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

[Anonymous]

After they graduated college debt free they were on their own and they did fine. Now they are all married with kids and we fund 529s and nice annual gifts. One of them is still in my cell phone plan but she Venmo’s me $100 a month.

[Anonymous]

Why do people have kids on cell phones who they require to pay them?

Surely she could get a plan for under $100? What's the point of this?

My kids will be on or off, I don't want to make sure they're reimbursing me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had my mom’s credit card for at least my whole 20’s. I tapered use of it and then I think by 25 I only used it when she explicitly told me to, usually for family vacations or like, if I was shopping for Thanksgiving they hosted. But she would also tell me to use it for like, an interview suit, or something like that. They also gave me a check every year and still do, as part of their estate plans.

She gave you the actual card or just the information? I thought credit cards were not supposed to be used by someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Well it would be $6M, and yes it's not a major issue to most. But we would prefer not to give the state (or fed govt) more money, as we have already paid them nicely thru our lifetimes.

And the key issue is, them having access to $38K yearly in their 20s and beyond (once there are SO and grandkids we will also gift to them as we see fit) will greatly impact their overall life, much more than they would by getting it at 50+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people have kids on cell phones who they require to pay them?

Surely she could get a plan for under $100? What's the point of this?

My kids will be on or off, I don't want to make sure they're reimbursing me.

It's your choice. I agree and we don't charge our kids. And yes they could get a plan for under $100, but the same plan they have now would increase by $45/month, so why wouldn't I just keep them on my family plan and save that? I may be rich, but I don't waste money. Little things add up to bigger things

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After they graduated college debt free they were on their own and they did fine. Now they are all married with kids and we fund 529s and nice annual gifts. One of them is still in my cell phone plan but she Venmo’s me $100 a month.

$100 a month for cell phone? That's excessive.

[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.

This is what I hope my son does for at least a few years.

[Anonymous]

To sum up, everyone is giving their kid money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had my mom’s credit card for at least my whole 20’s. I tapered use of it and then I think by 25 I only used it when she explicitly told me to, usually for family vacations or like, if I was shopping for Thanksgiving they hosted. But she would also tell me to use it for like, an interview suit, or something like that. They also gave me a check every year and still do, as part of their estate plans.

She gave you the actual card or just the information? I thought credit cards were not supposed to be used by someone else.

Officially not, but if you authorize it, it's easy to do.

Also, our kids each got a card at age 16 (when they started driving solo), so it was a card I was primary on, and I added the kids, so they started building credit. Now it has a $20K limit and each kid still has their card. When they charge something we are going to pay for, they use that card (well the one still in college uses it for most everything). That way it's easier for us to pay for travel and such.

[Anonymous]

I was cut off after my undergrad.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have an age cutoff. If they need help, I will help them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To sum up, everyone is giving their kid money.

I’m in my late 40’s and know quite a few people my age who still receive parental assistant via either travel, school expenses, annual giving or a combination thereof. We do not receive anything but we understand how helpful it would be.

[Anonymous]

It wasn’t our choice, transfer of wealth started when they were born and they slowly started to take control of their money. We’ve never lived lavishly and they never wanted to. My oldest daughter is in NYC in college. Her friends are from all kinds of backgrounds and it doesn’t matter. That was their parent’s household, not theirs.

I don’t see how having financial support will change anything.

[Anonymous]

When they are young they need help getting the right house, paying for private school and country club initiation fees to really get things all set up. It’s a lot to pay for while also trying to raise a family so we are glad to help them both out.

[Anonymous]

Our kids are in college and as of now we're taking the approach that we'll provide financial support and housing whenever asked unless it becomes something unhelpful to the kids more broadly. But I think it's very family and child-specific. We all have issues/problems and I'm aware that support can have negative impacts. With our particular kids, though, I don't see any risk as of now, and see benefit to providing support. Our kids, though, are very academically and professionally driven (and generally highly engaged and goal-driven). We're quite close as a family so I know we'll need to be mindful of independence (especially if one of the kids is living at home after college while dating).