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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For those who do accept help, do you have a discussion with your family members about their finances to be sure they can really afford it? I've heard of grandparents making offers they really shouldn't make because their friends were doing something similar. With the high cost of healthcare, poor recent return on investments, and long life expectancy, I worry some about people who are giving away what sometimes amounts to $100k+/year. Some think of it as an early inheritance gift they get to see the benefits from but I'd be careful accepting much without having a pretty good idea of their means. [/quote]

I wouldn’t worry about this unless I were a sibling who feels that my other sibling was taking too much.  Is that you?

Other than that, it’s really up to our parents to plan their own financial futures.  If they make a mistake and have been overly generous with their kids, it should have set the kids up to be in a better position to help them should they truly need it.

What an odd point to raise…[/quote]

Wouldn't you want your parents to actually be in a position to help. People who are accepting $50,000 per year should have a pretty good idea of what their parents have if they are willing to just say yes.

Private school tuition and accounts that should only be accessed for particular purposes (like 529s with WD penalties) are fairly unique in the fact that they don't put the kids in a better position to help their parents, which is why having that type of talk can be important. 
Direct gifts to family members up to the $17,000 annual exclusion amount are different in that regard since that $$ could then be used to help the parents later on.[/quote]

Oh sure, but I wouldn’t use an educational account to give to my kids—for just this reason. Then again, if you cover the education bases, the kids will have more money to spend and invest  on other things. So maybe it’s worth the tax benefits.

I know someone married to a guy whose family has serious wealth.  She doesn’t work, but they married late and had kids in their forties.  She had a lucrative career which she left when her husband told her she didn’t need to work anymore. She believed him. Now over a decade later, the family is pulling all the strings and refusing to fulfill promises they made about private school and other things related to the family enterprise. The siblings of the guy are involved and whining about things being “fair”.  It’s really sad. There’s more than enough money to go around but they lacked a coherent strategy for giving it away.

These issues are so interesting to me because I am trying to figure out how best to structure things for my child if, by some miracle, I have enough money to even think about providing education assistance to future grandchildren. That would be amazing.

If one can, I think the best thing to do is structure regular equal payments to your kids into your financial plans, and let them make their own lives.  Maybe their kids won’t go to college but might want to start a business or have medical needs etc.  theoretically you’re raising good kids who will make sound decisions and sending them out in the world with all of the resources you could! That’s my goal anyway.
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