. A working adult child may pay board. Studying or having no earnings does not create an imaginary wage to draw on, and younger or dependent children do not pay household costs.
If someone’s circumstances change, discuss whether the arrangement still works. Losing work or taking on other responsibilities can make a review useful. A changed income is not permission to silently rewrite an agreement. An adult child’s board ends when they leave the household.
For the wider relationship and family journeys, use 13. Dating, Relationships & Shared Life and 15. Family, Children & Generations.
Finances shows what the home costs, what residents contribute and what remains your responsibility. Household costs are shared according to the people and arrangements in that home: a partner may contribute towards shared costs, while a working adult child pays board.