If you have adult children living at home, you’ve got “kippers”.

The acronym, created by a UK insurance company, stands for:

Kids
In
Parents’
Pockets
Eroding
Retirement
Savings

Sounds a bit more serious than what North Americans tend to call adult children living at home: boomerang kids.

So what can you do to get your kids out of your pockets and make sure your retirement savings is still there when you want to retire?

It can be tough: The simple truth is that more people in your house = more dollars. With an adult child at home, you’ll be using more heat, hot water, and electricity. You’ll need to buy more groceries. You’ll need more gas for the car.

You need to work out a budget for your household and ensure it’s something everyone can live with. If you don’t know where the money to make the situation work will come from, you need to think long and hard about whether you can help your adult child by having them live at your home. Otherwise, as the acronym says, it can be easy to let your retirement savings be eroded away.

With some simple budgeting strategies you can get a good overview of the situation before your child moves home – and keep those kippers out of your pockets!