Reply to At what cost do you help your adult kids after getting them through college?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm seeking a sanity check on whether these things are reasonable.  I'm most interested in hearing from people who are well off but not rich, with adult kids in their twenties who graduated from college without debt and have good jobs.

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1. How much does helping your 20-something kids affect your budget and retirement plans?  I'm not as interested in hearing from people who have $10m or more, but from people still working and saving for retirement.  Are you willing to keep working after 65 to be able to pay for grad school, weddings, down payments, etc?

Does not affect at all. The only expenses I have for adult children are if we take them out for dinner, and their birthdays/Christmas presents. I am planning to work at least to 65 because I love what I am doing and maybe scale down after that, if health permits. I am 50 right now and as of now, I do not plan to pay for grad school, weddings, down payments, unless I will have an unexpected income increase.

2. How do you resolve disagreements with your spouse about how much support to provide adult kids and at what cost?  What would you do if your spouse were spending down assets on adult kids without your blessing, which you didn't give because you legitimately believe you couldn't afford it?

We are on the same page now: kids will get our assets only after both of us deceased. I am 10 years younger than my spouse, so he wants to make sure I have enough money during retirement.

3. When your adult kid visits, do you cover 100% of the costs of their trip?  For example, do you pay for their airline ticket, groceries, meals out, etc?   We cover travels to and from home while they were in college (youngest is still in college), after they got a job - they pay for their travels.

4. When you vacation with your adult kids, do you also cover 100% of the costs?  Not just the housing, but for example, do you pay for their round of golf, ski lift ticket, or other activities?  No. We invite them and tell them that the house is paid, and we will treat them for 2 dinners, but the rest of the cost they have to cover themselves.

5. An adult kid who has graduated and is employed visits and makes their own plans.  Is it reasonable for them to expect to be able to take your car while they visit?   And if there is a schedule conflict? I think it is reasonable if the car is not used at that time. If the car is needed, they can uber or use public transportation.

6. Would you help with graduate school, law school, medical school, or an MBA if it required you to keep working later than planned?  If you do it for one kid, do you need to do it for their younger siblings, too? More likely not, but I might be in the situation where I will change my mind. No automatic payment for all siblings, some of the kids chose the major that will not require grad school (engineering), or more likely their jobs will pay for grad school. One is in PhD fully funded program. [/quote]

I would not work longer to pay for weddings/grad school/etc for my grown kids.  We can afford it for ours, but if we couldn't we would not delay retirement.  Best gift you can give your kids is you not being a burden during your elder years
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You are teaching them they don’t have to save and don’t have to budget. They won’t have savings to help you if you drain your savings and then need medical care. Take a stroll over to the elder care forum and read the monthly costs for in home and out of the home care. If those posts don’t shock you into saving for your own retirement and medical care, then you maybe are more well off than you posted- in which case, do whatever you want and hope you have $ left when need it.[/quote]

Our kids are quite frugal and budget and save.  They also know we pay for many extras and that we can afford our elder care costs ourselves.  I'm well aware of aging care costs.  Paying to help our parents, but we are completely covered in the UHNW category.

But you can still teach wealthy kids to save and budget.  Daily our kids manage as if they don't get extras.  But they know we pay for vacations and extras, they know they wont have to save for their kids education and we will help with a home downpayment.  Why wait to give them the Money when we die
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