How much financial help are you really giving your adult children?
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Anonymous
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We encouraged our kid to live at home after college graduation, both to save/invest money and also so that he wouldn’t feel compelled to take any old job in a not-great market. He has 3.5 years left on our health insurance — seems like this is the time to be positioning himself for the career he actively wants. He’s working deliberately part time at a good-enough career-oriented job he doesn’t hope to do forever, while getting lots of freelance and contract gigs in the field he hopes to break into. We are not charging rent; he is investing. We pay for meals, he for gas, gym, travel, work clothes, entertainment, and all those other extras.
Maybe to some judgy neighbor it looks like failure to launch. I don’t care. It’s actually quite pragmatic. By contrast I had no financial cushion when I was his age, and could never have lived at home. As a result I took and stayed in jobs in areas for which I had no real interest, while making no investments in the areas for which I had the most aptitude and passion. My “real” career was delayed by decades — which is a different kind of failure to launch. |
Anonymous
Because it's really nobody's business. We help our kids. Our approach is "Die with zero" and we firmly believe that slowly gifting them the $$ now, in their 20s will be much more beneficial than them receiving a windfall in their 50s+ (they will get that as well). As long as they in meaningful to them careers and working hard, we will continue to do so. It's really nobody else's business. Our kids recognize their privilege and don't brag about it. One is 26, and knows that their chain of command must know their parents are rich, because they go on at least one very nice vacation yearly with us. But beyond that nobody knows or needs to know. They know most people have student loans and have to do it themselves. |
Anonymous
The Roth is why many parents do it---starting at 18 and maxing out at 7K yearly will be huge when you hit 65. We help with the 401k as well once they start a real job with that. Figure we pay enough in taxes, the kids might as well max their retirement savings, it's truly one of the best gifts you can give. By time our kids are 30, they could logically barely contribute and still have $2-3M+ at retirement. |
Anonymous
Get a life! You are checking home sales records to find out who co-signed your "friends" loan? You need therapy |
Anonymous
We are wealthy, so the entire wedding for each (within reason---not funding a 100 person wedding in Hawaii and all the hotels/all expenses for every guest level, but we'd fund the wedding itself and our immediate family costs ) Downpayments, we already gift our kids $38K/year, once they are married their spouse will also get $38K/year, and so on with the kids. That way they should have $200K+ for a downpayment in a few years. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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i babysit once a week so my daughter can work.
moneywise, nada. |
Anonymous
Yep, have seen that multi times play out in my neighborhood. |
Anonymous
| We pay rent for our oldest DD (age 26). She's a first year resident in a high COL city who only makes around $60k. |
Anonymous
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My mom gave me her old car when she bought a new one.
My MIL gave us $5000 to help with our closing costs when we bought our house. My mom and my MIL will pay for meals and things when we are together or pay for hotels if we are jointly staying somewhere on vacation. My mom buys excessive gifts for my kids. |
Anonymous
I know you want to die with zero, but how much do you have as a buffer? I think many people read these boards and start comparing what they can do for their kids to what others are doing at their retirement's cost. Is there a number you are holding on to for retirement and end-of-life care? DH and wouldn't feel comfortable making monetary gifts for our adult children if our net worth fell below $5m, for example. We are helping his parents now through their final years, and we see how expensive it is. It also causes some resentment in our marriage that we can't do more for our kids because his parents were irresponsible - they didn't help him with college or anything after he was 18 years old, and now we're funding their retirement years. The most important gift we can give our kids is not to burden them with the cost of our end-of-life care. |
Anonymous
| How are you alll funding ROTHs for your children. Isn’t that illegal? |
Anonymous
Probably not that much if they’re being martyrs. This thread is eye-opening. I more in line with pp on page 1 who said not much, but are always there as a safety net for an emergency. Will give $$ for weddings and will invite them and SOs to travel, and kids will inherit millions. |
Anonymous
Same. I martyred myself for my kids for 18 years while raising them and putting them through college debt-free. We plan to enjoy our retirement years. I wouldn't start considering gifting them money unless our net worth was over $10m. They will inherit someday, but it'll be whatever is left after we enjoy retirement and live our final years with dignity that we can afford from our savings. |
Anonymous
| We didn’t start gifting our kids until they were married and succeeding on their own. After they had children we well funded 529 plans for each child. We do annual gifts and we have provided bridge loans when they have bought homes and they pay us back. We have also set up irrevocable trusts. Last year we did provide large cash gifts that required gift tax filing. |