Do you worry about your kids being able to maintain your current lifestyle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The secret sauce in life isn’t money, houses, and first class flights. If you’re worried about your kids worrying about trivial stuff like this you’re doing it wrong.

Of course it's not, but having enough money for certain things, like to afford kids and a house, those things still matter. And I'm concerned my kids won't be able to afford those milestones, especially with the speed at which AI is replacing knowledge workers.

An apartment is fine and kids can be raised in an apt
-DP

Sure they can be raised in an apartment. But it's not what i want for my kids or grandkids (unless you are living in nyc)
It would be nice to have more space, better schools, etc and growing up in a house/townhouse with space

It doesn’t really matter what you want. And it’s not just NYC where apartments are not unusual. Boston, Cambridge, Chicago, Houston, any city there will be families who choose to live in the middle of the city.

Definately get that it's not about "what I want". But I'd never encourage anyone to have kids until they can afford a place with enough space to be happy. Because once you have kids, it's much harder to get there.

[Anonymous]

None of them want it.

[Anonymous]

HHI of $350k in LCOL area. Nice home and domestic vacations – no vacation homes or international vacations or luxury cars. DH and I had no help from our parents, we both enlisted I the military right out of high school. We are successful based on our hard work.
Older 2 sons (early 30s) – we paid for education, first cars, gave them $10k starter at college graduation… both went for city life. Live in small apartments. One chose to go with a flexible work environment that pays less than he could be making because he values flexibility. One earns $150k/year – not bad for being early 30s, but he seems to squander it. I look at them and think where I was at their age – owning my first home and out of the tiny apartment life. But these are their choices. We mention that they can have careers in our small city (less than 100 miles from DC, so can easily get to city life on weekends) and have a LCOL, but they don’t want small city life. We have helped them financially from time to time - $5k down for a car just a few months ago for one son, for example, and generous amounts of cash at holidays. Third son in college now. He has a financial head on him. He sees our home (3500 sq ft, 5 bed / 3.5 bath SFH with inground pool, ½ acre lot backing to state forest) and wants that and does not like the idea of living in a tiny apartment in a big city. He chose to live at home for college, so all the money we would have spent on housing is going into a savings account for him. He will easily have a $60k nest egg when he graduates. He plans on buying his first home soon after graduating college. He has an internship that will likely end up hiring him upon graduation with a decent starting salary.
I know financially, life is much harder for Gen Y&Z. That is why we paid for their education and gave a nice graduation cash gift for them to start their adult lives. TBH, I was not worried when they were in their 20s as tiny apartment living in big city is kind of a rite of passage and very normal. But now that they are in their 30s, and their apartments are… not very nice… I am concerned. But if our children do not have the drive & determination, there’s only so much parents can do. Or maybe they just don’t care about material things and value experiences over possessions. I just keep my opinions to myself and ask them if they need anything.
I do worry about appearances that we are giving the third more money – but it was a tradeoff he wanted. If the other 2 had gone to commuter college close to home and lived with us, we would have done the same – but I also fully supported them going away for college and gaining independence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HHI of $350k in LCOL area. Nice home and domestic vacations – no vacation homes or international vacations or luxury cars. DH and I had no help from our parents, we both enlisted I the military right out of high school. We are successful based on our hard work.
Older 2 sons (early 30s) – we paid for education, first cars, gave them $10k starter at college graduation… both went for city life. Live in small apartments. One chose to go with a flexible work environment that pays less than he could be making because he values flexibility. One earns $150k/year – not bad for being early 30s, but he seems to squander it. I look at them and think where I was at their age – owning my first home and out of the tiny apartment life. But these are their choices. We mention that they can have careers in our small city (less than 100 miles from DC, so can easily get to city life on weekends) and have a LCOL, but they don’t want small city life. We have helped them financially from time to time - $5k down for a car just a few months ago for one son, for example, and generous amounts of cash at holidays. Third son in college now. He has a financial head on him. He sees our home (3500 sq ft, 5 bed / 3.5 bath SFH with inground pool, ½ acre lot backing to state forest) and wants that and does not like the idea of living in a tiny apartment in a big city. He chose to live at home for college, so all the money we would have spent on housing is going into a savings account for him. He will easily have a $60k nest egg when he graduates. He plans on buying his first home soon after graduating college. He has an internship that will likely end up hiring him upon graduation with a decent starting salary.
I know financially, life is much harder for Gen Y&Z. That is why we paid for their education and gave a nice graduation cash gift for them to start their adult lives. TBH, I was not worried when they were in their 20s as tiny apartment living in big city is kind of a rite of passage and very normal. But now that they are in their 30s, and their apartments are… not very nice… I am concerned. But if our children do not have the drive & determination, there’s only so much parents can do. Or maybe they just don’t care about material things and value experiences over possessions. I just keep my opinions to myself and ask them if they need anything.
I do worry about appearances that we are giving the third more money – but it was a tradeoff he wanted. If the other 2 had gone to commuter college close to home and lived with us, we would have done the same – but I also fully supported them going away for college and gaining independence.

Don’t base everything on outward spend and appearances. We’re around their ages and make close to $1M but live in a sh*t shack because we’re pursuing FAT FIRE (plan to hit $20M by mid 40s). Lots of people our age live significantly below their means because we’ve seen 2008 as teens and previously the dot com crash as young kids.

[Anonymous]

My kids did not come back to Nova after college. They both have advanced degrees but live in lower COLA areas. They're very happy and do well.
I cannot wait to move out of here when I retire. The only problem is that my mortgage rate is 2.75. That is hard is give up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up upper middle class in a LCOL area. Parents did very well and owned multiple businesses.

I went to college with no debt, married husband and we also do well. HHI is around $700-800k a year. Sister is also doing very well and her HHI is around $1-1.2 million a year.

I worry our kids will get used to this lifestyle and never be able to replicate it. They are used to living in large houses, traveling to summer houses, flying on nice vacations (first class many times), etc. they aren’t spoiled at all and seem appreciative as much as kids can be but this is just the life they are used to. DH and I work hard and want to enjoy our life as well.

Do you also worry about your kids being able to maintain their lifestyle as they grow up? Of course DH and I do not want to or expect to fund our kids into adulthood and expect them to find careers and support themselves.

you make 700-800k a year and you are flying first class as a family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up upper middle class in a LCOL area. Parents did very well and owned multiple businesses.

I went to college with no debt, married husband and we also do well. HHI is around $700-800k a year. Sister is also doing very well and her HHI is around $1-1.2 million a year.

I worry our kids will get used to this lifestyle and never be able to replicate it. They are used to living in large houses, traveling to summer houses, flying on nice vacations (first class many times), etc. they aren’t spoiled at all and seem appreciative as much as kids can be but this is just the life they are used to. DH and I work hard and want to enjoy our life as well.

Do you also worry about your kids being able to maintain their lifestyle as they grow up? Of course DH and I do not want to or expect to fund our kids into adulthood and expect them to find careers and support themselves.

you make 700-800k a year and you are flying first class as a family?

I said this earlier in the thread and was attacked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up upper middle class in a LCOL area. Parents did very well and owned multiple businesses.

I went to college with no debt, married husband and we also do well. HHI is around $700-800k a year. Sister is also doing very well and her HHI is around $1-1.2 million a year.

I worry our kids will get used to this lifestyle and never be able to replicate it. They are used to living in large houses, traveling to summer houses, flying on nice vacations (first class many times), etc. they aren’t spoiled at all and seem appreciative as much as kids can be but this is just the life they are used to. DH and I work hard and want to enjoy our life as well.

Do you also worry about your kids being able to maintain their lifestyle as they grow up? Of course DH and I do not want to or expect to fund our kids into adulthood and expect them to find careers and support themselves.

you make 700-800k a year and you are flying first class as a family?

I said this earlier in the thread and was attacked.

went back - OP said mostly via points - which is a big difference. it's not really possible on HHI of 750k (regularly, once in a while sure) to actually pay for it.

I have to assume the OP has family money, that is the impression given in the original post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up upper middle class in a LCOL area. Parents did very well and owned multiple businesses.

I went to college with no debt, married husband and we also do well. HHI is around $700-800k a year. Sister is also doing very well and her HHI is around $1-1.2 million a year.

I worry our kids will get used to this lifestyle and never be able to replicate it. They are used to living in large houses, traveling to summer houses, flying on nice vacations (first class many times), etc. they aren’t spoiled at all and seem appreciative as much as kids can be but this is just the life they are used to. DH and I work hard and want to enjoy our life as well.

Do you also worry about your kids being able to maintain their lifestyle as they grow up? Of course DH and I do not want to or expect to fund our kids into adulthood and expect them to find careers and support themselves.

you make 700-800k a year and you are flying first class as a family?

I said this earlier in the thread and was attacked.

went back - OP said mostly via points - which is a big difference. it's not really possible on HHI of 750k (regularly, once in a while sure) to actually pay for it.

I have to assume the OP has family money, that is the impression given in the original post.

In which case the entire post was irrelevant unless they plan on spending all the family $ and not passing anything down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not worried at all but we don’t live a life of excesses now.

All of this.

[Anonymous]

Statistically speaking, my kids will be worse off financially than I am. But as long and they are happy, there is nothing to worry about.