If you got a big financial leg up from your parents …

[anotherside]

I’m talking a significant amount, at least enough for a comfortable house down payment. So say at least 20-30k and then all the way up to £millions.

So if you received a big cash/property gift from parents, have you always been entirely grateful for it? Or is there some part of you that wishes they hadn’t given you it, in order that you could have achieved (or tried to achieve) everything completely independently.

Wouls be interested to hear thoughts on this (along with how much you actually received if willing to say, as a leg up of say £30k vs £300k vs £1 million is qualitatively pretty different).

I got £100k when dad died 25 years ago. Paid off a whack of the mortgage.

Fair enough. My thoughts went to my friend who grew up with wealthy parents and worked in a garden centre. She'll inherit a fair whack at some point, and I think it works nicely that someone who wants and NEEDS a bigger income takes a higher salary whilst she just potters.

I'd say most of the financially secure people I know are similar - they prioritise lifestyle and flexibility over a big salary they don't need. I don't know anyone who's become a waster from financial security.

(My bugbear is that I think every family should be able to pass on a nice chunk of money for a leg up or investment so that everyone can live a nice unambitious life and do the same - it's billionaires who a draining society, not people passing on anything in the 50-500k zone!)

I want my kids to house share and live with strangers in grotty flats just as I did rather than rely on me for a deposit or expect me to buy them a flat. I think it builds character!

I am clearly alone in this. I may even have to change my mind if they are housesharing in their 30s.

I didn't receive a leg up when I was young but when I got divorced in my fifties DM gave me a substantial amount of cash which I was extremely grateful for because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to buy my ex out of the house.. (She didn't live for 7 years afterwards though, so IHT was payable in the end)

Have you considered why the cultural differences are there?
The UK house prices have sky rocketed over the last few generations and we have a very generous pension/welfare system supporting the elderly.
Generally countries where children support their parents financially are the opposite.

i don’t think achievements are necessarily linked to money. Sometimes needing to make money can actually interfere with achieving something important. I think that money can either free people or enslave them, depending on their attitude and values. It can be complicated- sometimes having money given to you can be a big pressure: your work must be ‘meaningful’ in itself as just having a job to survive doesn’t seem completely necessary.

I will always be very grateful for the money I was lucky enough to be given.

True enough. But I still don't want my kids having kids if I have to pay for their holidays!

My parents have always been very financially supportive. They paid for the first st deposit on my flat (which was donkeys years ago and we'll under 10k) and that helped us enormously. They continue to help us via the grandchildren, paying for some of the driving lessons, buying first car etc. I have never asked or expected anything from them, but it gives them enormous pleasure to help us all and we are all very grateful to them.

My father sold his bungalow and moved to a new flat near us with mum who had dementia. Best move ever gave her 5 years at home with us rather than care home.
he then gave grandchildren 50k each as money couldn’t change their circumstances. He said he enjoyed seeing each one buy a property that was worth such a lot to him. He got to see them being sensible with the money while he was still alive. All invested in property and was really appreciated.

My parents gave me 100k towards my first home and they left me 750K when they both passed away in 2019.

can’t say I’ve ever felt anything other than total gratitude tbh

I received 52K - but this was after my Mum died (so from sale of her home). It’s the best gift she ever gave me and I am forever grateful. It’s meant we were mortgage free several years earlier than we would otherwise have been.

Yes, I was able to quit my job, take something low paid and PT and retrain because I had a safety net.

I agree and disagree. I think that one of the "stifling" things about people who've always lived with their parents is that they've never known other standards or ways of life. Housemates helps with that.

I don't think giving people a leg up in their late 20s is mutually exclusive with encouraging people to have fun and freedom too.

Besides, have you seen the price of a grotty flat share these days?!

My parents gifted me the money for my first flat. No way could I have bought it without their help. And no I have never resented it. It was about £40k.
My children went to private school and my son has alluded to how he feels it was a waste (he barely scraped through GCSEs and got a vocational qualification) and I think part of him blames me for him feeling like he should have been more academically successful. I don’t think it was a waste at all.
I do see a number of friends’ children working for their parents, and I wonder how they would have fared in the current climate if they’d had to go find a job themselves. So not direct money gift as you speak of but a job/career they might never had got if it hadn’t been from family. So they won’t ever be able to show they made it on their own.

Large inheritance. Gave my son £40k deposit for his first home and furnished it for him. Loved every minute of it and it’s changed his life beyond measure

Yes, well aware of the price of house shares because DS, 21, will be moving into a grotty house share in London next year on his first grad job.

I want him to suffer a bit and work hard in his job, before I chuck any money his way. He has shared before, and did fine.

DD is in a low paying career, so has to live at home until she can find a better paying one. I don't charge her any rent so I still think she has a good deal.

This is why house prices remain crazy high, because basically there's 3 or more people buying them!

DH and me had £0 from parents in order to buy a house. DDs live in London and we have given them both substantial amounts c£300,000 each. They do realise they are lucky but most of their friends have received similar amounts. One earns a lot, the other doesn’t but both work hard at very different careers.

My kids are going to hate me. 😳

No help at all for actually buying a house/car etc (though my education was well supported) but generous provision via inheritance to make my older age reasonably secure. I am glad to have provided for myself in earlier life without any help from them, but grateful every day to have a cushion for the future. My much younger half-sister got a nice house and car entirely paid by them and I have mostly felt glad that I'd been more independent than her, in spite of struggling financially for a time.

I received £700k towards my first flat deposit and all my university fees paid for and it made a big difference as it meant I had a nice safe place to live and our mortgage was very low. I also started working with no debt. I would definitely do the same for my own kids. I would provide most of the housing but not so much that they felt they didn't need to work.

Yes, after I divorced, had to sell the house and ended up renting, my dad inherited a significant amount of money from an aunt and, after moving himself into a bungalow, helped me out hugely with purchasing my current home. I’m an only child and he said he couldn’t see me and my son struggling trying to get enough money together to purchase again, when it’d all be mine once he was gone anyway. I was, and still am, incredibly grateful. I’ve since become disabled and unable to work much and I thank my lucky stars that the one thing I never have to worry about is a roof over our heads. My lovely dad passed 5 years ago now but I know it made him very happy to see us secure and living somewhere nice and safe.

@RessicaJabbit Indeed. I feel like a fool as it took me ages to realise other people buying flats and houses were not doing so on their own - my dad struggles to pay his rent, let alone help me.

Nothing from either set of parents (one could have afforded to but are not generous, the other would have if they could have but are poor). However, DH received 100k from a childless Aunt when we were in our 30s. Am eternally grateful to her, although we had already bought our first home by then. I wish I had known then what I now know about investing and compound interest, as that money could have gone far further than it did. We will be helping our DC in any way we can, and will go without ourselves to get them set up. I talk to them about money as much as they will let me!

My Dad lent me 40k when I bought my first house, no interest or repayment date, and we agreed that I'd pay it back when I sold the house. I ended up paying it back when my mother died and I inherited from her.

His only other proviso was that he be able to keep some of his stuff in my attic, and that he be able to use it as his home base when he was in the country, which I understood to be for a fortnight, 3 or four times a year.

That was not what ended up happening. Instead he'd stay with me for months at a time.

We didn't have the best relationship anyway, as he behaved horrendously towards my mother during their marriage and divorce, and then he was just constantly there during a very difficult portion of my life. Me and DP of 11 months had just had a surprise baby, and we were dealing with them moving in with me, and learning whether we could have a serious relationship, alongside becoming parents. All the while my Dad would be hanging around, making more work for us an never lifting a finger to help.

I regretted taking his money hugely. I still wish I hadn't, even though it would have made our financial lives much harder if I hadn't. I think me and him would probably have a better relationship today if I hadn't taken the loan.