How much are you able to help your DC when they start adult life?

[Verbena193]

My parents very kindly paid for university, a house deposit, driving lessons and a first car.

We're not as well off as they were and university has now tripled in cost since I went. We have £10k saved for DS, he's 16. I feel awful that we can't give him the same start in life.

What are you hoping to be able to help your DC with?

We have given two flat deposits which they put together and bought a one bed flat to share Have paid for maintenance at uni and help with some fees. Eldest is a teacher so took ten years to clear her uni debt. DS in second year. Paid for all accommodation so £20k and some food/transport another £10k over two years. He failed so is now staying at uni but working FT with no financial support from us. Have paid for all driving lessons for 2 and have an old banger we use they can use if needed and we will upgrade. Will support DD when she goes to US on a soccer scholarship about £10k p.a . We will help with deposits for flat when needed.

Around 30k in a fund

We will help with uni costs (we live abroad, it's cheap)

They can live with us as long as they like

I'll pay for driving lessons etc

I think this is short sighted. It will cost upwards of 60k to get through university with no debt. Wouldn’t it be better to save the fee part as a house deposit? Otherwise it will take a long time to save enough to buy a house. Many people never repay their full loans.

We’ve paid to our the oldest through uni, paid for her driving lessons and a car, insure/tax it, pay for phone etc. they’re just back from uni and struggling to get a ‘proper job’ although has one that she kept through uni holidays.
We have money saved to put towards a deposit for her at some point.
Middle one we are about to pay to put through uni, did driving lessons and car etc for this one too.
Have money saved towards a deposit.
Youngest we will do the same when the time comes.
We have saved hard since they were born to make sure we could do this and continue to save for our futures too.
Saving is so boring 😂 dh is sensible
with money, if I was fully in control I’d have had loads more holidays!

We gave our DC the equivalent of the uni maintenance loan each year to avoid them using student finance and they’ll pay it back interest free. Tuition fees anlready covered. Also paid for all their uni accomodation. Have done regular savings for them since birth, driving lessons, phone contracts etc. Will be lucky enough to give them a decent lump sum for a house deposit, and in an attempt to ‘die with zero’ hope to pay for significant items for them as they get properly into adulthood. Thinking about pensions atm but need advice.
We’ve been fortunate financially and want to pass it on and see it spent.
Unlike PIL who lived like paupers, gave nothing and had assets of over £1m, now going on care fees and IHT.

We live in Ireland so university costs here if living at home are €3500 approximately. Covered that for our 3 plus driving lessons.
2 did an Erasmus abroad - one in Singapore and the other in Melbourne - we paid for flights and accommodation, tuition fees were paid for by the Erasmus scheme.
Will help with deposits if needed - 2 have already bought houses and the 3rd one is debating moving to London with work.

We maintained ds through uni (accommodation and maintenance and he took a loan for fees). We also invested into a Stocks and Shares ISA for him which was turned over to him at 18 and was worth around £100K. He has not touched this and has added to it himself now he is working in a well paid job.
I know how exceptionally lucky we are to have been able to do this- but in part it is because we live quite a frugal life, not anywhere near 'doing without' but we are just not splurgers. We were older parents and and so had benefitted from lower property prices but we stayed put in a modest house and had the mortgage paid off by the time ds was born.

@FioFioSILKwhich post?

No idea yet but ideally would be driving lessons and a small but safe 2nd hand car (not if she is in a city though), help with rent/food at Uni and a deposit. I left home after A 'Levels but it's what my friend's families did for them and I remember thinking that is the goal when I have kids.

It's looking very unlikely though.

Ex and I we gave 80k to each of my kids, it came from the sale of ex-maritial home after divorce. Ex stopped paying maintenance when my younger turned 18 and my dd was at 1st year at Uni. I was lucky to be earning more than now at that time, and was able to help both of them with Uni costs after they borrowed the minimum maintenance loan.
I prefer to give them their money now when being able to buy their first property. My dd already bought hers with her boyfriend nearly a year ago. My ds is undecided when and where. I never got anything from my parents. My mother died when I was a toddler, GPs brought me up. Father was soon drowning his sorrows and remarried, his new wife never took to me. I know what it feels like to feel alone in the world, without any financial backup. I consider it my big achievement that my kids have my financial support, they don't take it for granted.

The interest paid on a student loan is much higher than the interest paid on a mortgage.

Given the DCs degree choices they are likely to be in the band of paying it back for sodding ever but not paying it off. Which means over their lifetime they will pay back in total far more than they have ever borrowed.

We paid rent through Uni for those who went. Paid for driving lessons but didn’t buy them a car, or insure it. We gave them a 20% deposit on their homes. They all bought a house by their mid-twenties apart from DD who is still at Uni. We’ve helped with renovations on their homes. We won’t pay for weddings but will make a contribution.

They’re adults now and should be paying their own way. We’d help them out in the event of an emergency and lend them some money, but I wouldn’t be one of those infantilising parents who are still bankrolling their children in their 30s and 40s.

My dd has over 22k, ds has about 20k. 140 per month per child child benefit here in Ireland so it adds up and we save it.
Assuming nothing changes and finances improve we will put them through university…(but I would assume they will get part time jobs/summer jobs also as I did!) and we can pay for driving lessons/car etc. I would like to buy one car for them both to learn in…there’s 2 years between them so it should work.
If we can bank roll all that and leave the savings then they can have the savings for house deposits.

We invested for ours since birth and that’s produced around £100,000 each. We paid for driving lessons but they took loans for university. One paid it off by 30, the other not much! So it’s been nearly free for her so far but we paid for a course for a career change. We gave them money to live at university beyond the minimum loan - about equal to max loan.

They have now inherited a bit from grandparents. We also had 2 rental properties we sold so they got sizeable house deposits. No weddings yet but one seems settled with possible wedding in future. We will discuss money if the boyfriend proposes!

It’s so much harder than I’d planned for when they were young. Even driving lessons have needed help from GPs.

Id give them something towards a flat deposit but nowadays it may not be enough to make much difference.

Also worse for girls due to the gender pay gap, career breaks for childcare. Because it's income based repayments women are disadvantaged particularly if they have kids. If you can, better to pay it off.

How are they disadvantaged if they have a career break? They don’t pay back anything whilst not earning which is an advantage. I still think having a lump sum for a house deposit is a huge advantage whereas paying a small amount of your income is not a huge deal. If the house goes up in value as is generally the case the extra interest on the loan is soon overwhelmed. Paying rent is dead money and very difficult to lift yourself out of without a deposit.

3 children .
Fulltime single parent so no money to save .
grandparents paid for driving lessons and any clubs / activities and they are all able to use my car .
They have funded uni thru loans and part time jobs and I help with extras like clothes / train fares .
They can live at home for as long as they want / come back whenever and if they are working I would ask for £50 a week as a contribution . I own the house with a small mortgage so they will inherit that.
Youngest is with me currently and elder two likely to return so they can save for deposits / year out / travel .

I am old so my parents had to pay a small amount of money each month for university for me, but tuition was free. I got no other financial help - I did once ask for a loan of £1500 to help me buy a house and it was refused. Fair enough, their money.

We have paid for my DD to have driving lessons, supported her to attend university (she still had a tuition fees loan), and have been able to pay most of a deposit for her first flat in London. We will probably help her buy furniture etc.

Young people now definitely have it harder than my generation financially. My DD also won't receive any money when her grandparents die. I was very hurt at my parent's refusal around the £1500. I had never asked for anything from them before. It was absolutely their money and their choice. But it made me think about how I wanted to support DD.

If we are able to we also plan to give relatively small sums of money when DD goes on maternity leave etc.

They were well looked after at uni. We paid for driving lesson and we loaned the money to them for a car - they pay us back monthly. They live in our house rent free, whilst they save for deposit or other adult essentials. Will give each £100k towards a house - but they don’t know that yet. We want them to behave responsibly with money and currently that’s what they are doing.

I didn't get any financial help during or after I left school and it was tough.

I helped my two as much as possible and I was prepared to help with university but neither went. I will not be able to gift them a deposit but I still give them money here and there to help. They both know they can come to me because I don't want them to make decisions solely based on money

My parents were the same as yours OP, they paid for driving lessons, university, tutoring, music lessons, house deposit. I will be able to do the same for my DD but I will have to sell my house to fund her property deposit when the time comes. That’s the plan anyway.

My parents promised very little and didn’t give me that. At times I’ve had to pay for things for them that they couldn’t afford, such as holidays, even in my early twenties.
I have already bought properties for my children, but they don’t know yet and won’t until they reach a sensible age.
I wouldn’t pay for driving lessons or weddings or cars, those are lifestyle choices that they can fund themselves.
I will encourage them to go abroad for university where fees are lower.

Nothing money wise and I got nothing from my parents either. I'm already putting them off going to uni as we can't support them and I don't think it pays off in the long run. But I hope to always have a spare room for them so they can always come back to live with us at any age and I hope that helps them as a safety net. My parents left the country and weren't there for me at all so I hope to always be able to offer physical help and advice and a place to stay when needed.