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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]With the rise of AI, I'm realizing that I will need to support my kids financially forever. We are stopping at 2 kids. I'm a doctor and I think aspects of my job are safe but the competition to get into medicine and other AI saf(ish) jobs will be too much. I'm expecting to pay for downpayment, my grandkids, etc. Are you all planning accordingly? [/quote]

Well, no shit. Since we are not going to live forever...maybe another 20 years (till 80) if we have a good running, we are not thinking forever.  But, here is our plan.

- continue living a MC life even though we are UMC.  
- pay fully for college (and college years), and make sure that they go to state flagship on merit scholarship.  No use wasting money on expensive college when jobs are going to go away. Make them major in in-demand major. Encourage them to continue to get more education and skills to become more resilient.  
- pay fully for their wedding. 
- pay fully for setting up their first rented apartment when they get a job in another city - furniture, furnishing, gadgets and appliances, all digital devices, sports gear, exercise gear, luggage, first professional wardrobe.  First 6 months of rent.  New car. 20K seed money. 
- let the kids stay free with us in our home for as long as they want.  Including their spouse and kids. If they want to stay forever? Ok. 
- provide childcare, pay for a nanny and cleaner if they are living away from us and have small kids. 
- let them stay on our medical insurance until they are 25. Even if they are working. 
- [b]make them bank 2 years of their salary first[/b], before they get married. encourage them to find the right partner and marry early. encourage them to date for marriage. 
- be open to building an ADU in our backyard or extending our house. 
- let our savings remain as is, live/save our fat pension, give them the non-taxable cash gift each year. 
[/quote]

How exactly are you going to MAKE your adult children do anything with their money? You are way too enmeshed. [/quote]

Enmeshing is how my people do it all. Rise up even in adversity. Joking.

You begin by making sure that you have not raised stupid kids.  That they are top students and that they are financially literate and that they are super resilient.  Also, once they go to college and see how the stupids and their unfunctional parents go through life, they realize that they have it very good.

My adult children listen to me, because your adult children do not listen to you.  Your adult children are the living example of how poor financial planning by parents suck the life out of a person and blights their future.   You, your adult children and your combined decision-making abilities + dysfunctionality  = best dose of reality of my adult children.   So - Thank You! Please continue to mess up.

So, when they learn how to invest amd see their money grow, when they understand the power of compounding, when you let them stay at your house for free for a few years so that they can bank all their money - some in retirement and some in investments, when they convert their leftover money in 529 (because of merit money) to Roth in their name, when they don't have debt, when they don't have a car payment, when they have an amazing wedding they did not pay for  ...they begin to realize that they are ahead.

While, their friends are struggling to pay off debt, they are just banking their money.  Their lifestyle on the surface is not different from their friends - they are still going for cheap vacations and eating at that hole in the wall place like others - except my kids are secretly rich.    And if tomorrow they don't have a job - they can still live, get married and have a kid or so.

Furthermore, nothing erodes a young marriage faster than poor income or no savings.  You want your kids to marry, have kids...they need to be financially solvent and also have a financial cushion.  When you help your kids financially and cover  college, wedding, car etc - they are aware that their friends are not in the same situation because their parents did not plan well.  So, when you say - 2 years of salary goes in the bank before you enter into a marriage - they understand the plan. [/quote]

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