Helping adult children

[sadlebred]

I love Clark Howard, and this topic was brought up....the average parent helps adult children with $1350/month in their 30s. About 30% of adult children receive help. The research was conducted by the Pew center.

So, here' s a poll. Assume the adult kid is finished with college/university or is working full time and living on their own outside of the family home. Not including big ticket items like paying for college, helping with a home down payment, weddings, big stuff.

[wanderingback]

I don’t remember exactly but I was in med school in my late 20s and early 30s. My parents never regularly paid my rent or anything but when I got divorced I did live with my dad for a few months after I moved back from living overseas. Then, he also put me on his cell phone plane which I think I stayed on till I was maybe 35? Can’t remember exactly. Both my parents have helped me out here and there as thankfully they are financially secure (not wealthy, but don’t struggle to pay regular bills and have some fun)

I would certainly do the same for my child.

[lilypad1126]

My parents helped me until I graduated law school/took the bar. Like within days of being done with the bar exam, my mom turned my car payment and insurance bills over to me. I think I was already paying my own cell phone. They never paid my rent (that’s what student loans were for). She did (and still does) randomly send me a card in the mail with $10 in it, just bc she’s thinking of me. They really couldn’t afford much more.

They helped my sister for much longer. She needed more help, but prob by her mid-30s they quit helping. Or at least scaled back.

If I had kids, I’d help in similar ways.

[sadlebred]

I answered nope. Not ever after I moved out of the house. I was on my own for car & health insurance the day I moved out. I think Mom would sometimes slip me $10 for gas when I drove to visit. No cell phones back when I was in my early-mid 20s. We didn't have streaming service either, and my parents didn't pay for my cable---I didn't have cable for about 10 years after moving out of their house.

[heygrey]

H and I got married a few weeks after graduating university and have been 100% independent since. My parents have given us some small financial gifts here and there (more recently since my grandparents passed and they have shared a bit of the inheritance with us), but nothing that we depended on for necessities.

[Roc A Bee]

I lived at home through college. No rent charged. Then I first moved into a rental my dad owned and paid $300 a month. He still pays for my cell phone, but never my rent/mortgage, car payments, etc.

[sakoro]

..the average parent helps adult children with $1350/month in their 30s. About 30% of adult children receive help. The research was conducted by the Pew center.

Does this include letting adult children live in their home and use utilities/ meals/ cellphone plan? Because that would be the equivalent of $1350 in high cost of living areas.

I did not receive help from my parents after I graduated from college. However, if I were 22 years old today, I’d probably move in with them in order to gain a financial foothold.

[heygrey]

Jun 2, 2024 21:41:32 GMT -5 sakoro said:

..the average parent helps adult children with $1350/month in their 30s. About 30% of adult children receive help. The research was conducted by the Pew center.

Does this include letting adult children live in their home and use utilities/ meals/ cellphone plan? Because that would be the equivalent of $1350 in high cost of living areas.

I did not receive help from my parents after I graduated from college. However, if I were 22 years old today, I’d probably move in with them in order to gain a financial foothold.

H and I are planning to launch DS into adulthood with no student loans and better financial sense than we had at 22, but we are also prepared to let him live with us for a couple years so he can get a good financial start after university. It is highly unlikely that we would have money to give him for a downpayment, but if he were to save a lot of his income and live with us for free I would be happy to support that. 

[mccallister84]

Jun 2, 2024 21:41:32 GMT -5 sakoro said:

..the average parent helps adult children with $1350/month in their 30s. About 30% of adult children receive help. The research was conducted by the Pew center.

Does this include letting adult children live in their home and use utilities/ meals/ cellphone plan? Because that would be the equivalent of $1350 in high cost of living areas.

I did not receive help from my parents after I graduated from college. However, if I were 22 years old today, I’d probably move in with them in order to gain a financial foothold.

Yes I would like to know more about this. I just find it really hard to believe the average parent is giving their 30 year old child more than $1300 of financial support. Now, if it’s calculated on free rent on the parent’s house that makes more sense but that number seems insane to me.

[wanderingback]

Jun 2, 2024 21:56:35 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

Jun 2, 2024 21:41:32 GMT -5 sakoro said:

Does this include letting adult children live in their home and use utilities/ meals/ cellphone plan? Because that would be the equivalent of $1350 in high cost of living areas.

I did not receive help from my parents after I graduated from college. However, if I were 22 years old today, I’d probably move in with them in order to gain a financial foothold.

Yes I would like to know more about this. I just find it really hard to believe the average parent is giving their 30 year old child more than $1300 of financial support. Now, if it’s calculated on free rent on the parent’s house that makes more sense but that number seems insane to me.

Yes I would love to read more about this and was wondering the same. It says the average parent helps with $1350. Based on statistics and averages I don’t think the "average" parent can afford that monthly on top of their own expenses.

If it does include living at home it’s also good to remember that in some (many?) cultures it is completely normal and expected to live at home in adulthood.

[noodleoo]

LOL nope. Once I had a job and moved out I was on my own. I’m shocked that parents are paying that much for kids in their 30s. But I probably shouldn’t be. I’ve been surprised to learn how much money some of my friends get from their parents as adults with kids. It was eye opening and made a lot of observations make more sense.

I hope to be more generous with my kids than my parents were for me.

[mainelyfoolish]

My kids are still minors, but the people I know with kids in their 20s who provide support are doing so primarily by letting the kids live at home for free, and maybe still paying for a family phone plan.

One co-worker has her 25 year old daughter and daughter’s fiancé living in her basement for the foreseeable future. The two “kids” both work full time and are saving money, but they just spent most of their savings on a down payment for a subdivision house lot that just came up for sale in the fiancé’s parents’ neighborhood, so they won’t be able to afford to build a house on that lot for probably 3 or 4 years.

Another co-worker had her late-20s daughter living at home for a couple of years after daughter split from long-term boyfriend. That kid moved out, and now mid-20s daughter and daughter’s fiancé (both employed full time) are living in her upstairs while they try to save money to buy a house.

The housing market in my area is wildly expensive with respect to local salaries, and there is virtually nothing available to rent year-round. Young adults that want to live here are priced out by retirees moving in from more expensive metro areas. The only reason we can afford to live here is because we bought when prices were still depressed in 2013 (we moved here from the next town over). Obviously people are free to buy houses and move wherever they want, but I know a lot of families that are in multi-generational housing situations because they can’t afford to maintain separate households without moving far away.

[tacokick]

This study has some details but unless I’m missing it, I’m not seeing it line up exactly with the numbers in the OP. It also gets into the impact of help on the giver.

www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/01/25/financial-help-and-independence-in-young-adulthood/

It does look like a sizable chunk of people are getting financial help from parents (which included things like paying for a cell phone or streaming service) but on the other hand a good portion of adult children are helping their parents financially.

[mccallister84]

Jun 3, 2024 6:23:38 GMT -5 tacokick said:

This study has some details but unless I’m missing it, I’m not seeing it line up exactly with the numbers in the OP. It also gets into the impact of help on the giver.

www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/01/25/financial-help-and-independence-in-young-adulthood/

It does look like a sizable chunk of people are getting financial help from parents (which included things like paying for a cell phone or streaming service) but on the other hand a good portion of adult children are helping their parents financially.

Thanks - I did pull the study as well, but didn’t listen to the podcast, and agree the study alone doesn’t seem to fully line up with what was presented here. Although there was a few times where 18-34 year olds seemed to be grouped together as young adults which is an interesting choice for this kind of study. There’s a world of difference between a “typical” 18 year old who may still be in high school and a 34 year old in terms of the financial support they would need.

[CrazyLucky]

My parents got me through the first year of college, and after that I've paid my way. I'm thankful to them for working hard to get me through and setting me up for a much easier life than either of them had. My kids are in 6th and 8th, so this isn't real for me yet. I wouldn't have any problem letting them live at home, but it probably wouldn't be rent free. They can contribute something towards bills. But I don't see me paying $1350 a month for their rent or whatever. My current plan is to retire about 2-3 years after DD would graduate college if she goes, so continuing that level of support wouldn't be feasible.

[mae0111]

My parents didn't consistently help me after college. But in my late 20's, my ex-FI and I bought a house together. 2 weeks later, he moved out. He left me with the mortgage and a pile of CC debt for the wedding and just walked away scot-free. I was underwater with the home, I couldn't find a roommate because it wasn't a desirable area for young single people, and I was really in trouble financially.

At that point, my dad made a huge sacrifice... he took a lump sum payment from his pension, and he gave me money each month to make ends meet. I was literally splitting a can of soup to last over 2 meals - it was really rough. After about 6 months I was able to put the house back on the market and walk away with a little bit of money from the sale. I tried to pay my dad back, but he refused. He said, "I felt like I couldn't do anything to help you through your breakup. This was what I could do. Just let me do it."

DH had a similar situation, his ex-W was cheating on him with a very good friend of his. He needed a PI to gather evidence to accelerate his divorce, so his parents paid for that. But no consistent help.

I imagine we'll have to help our kids a bit if they want to stay in our current area. It's incredibly expensive. If we can help them when they're starting out, I'd like to do it.

[TR]

Mine doesn't really fit into the choices. There wasn't regular help after college, but if I had an emergency and couldn't cover or something in my early 20s, my mom would help me out.

[simpsongal]

I used student loans to fund health insurance, to buy a laptop, to buy a train ticket home for the holidays- so newp. At 41, I'm still paying those loans...so can I claim a negative for parental help LOL?

There is a family in our friend group that gets regular cash from their family - we all sort of joke that we don't all have "XYZ family" money. I think it's like $20K-30K/year (?), but getting tax free cash from family on the regular is a pretty huge boon to them.

ETA: My mother provides pretty regular support to my brothers - rent, food money, other cash infusions.

[wildrice]

That surprises me! My parents helped with some things through college (I paid for some things too). IIRC I was on my own in grad school, which I finished at 26. They haven't helped me with any ongoing bills since. 

My youngest sister is currently receiving financial help from them because she's unemployed and experiencing some major health problems. She's about to turn 37. To my knowledge, she hadn't received any financial help from them in 10+ years before that though! We are lucky that we have supportive parents and I know that if I truly needed help, my parents would have helped me too - but thankfully I haven't needed it.

[sadlebred]

Jun 3, 2024 6:23:38 GMT -5 tacokick said:

This study has some details but unless I’m missing it, I’m not seeing it line up exactly with the numbers in the OP. It also gets into the impact of help on the giver.

www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/01/25/financial-help-and-independence-in-young-adulthood/

It does look like a sizable chunk of people are getting financial help from parents (which included things like paying for a cell phone or streaming service) but on the other hand a good portion of adult children are helping their parents financially.

That was the number mentioned in the podcast. It's possible the podcast host got it wrong. Either way I found it interesting.

I don't consider living at home necessarily supporting someone if they are working full time, saving money, helping with the house (maybe buying groceries sometimes or cutting the yard or even paying a token amount of rent--that often the parents save to give to them later). Even in the mid-90s when I graduated from university, most grads--if they didn't have a job in another location lined up--moved back in with their parents for a time. I did for about a year and a half and then moved to another city for a new job.

[purplepenguin7]

I voted for "My parents supported me with rent, utilities, car payment, etc. into my late 20s/30s." but my mom didn't actually pay anything directly but she would throw me a $100 here and there for certain things, pay for my groceries if we went shopping together, buy me clothes if were shopping, etc. I wouldn't necessarily call it "supporting" but it was definitely helpful when money was tight.
edit: i changed my vote to this one "I received help from my parents monthly at more than $100/month.".

[plutosmoon]

I didn't really get much help once I moved out. I had some small things here and there, some occasional money for paying my student loans. No help with rent or such.

My former in laws helped my former SIL a ton, well into her 30s after she was married and had kids. Just before my FIL died they figured out they had given her somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 and offered to help me and exh with some things to even things out. MIL ended up giving us some help with buying our second house (around 15k). I am pretty sure former MIL is still supporting exh, who is 50 and possibly unemployed again.

[midwestmama]

I didn't vote, because I felt like my parents only provided me with occasional help. The first being that when my car, which I was paying them back $50 a month, started having transmission problems, and I traded it in for another affordable used car, then didn't make me pay what I owed them for the car. (It probably would've been in the $3k range.) I was in my first year of work after college, and wasn't making very much money. The second was when DH and I bought a different house in 2011. I was on maternity leave at the time, so my checks were lower than normal. We needed $5k to cover something related to the sale of our old house or purchase of the new one, but it was very much just a loan. We paid them back within a few months.

I feel like my sister has gotten more from our parents as an adult. She lost her job due to a downsizing a year and a half or so after she started working after college. They helped pay for the early termination fee for her apartment, and then she lived for free at their house for 6 months or so until she found a new job. (She did get a part-time job at Staples during that time, but I'm sure they didn't charge her rent or anything.)

They helped pay for law school so she didn't have to take out a loan, which she supposedly is "paying back" by paying for their cell phone bill for forever. They gave her one of our grandpa's cars for free, after he passed away, and they could have sold it for maybe $1500. (I got nothing.) She is single, no kids, so often will get our parents to take her on vacation, where they pay the majority and they take one of our parents' vehicles. She spends at least 2 weeks each summer at our parents' cottage (our late grandpa's home), and doesn't lift a finger to clean or help with anything; if she eats meals with my parents, she does not help pay for groceries.

[tacokick]

Jun 3, 2024 9:27:56 GMT -5 sadlebred said:

Jun 3, 2024 6:23:38 GMT -5 tacokick said:

This study has some details but unless I’m missing it, I’m not seeing it line up exactly with the numbers in the OP. It also gets into the impact of help on the giver.

www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/01/25/financial-help-and-independence-in-young-adulthood/

It does look like a sizable chunk of people are getting financial help from parents (which included things like paying for a cell phone or streaming service) but on the other hand a good portion of adult children are helping their parents financially.

That was the number mentioned in the podcast. It's possible the podcast host got it wrong. Either way I found it interesting.

I don't consider living at home necessarily supporting someone if they are working full time, saving money, helping with the house (maybe buying groceries sometimes or cutting the yard or even paying a token amount of rent--that often the parents save to give to them later). Even in the mid-90s when I graduated from university, most grads--if they didn't have a job in another location lined up--moved back in with their parents for a time. I did for about a year and a half and then moved to another city for a new job.

It sounds like the podcast was either confused or conflating things to make a more interesting story.

I wouldn’t call a lot of what the study called support “support” either—paying for a streaming service is not really support IMO. That would be like saying since I bought my friend a cookie and a coffee for the same $8 or whatever streaming would be I am supporting her.

[mccallister84]

Jun 3, 2024 12:10:32 GMT -5 tacokick said:

Jun 3, 2024 9:27:56 GMT -5 sadlebred said:

That was the number mentioned in the podcast. It's possible the podcast host got it wrong. Either way I found it interesting.

I don't consider living at home necessarily supporting someone if they are working full time, saving money, helping with the house (maybe buying groceries sometimes or cutting the yard or even paying a token amount of rent--that often the parents save to give to them later). Even in the mid-90s when I graduated from university, most grads--if they didn't have a job in another location lined up--moved back in with their parents for a time. I did for about a year and a half and then moved to another city for a new job.

It sounds like the podcast was either confused or conflating things to make a more interesting story.

I wouldn’t call a lot of what the study called support “support” either—paying for a streaming service is not really support IMO. That would be like saying since I bought my friend a cookie and a coffee for the same $8 or whatever streaming would be I am supporting her.

Yes totally agree. Like my sister pays for the Hulu and we pay for Disney plus. We aren’t supporting each other (and we were paying for the Disney plus before she started Hulu and shared it with us - I didn’t consider us financially supporting her even when it wasn’t “even”).

[sometimesrunner]

I didn't receive financial support, but I do have my dad's direct TV password.

[ssmjlm]

I don't get regular support from my parents, but they are generous with gifts and help. I mean, I am saving a ton of money on summer care since they moved here and offered to help with camps and take her overnight. That help is probably worth more than anything for all of us.

I am in a unique situation of parents who can afford it, they see it as early inheritance. I'm the only living child with the only grandchild.

When I moved home after grad school I didn't pay rent. I just paid my cell phone and my portion of car insurance. I was living home to pay off my loans from grad school, so my dad figured that was about the same in costs.

[ssmjlm]

Also, since the study focuses on the young adult ages, I will say, I think there's more temptation for things that cost money now vs when I was that age.

I keep telling the interns at work, who somtimes complain about money and costs, that they need to look at their spending. Do they need all the streaming services, plus spotify, etc? Where is your money going every month.

They want to make fun of me for free spotify, but hey, that's XX dollars staying in my pocket.

[EvieEthelGarland]

My parents paid for college (in-state public) and I lived at home for 2yrs after graduation. I got a cell phone before they did so I was never on a family plan and health insurance kicked off young people after graduation but they would've kept me on both if it was possible. My DS will be kicked off the family plans when I die.

My sister and I don't need any help from our parents, but they are generous to us. I took DS on a trip recently and my dad randomly venmoed me money and told me to do the pricy excursion I was on the fence about. He sent my sister the same amount, just to be fair. If there was a real need, say something medical, I think we'd all agree there's no need for "fairness."

[mcsangel2]

I lived at home until I was 29 (!), I was never charged rent or anything. They never gave me direct financial assistance, but they co-signed for my first new car in my mid 20s, and for my first apartment when I moved out (I was really salty that the apartment complex required me to get a co signer, too). At the time I remember thinking, "What about all the people that don't have enough of a family network to get someone to co sign for them?" Having that already puts you ahead of the game over a lot of other people.

I never had student loans because I never completed my degree. That first apartment I got in 2001 I think was about $650 and now it's $1300 a month.