Do you have an age cut off on supporting adult kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Expect to do for ours the same my parents did by maxing out the annual gift amount. Passes on cash and avoids tax issues later when we pass. And will help with major expenses like house purchase or wedding.

Your kids are going to inherit more than $30M indexed for inflation to when you die? Not sure what tax issues you're talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My one kid is 22, earns like $300k, has $250k of his own money saved and options in a company worth around $5MM (but of course the company needs to get sold or somehow allow employees to sell in a private round).

We still are gifting some $$$s for estate planning.

I don't feel like I am supporting him at all.

If you are gifting money for estate planning purposes you must have more than $30m in assets so maybe in a different position than OP.

Not true. Different states have different gift maximums before tax penalties kick in. My parents are in NY and have to keep their estate under roughly $7.4M. Maryland is much lower, I understand, at $1M.

Not an issue in CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two in college, and it's obviously the most they have ever cost us. Tuition/ dorm we pay for with 529, but there is car insurance, healthcare, huge amounts of food they consume when at home which is a large part of the year given college schedule. They do work but so far are only using their money for their own "fun spending" and saving. At what point do you stop supporting kids financially? Did you stop cold turkey after college? Or did you phase things out so they progressively became independent? I read that 64% of parents support their Gen Z kid but that is not such a helpful stat given the age range of gen Z including college kids.

My oldest graduated in 2025 with a good job. He still lives at home rent free and we invite him to dinner where we cook and he’s around. He’s still on our cell phone plan and uses all of our on demand TV apps. He pays his own car insurance and is now on his corporate health insurance (which didn’t save us any money)

he lives at home because we live in arlington and this is where he wants to be, and also to be close to work. He’s using the opportunity to save and invest his money. I’m glad he’s saving so much money and actively investing along with maxing out his roth and traditional 401k.


He’s a joy to have around so he’s welcome to the arrangement as long as he needs. many of his graduate friends in this area also moved back home since this is such a great place to be for jobs. They all have great jobs as well.

[Anonymous]

Yes we are those parents who gift our adult kids money. Not ashamed. Not going to wait until we are dead for them to inherit. We gift spilt the maximum allowable each year.

This question is a deeply personal one and unique to each persons financial situation and family values. Comparing what others do is really irrelevant to what you should or could do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My one kid is 22, earns like $300k, has $250k of his own money saved and options in a company worth around $5MM (but of course the company needs to get sold or somehow allow employees to sell in a private round).

We still are gifting some $$$s for estate planning.

I don't feel like I am supporting him at all.

You don't even have to support him. I don't know many 22 years old Americans who earn $300k. Your child is clearly incredibly talented in his field to make this much at 22. It's just not common

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My one kid is 22, earns like $300k, has $250k of his own money saved and options in a company worth around $5MM (but of course the company needs to get sold or somehow allow employees to sell in a private round).

We still are gifting some $$$s for estate planning.

I don't feel like I am supporting him at all.

You don't even have to support him. I don't know many 22 years old Americans who earn $300k. Your child is clearly incredibly talented in his field to make this much at 22. It's just not common

He probably works at daddy's office.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to mention some very small stuff. Small stuff but it mattered to me. For me it was the cell phone plan. Yes I know a family plan is cheapest for everyone but I didn't want us all to be enmeshed. I started with that, off the cell phone plan and off our car insurance. Those were in their name in college. BUT I provided them with the money, so they had the money to pay their bills for those things. This until the end of college. Since graduating college, I don't know what cell and car insurance plans they have. They've likely switched plans, switched companies. Who knows, not my business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to mention some very small stuff. Small stuff but it mattered to me. For me it was the cell phone plan. Yes I know a family plan is cheapest for everyone but I didn't want us all to be enmeshed. I started with that, off the cell phone plan and off our car insurance. Those were in their name in college. BUT I provided them with the money, so they had the money to pay their bills for those things. This until the end of college. Since graduating college, I don't know what cell and car insurance plans they have. They've likely switched plans, switched companies. Who knows, not my business.

See that's one thing I don't care about because it's so cheap. I worry more about big support. Whoever said it's a case by case basis thing is obviously right. In our case we had to support in-laws financially, and have basically been THE responsible people in our families forever so had to also help with dh's grandparents. My parents don't need financially help but take a lot for granted like extremely expensive visits to them and guilt us when we don't go. Nobody really ever considers that they put big costs on us but never help us out in ANY way. It's like generosity (don't mean just monetary) and consideration skipped a generation. So the idea of possibly having to help in-laws in old age AND supporting our kids long term too feels absolutely soul crushing. I worry about it a lot. At what point do we get to exist for ourselves only, financially speaking? I want to be a very supportive mother of adult kids but would prefer to be generous with time and occasional gifts than ongoing support. We simply can't really afford to do all of it the way some wealthy people in this thread do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expect to do for ours the same my parents did by maxing out the annual gift amount. Passes on cash and avoids tax issues later when we pass. And will help with major expenses like house purchase or wedding.

Your kids are going to inherit more than $30M indexed for inflation to when you die? Not sure what tax issues you're talking about.

At this point, they would get about that amount. With the potential for 2X that very likely. So yes, tax issues. Also we live in a state where anything over $1M is estate taxes at 10%+ and everything over $10M at 20%. So yeah we have to worry about tax implications.

But mainly we expect to live for awhile, and our kids benefit more in their 20s from our help than getting that much at age 45-50+. It's silly to sit on inheritance if you have enough for yourself already

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two in college, and it's obviously the most they have ever cost us. Tuition/ dorm we pay for with 529, but there is car insurance, healthcare, huge amounts of food they consume when at home which is a large part of the year given college schedule. They do work but so far are only using their money for their own "fun spending" and saving. At what point do you stop supporting kids financially? Did you stop cold turkey after college? Or did you phase things out so they progressively became independent? I read that 64% of parents support their Gen Z kid but that is not such a helpful stat given the age range of gen Z including college kids.

My oldest graduated in 2025 with a good job. He still lives at home rent free and we invite him to dinner where we cook and he’s around. He’s still on our cell phone plan and uses all of our on demand TV apps. He pays his own car insurance and is now on his corporate health insurance (which didn’t save us any money)

he lives at home because we live in arlington and this is where he wants to be, and also to be close to work. He’s using the opportunity to save and invest his money. I’m glad he’s saving so much money and actively investing along with maxing out his roth and traditional 401k.


He’s a joy to have around so he’s welcome to the arrangement as long as he needs. many of his graduate friends in this area also moved back home since this is such a great place to be for jobs. They all have great jobs as well.

And because of this, if he's financially smart, he will have enough for a downpayent on a decent home after 3-4 years. Smart move for him

[Anonymous]

No cutoff. My kids are 41 and 43 years old. We continue to support them. They don’t have very high-paying jobs even though they attended private school and we covered the full tuition for their private colleges.

My husband wanted to cut them off, but I disagreed. They are my little babies, and they will inherit our wealth anyway. They might as well benefit from it now. We provide them with a monthly allowance to help with their incomes. Additionally, we contribute to 529 plans for the grandkids.

[Anonymous]

60% of Gen Z is still in high school or college, so while 64% sounds like a high number, it's not. If you figure in young adults with disabilities, parents helping with grad school, young adults living at home to save money for a down payment . . .

I have a young adult who developed a severe illness. He's 26, and I support him close to 100%. If you'd asked me 10 years ago, if I would be supporting a 26 year old, I would have said that was not the plan. But sometimes life changes things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expect to do for ours the same my parents did by maxing out the annual gift amount. Passes on cash and avoids tax issues later when we pass. And will help with major expenses like house purchase or wedding.

Your kids are going to inherit more than $30M indexed for inflation to when you die? Not sure what tax issues you're talking about.

At this point, they would get about that amount. With the potential for 2X that very likely. So yes, tax issues. Also we live in a state where anything over $1M is estate taxes at 10%+ and everything over $10M at 20%. So yeah we have to worry about tax implications.

But mainly we expect to live for awhile, and our kids benefit more in their 20s from our help than getting that much at age 45-50+. It's silly to sit on inheritance if you have enough for yourself already

If your kids have to pay $3M in taxes, and so they only have $27M, that is not "something to worry about". That is a wonderful situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:60% of Gen Z is still in high school or college, so while 64% sounds like a high number, it's not. If you figure in young adults with disabilities, parents helping with grad school, young adults living at home to save money for a down payment . . .

I have a young adult who developed a severe illness. He's 26, and I support him close to 100%. If you'd asked me 10 years ago, if I would be supporting a 26 year old, I would have said that was not the plan. But sometimes life changes things.

Sorry, I mean they are high school or college age. They might be in college or trade school, or working a job that doesn't support them 100%. The reality, in this economy, is that most people under 22 are not 100% self supporting.

[Anonymous]

Not really. They support themselves but we help sometimes. My parents did the same for me. I was grateful for their help and it was a kindness from them. I want to do the same for my kids. If they were hitting me up for money for gambling, drugs or stuff like a designer purse or a new boat, then no.