How much financial help are you really giving your adult children?

[Anonymous]

How much financial help are you really giving your adult (out of college) children? If they didn’t have your help what would their life look like?

[Anonymous]

My sons are in their early 30’s (1 is married). They both are fairly new homeowners. I only assist with practical items for lawn care, some lamps, help with painting, etc. My DH and I bought them each a lawn mower for a housewarming gift.

[Anonymous]

I know people (30 plus) whose parents are paying for their down payment, co signing mortgages, paying for their grandkids braces, daycare, vacations, ivf, co signing on cars etc. a lot of these people would never admit to how much parental help they are getting despite having “good” jobs.

[Anonymous]

Older one just turned 18. I have enough to pay for community college and year 3-4, but only if he keeps his grades up. DC will be living with family members for free nearby while working part time.
It's not so much that I will help him later, but that I'm setting him up with Roth IRA now and an investment account right away so he can learn about investing. He also has great credit now, not just 10 years from now.
Not doing the house buying any time soon, because we have experience that market has better returns. Maybe at 30 when he finds a partner. House is a liability for us, not an asset.
We will not buy it until we really, really need this liability and can easily afford throwing money away on it.
The younger one inherited $250k at 10 years old. If invested properly, this is plenty of help.
Neither are big spenders and house and a car is not what they want. Bitcoin and rental apartments is what they prefer.
I can watch their kids for free as I'm already retired at 47.

[Anonymous]

Not much because I think it's better not to. Meals out together, flights home, and $100 at birthdays.

Of course, what I'm really providing is a risk backstop. They know if anything truly horrible happened (like say, cancer) I would step in as needed. And this has economic value and peace of mind even if never used or even noticed.

[Anonymous]

As an adult child, my parents:
—funded a ROTH as soon as I had income and through my 20s
—bought me a used car in grad school
—gave me up to the gift limit most years starting in my 30s

The annual amount made a big difference when I was younger, now it’s a nice perk that I stick in my kids’ 529s. The Roth contributions are worth a LOT now.

[Anonymous]

My 27 year old lives at home and pays for all her own expenses but by allowing her to live with us and not pay any housing expenses she is able to travel 3 times a year, shop/eat out weekly etc.. She recently said she spent $475 in 2 weeks eating out.

My 30 year old dd we help out by buying things for our grandsons. We will buy them school clothes, Jordan sneakers, pay for cell phones etc.

[Anonymous]

A lot but I have more than enough to spare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 27 year old lives at home and pays for all her own expenses but by allowing her to live with us and not pay any housing expenses she is able to travel 3 times a year, shop/eat out weekly etc.. She recently said she spent $475 in 2 weeks eating out.

My 30 year old dd we help out by buying things for our grandsons. We will buy them school clothes, Jordan sneakers, pay for cell phones etc.

That would infuriate me from a 27yo. This sounds like my 17yo!

[Anonymous]

Put 1 million toward the down payment of my son’s first place in NYC. He’s a great kid, kind, hard working, frugal. He did not ask for help but we have the money and I can think of no better way of using it than enabling him to live in a nicer place with his family than they could have afforded on their own. He does not expect from us, but when they are ready to upgrade in size we will help again with the down payment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know people (30 plus) whose parents are paying for their down payment, co signing mortgages, paying for their grandkids braces, daycare, vacations, ivf, co signing on cars etc. a lot of these people would never admit to how much parental help they are getting despite having “good” jobs.

From my parents we got $10000 towards the house down payment and they put around $500 per year per child in my children's 529s. My ILs gave us $1000 at the wedding and not a dollar since that.
Just yesterday my parents said that after meeting with a financial advisor they want to give us more money to avoid taxes. They informed me that the first gift will be for a certain home improvement they want me to have, and they have certain stipulations for the work that will be done! I said PLEASE just put the money in the kids' education funds but they don't want to do this for some reason.

[Anonymous]

We fund our 19 year old’s Roth IRA up to her annual income. We also give her an annual gift to her brokerage account. Last year we gave $10k. She does not use any of this money yet because she is still in college.

[Anonymous]

We gave our only DS our McLean house, worth about 3M, when he got married at the age of 27. We also set aside 1M for their kids future education, and paid off my DIL 80K in student loan (DS was college’s debt free). DW and I live in a two bedrooms condo. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 27 year old lives at home and pays for all her own expenses but by allowing her to live with us and not pay any housing expenses she is able to travel 3 times a year, shop/eat out weekly etc.. She recently said she spent $475 in 2 weeks eating out.

My 30 year old dd we help out by buying things for our grandsons. We will buy them school clothes, Jordan sneakers, pay for cell phones etc.

And you're proud of this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We gave our only DS our McLean house, worth about 3M, when he got married at the age of 27. We also set aside 1M for their kids future education, and paid off my DIL 80K in student loan (DS was college’s debt free). DW and I live in a two bedrooms condo. YMMV.

I sure hope their marriage lasts.