Anonymous wrote:No, but my grandmother paid for my and my siblings, college and private school. Mom isn't as generous.

Such entitlement.

Grandparents are also awesome gossips. All of their friends and family members probably know who is paying for what and which kids are being helped out in a significant way.
I have a relative who is a Biglaw partner whose dad was explaining in a fair amount of detail how he is paying for all of college and expenses for his granddaughter (the partner's daughter) to the full extended family right when the relative and his family arrived at the family party. The partner wasn't thrilled that everyone now knows the full arrangement like that. If you have any qualms about people knowing beyond an anonymous board, you might tell your parents or in-laws .

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private School tuition? If so, all or some/how much/is it on a regular basis? Do you expect them to pay? How often do you or your spouse ask them? Are there other regular payments that they make or that you expect them to make?

No, my parents do not have that sort of money. My in-laws are even less well off and require financial support from us.

If they had the money and wanted to pay then I'd accept it, but I would definitely never expect it. I can not imagine any grown adult EXPECTING their parents to financially support them.

Expectations come from somewhere. If you are a parent wondering why your kids expect something you aren’t prepared to give them, perhaps you set the expectation.

Anonymous wrote:Private School tuition? If so, all or some/how much/is it on a regular basis? Do you expect them to pay? How often do you or your spouse ask them? Are there other regular payments that they make or that you expect them to make?

No, my parents do not have that sort of money. My in-laws are even less well off and require financial support from us.

If they had the money and wanted to pay then I'd accept it, but I would definitely never expect it. I can not imagine any grown adult EXPECTING their parents to financially support them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t expect anything from them, nor do we ever ask.

What they have done/do:
-private school tuition, roughly $40k x 2
-$15-$16k annual gift for each of us (so x 4)
-wedding gift of $500k + a $1.7M trust
-we typically join them for an annual vacation at a property they own and if it works out, we fly privately with them and they won’t let us pay for anything while we are there

You don't need to ask as they do plenty and give freely.

Yeah, but they seem like kind, thoughtful and generous people who give freely, and that is pretty nice, private jet or not.

I am the PP whose in-laws give generously and yes, freely, which seems to be rare. We do our best to pay it forward. I grew up poor and my living parent is poor, as is my sibling who is a hard-working single mom. We give generously to them, pay for their visits, an annual beach trip for them/our family, have bought vehicles for my sister, furniture, I take her kids school shopping most years, and other things she has needed. I have donated my airline miles to multiple extended family members who needed to get to funerals and other important events and just generally try to help out.

That is great! You are lucky to be in such a privileged position and seem to really understand that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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…

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t expect anything from them, nor do we ever ask.

What they have done/do:
-private school tuition, roughly $40k x 2
-$15-$16k annual gift for each of us (so x 4)
-wedding gift of $500k + a $1.7M trust
-we typically join them for an annual vacation at a property they own and if it works out, we fly privately with them and they won’t let us pay for anything while we are there

You don't need to ask as they do plenty and give freely.

Yeah, but they seem like kind, thoughtful and generous people who give freely, and that is pretty nice, private jet or not.

I am the PP whose in-laws give generously and yes, freely, which seems to be rare. We do our best to pay it forward. I grew up poor and my living parent is poor, as is my sibling who is a hard-working single mom. We give generously to them, pay for their visits, an annual beach trip for them/our family, have bought vehicles for my sister, furniture, I take her kids school shopping most years, and other things she has needed. I have donated my airline miles to multiple extended family members who needed to get to funerals and other important events and just generally try to help out.

No, neither pay for our kids' tuition (at a parochial K-8). They have never offered, and we do not expect them to. They do contribute yearly to their 529s, for which we are grateful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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…

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.

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I thought I was pretty privileged but some of the comments here are blowing my mind!

No, we pay for private school out of our salaries ($220k HHI). We also pay for my parents to come and visit us.

There aren’t two Americas, there are at least three. Poverty, prosperity, and holy heck.

I’m sorry, how are you paying for private school on that salary? It costs a quarter to a half of your income.

Maybe you’re talking about catholic elementary school or something.

My In Laws pay half but said they would only do it for 2 years which they did. We switched to private during Covid. We have decided to keep her there thru MS as she’s happy and doing well. They haven’t offered anything else yet for next year and we’ve paid the deposit, luckily we can afford it if we’re careful so we’re not relying on them.

Anonymous wrote: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.

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…

Wow. I thought I was pretty privileged but some of the comments here are blowing my mind!

No, we pay for private school out of our salaries ($220k HHI). We also pay for my parents to come and visit us.

There aren’t two Americas, there are at least three. Poverty, prosperity, and holy heck.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No because my husband and I are the ones who decided to send our kids to private school and that choice was on us and for us to pay for so we structured our lives to allow for that. (We definitely notice the money leaving our bank account). My parents sent me to private school but I would never expect that they'd pay for my kids to do the same. Honestly I look down a little on people who do this. Like, be an adult and pay for your expenses. I guess it would be different if parents were wealthy and kids had low-paying jobs like teaching but otherwise I think you're sort of a child.

What if one parent despises the paying (grandparent/s), refuses to work, but theirs are the only grandkids?

Why do both parents need to work? Hi, mom.

I’m glad you have your spouse’s back. Grandparents that meddle are the WORST. What a cow.